The first thing I normally go for is a title to a piece. Doesn't always happen but it's nice to have a guiding figurehead like a title. This latest endeavor will likely be called The Guide to Illusionary Characters. I'm willing to take a little feedback on this so leave a comment! I've considered other titles but for the consumer to know what the book's about you need something like the one above. If it was titled The Illusionary Guidebook or Manual of Fictions you wouldn't really know what you're getting.
And then there's OGC considerations. I'm a big proponent of using open content when I can. It just seems more reasonable to use/warp someone else's work then to fashion my own stuff and add yet more material to the d20 world (an already massive pile). Of course, you need to find the best stuff you can (or at least the stuff that's closest to your vision). I'm looking over Mongoose's EA: Illusionism as well as FFG's School of Illusion and even Unearthed Arcana. At the moment, I'm leaning toward doing the illusionary PC as a racial class. A player starts with a normal character with a race and class from the PHB (or other source) and then has the option of exploring some strange quirks he has at first level as an illusion.
The other debate within me is to how to present the material. Obviously, the book should be as much interest to players as it is to DMs. I'll likely throw in a short chapter discussing how these new types of being can be used in a campaign. It would be cool if a player was given the option of using an illusionary PC but not actually knowing the character was an illusion. The DM might slip the player a note at level-up time that he now has the option of exploring his unique and unusal heritage by taking a "special class level" or some such explanation. But, it's still just the beginning of this book's creative process--one of my favorite times. :)
2 comments:
Sounds interesting. Why not combine two of your ideas for the title? Is "The Manual of Fictions: A Guidebook to Illusionary Characters" too much of a mouthful (a brainful)?
Too bad Neil Gaiman already used the title "Smoke & Mirrors" for a book. Neil always seems to think of stuff before I do. I suppose that's why he's rich and I eat items off of the Wendy's Value Menu.
Actually, "Smoke and Mirrors" is already the subtitle of Mongoose's illusionism book, so that's out. As for combining the titles...um, I don't think so. ;)
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