Adding to this so I remember to come back & talk about it, but also: different formats require and support different things and we consider leaning way into that.

Maybe I can show what I mean by talking about hypothetical (planned-ish) tiers for the eventual Physical Pentola KS? https://twitter.com/Pandatheist/status/1298270793302814721

Okay, so, the first thing to say is I plan to do a digital-only (or almost only*) kickstarter for Pentola first which will pay for the writing, digital design and layout, art, maps, tools, etc. A huge chunk of content but no costs spent on physical fulfillment or design. Cool?

So, when I say "eventual Physical #Pentola KS" I mean the one I'm going to do 1-2 years after the digital kickstarter because I want the freedom to focus on and get really into the physical presentation of the content.

Cool? Okay, #TabletopChopShop time, physical presentation!

First up, good print at home reference material & sheets, including both low & high ink stuff, both print/fold/staple and single sheets.

A focus at this tier not on teaching but reference only, being artifacts exclusively catering to play.

Why do this? To make sure people can access physical play aids at the lowest possible cost. Make it affordable to print at home or a local shop, make absolutely everything about them focused on improving the at-the-table experience.

So what does this include? Pregens, character sheets/booklets, faction sheets/booklets, quickref sheets for core play and subsystems, condensed tables and generators, print and cut tokens and cards (playing, npc, location, faction, creature, spell, etc) - a cornucopia of aids.

Okay, looking one tier up, we find kick-ass little zines for different rules chunks, like basics, the craft, supplication, items, dweomers, factions, hearsay, characters, and workbooks - good quality but cheap enough to buy a couple and not panic if they get destroyed.

Chunk zines are often easier and more accessible for groups to use to try a game out - you can hand out different rules sections to different people and check things in parallel or whatever.

These *would* be documents you can learn the game from!

The options and content will have to be zeroed in tightly for impact and space but they should work as a physical starter set - and you still have access to all the print-yourself content from before to expand your options drastically.

Looking up at the next two levels we find the omnibuses—instead of breaking the content across a bunch of little zines, stick them all together in a single book. Give the option for a single cheap, less art, high content option and a beautiful high art high quality version.

Why have two omnibus versions with different layout? Because this is the last set of tires you might expect for any other game. An affordable copy you can learn from, carry, refer to at the table, and take to a game away from home without worrying about someone spilling coffee.

That second omnibus though? That's where you go a little wild and blow budget on art and construction and edge paintings and make a book whose construction is as much art as the contents themselves.

A collectible item, a luxury, something you can enjoy separate from the game.

And finally, where I /really/ go off the rails, we come to an affordable* scroll.

An honest to goodness unroll-to-read scroll. One reason you might NOT wanna do this is uhhhhh scrolls are garbage for table reference and use. Absolutely categorically the wrong presentation. But.

#Pentola is a bronze age hyper fantasy setting and long conversations with Ben have convinced me not only to have the layout be completely reworked for the format but the content tweaked too.

Lemme take you with me for a sec...

Imagine: a scroll that is a recording of the observations of a scholar about the city and setting, interspersing songs, people, factions, poems, fashion, weapons, interviews, etc as they try to tell you about this wondrous city

And in the margins all around, annotations...

Annotations by several different arguing scholars which impart the mechanics of the game and world and optional rules to you, presented semi-diagetically in response to whatever is on the page around them.

And through it all, art, art, art, art, art.

So the affordable scroll is, itself, modern-ish - printed on paper but presented cleanly and well, the sort of thing you won't find anywhere else, an object you clearly don't need to play the game but one which is nevertheless a game book.

This is what I want most, for me.

Now, at last, the final tier: a ridiculously unaffordable scroll the purpose of which is to guarantee if anyone gets one so do I; this one made on parchment, possibly hand inked and illuminated, with beautiful handles, case, pointer, a magical artifact in our world.

I *did* say it's a ridiculous edition, and I mean it. Probably multiple thousands of dollars, limited to a handful, one of which is for meeeeee one of which will go to a random backer, one of which will be given out to a future community copy backer. This is dream territory, obv.

In addition to all of the above, I wanna offer boxed editions with pregens, dice, tokens, maps, worksheets, etc. To let you buy a box and get everything you need to play and more besides.

So that's my tentative plan—and note that doesn't include any of the other stuff I've been thinking and talking about and don't know the feasibility of yet, just the physical presentation of the content itself.

There's a lot more cooking in the back, too, I promise you.

Big ups to @Pandatheist for being a monster and encouraging me all too often.

To bring all this around a bit to format and presentation, there's several themes:

- accessible cheap options that prioritize reference and use, not teaching (sheets/diy)
- accessible options that teach and provide reference/use, making some concessions along the way (zines)

- collected editions that are easier to carry/track and for lots of people to read through, but which are less table usable than the zines (omnibus) and which split between affordable and luxury item

- a format that is completely useless at the table and which therefore prioritizes experience and object construction entirely, leaning into it's existence as an artifact rather than a play aid (scroll), again split between affordable (relatively in this case) and utter luxury.