Life has been very full of baby recently. I don’t have a full post for you.

I’ve been lucky enough to play a bit of Cities Without Number with a neighbor and some friends. My other games are basically on hiatus, but being able to start early, end early, and walk less than ten minutes to and from game is amazing. There’s also no way I could be doing this without sometimes bringing baby Gibby with me, or sometimes coordinating extra support for Ley. Asking Ley to take care of the baby without any support while I go play RPGs is no good. Having a two-month old is a lot of work.

Cities Without Number, like other Kevin Crawford titles, could really use some editing. It’s… acceptable. The text is definitely better organized and written than some other RPGs or boardgames I’ve seen. Some of Crawford’s verbosity adds evocative texture to both system and setting, and his approach certainly produces consistently fun results. But…

I’d love to have a streamlined version of the text and rules.

I’m certain that this could be done. We could have a condensed set of random generation tables, or a clearer presentation of the rules for manufacturing equipment. There could be consistent formatting for vital pieces of equipment (with page references).

I see two options for how to handle this as an editing project. Option one, edit the entire text: streamline everything, pare down the word count, focus on clearer presentation of information, try to turn the whole book into something simpler and faster to use. Option two, pull out the high value items: build a series of quick reference tools, condense the various random generation tables, collect all the necessary system rules in the simplest and shortest text blocks possible, ignore any text that isn’t system mechanics. I would love to see option one realized. I’m far more likely to create something like option two over time, as I try to make the game’s elements more useful for myself and my fellow players.

I’m also more likely to miss pieces of the game in that process. I (of course) focus on the systems that are relevant to my games in particular. That’s certainly what I did with the 5e reference sheets I built. Some details, some subsystems, always slip through with this more-impromptu approach.

C’est la vie.

Worth noting: Crawford did a good job of paring his system down for the System Reference Document (SRD) that he released to allow others to make their own compatible material. It’s not precisely what I had in mind, but it’s a good starting point for any stripped down rules presentation for CWN.