Creating a tabletop RPG involves countless decisions that players never see – from writing rules to balancing mechanics to designing the final document. Recently, I documented one crucial phase of this process: transforming Godflesh: Cycle of Inheritance from raw text into a polished quickstart ready for public playtesting.
This layout session, streamed online, captures the real work behind creating the Chrysalis Quickstart. After two and a half years developing the game’s mechanics and world, it was time to create something players could actually use.
Switching to Affinity Publisher
The session began with a significant tool change: the abandonment of Adobe InDesign for Affinity Publisher. After over a decade with Creative Cloud, the endless price negotiations and subscription renewals had become exhausting. Affinity’s one-time purchase model offered a refreshing alternative – buy once, receive updates until the next major version.
The transition surprised me with its smoothness. Affinity Publisher handles many tasks more intuitively than InDesign. Preview and work mode switching feels seamless, auto-centering works flawlessly, and text flow visualization provides immediate feedback about document structure. For RPG layout work, it matches my workflow needs while eliminating subscription headaches.
Rethinking Move Design
The core challenge involved completely redesigning how game moves appear on the page. My original text frame styles proved cumbersome and inconsistent across multiple pages. The breakthrough came through paragraph styles, which offered superior flexibility and made maintaining document-wide consistency significantly easier.
Drawing inspiration from Masks: A New Generation, I developed a visual system supporting the game’s fantasy atmosphere. This meant strategic use of Font Awesome icons and custom bullet points that feel subtly archaic rather than clinical. The challenge was balancing fantasy aesthetics with modern readability and professional presentation.
The formatting system centered on several key decisions. Gradient backgrounds with careful transparency provide emphasis without overwhelming text content. Custom character styles ensure consistency for move triggers and common elements. Font Awesome glyphs represent dice, power symbols, and core mechanics, creating a cohesive visual language throughout the document.
Affinity Publisher revealed unexpected advantages during this work. Creating gradient effects and managing character styles felt more intuitive than equivalent InDesign workflows, suggesting the tool switch provided immediate practical benefits beyond cost savings.
Hunting Missing Rules
Midway through layout work, focus shifted to rule completeness – less glamorous but crucial for quickstart creation. Condensing a full game into a streamlined format inevitably causes essential information to slip through cracks during restructuring.
The investigation revealed several critical gaps. XP rules had vanished during chapter reorganization, leaving players without advancement guidance. Overflow power appeared throughout moves but lacked proper definition, creating confusion about a core mechanic. Cross-references between character creation and faction systems needed strengthening. Session moves required proper formatting and integration with end-of-chapter procedures.
This detective work proves essential because players need complete, functional rules rather than attractive layouts. Working under the assumption that most playtesters already knew Powered by the Apocalypse games, I focused on what makes Godflesh unique rather than explaining basic PbtA concepts.
Character Creation Complexity
The Create a Character chapter demanded different approaches than the core rules sections. Character creation involves step-by-step processes benefiting from numbered lists and clear visual hierarchy. Key concepts like attunement – determining how much power characters channel through treasures – needed special emphasis to ensure player understanding.
Research became crucial here. Studying successful RPGs’ character presentation, particularly Masks: A New Generation and Root, provided valuable archetype templates. These games excel at helping players understand options before diving into detailed character sheets, essential for Godflesh’s nine distinct adventurer playbooks.
The work exposed a content gap. While the Fable playbook was layout-ready (though missing advanced moves), I realized the need for a “roster” overview page first. Players must grasp the full range of character options and their differences before committing to detailed creation. This meant planning additional content development alongside layout work.
Technical Challenges
The final phase focused on document preparation for distribution, requiring mastery of Affinity Publisher’s export and bookmark systems. Software limitations often emerge only when you need specific features, and this session provided several such discoveries.
Export functionality proved robust overall. High-quality PDF export handles digital distribution excellently, maintaining crisp text and graphics across zoom levels. Table of contents generation works but operates differently than expected, requiring workflow adjustments. Bookmark creation through anchors functions adequately but feels less intuitive than InDesign’s approach.
The first significant limitation appeared in bookmark management. Unlike InDesign, you can’t drag-and-drop to reorganize bookmarks, requiring careful anchor hierarchy planning from the start. For complex documents with nested sections, this creates additional workflow considerations. However, for a one-time purchase tool, Publisher handles essential needs admirably while providing substantial cost savings.
Key Development Insights
This development session illuminated several important aspects of indie RPG creation. Tool flexibility matters enormously – willingness to learn new software unlocked both cost savings and superior workflows. Time invested in mastering Publisher features paid immediate dividends in efficiency and creative possibilities.
Iteration proved absolutely essential. Layout work demands constant refinement where elements appearing perfect in isolation require adjustment when viewed alongside surrounding content. Visual hierarchy, spacing, and emphasis need continuous evaluation and tweaking to achieve proper balance.
Content completeness equals visual design in importance. Attractive layouts become meaningless if players can’t use the game. Checking for missing rules, verifying cross-references, and ensuring logical information flow requires the same attention as typography and graphics. Layout processes often reveal content gaps that pure writing misses.
Planning prevents problems. Establishing consistent character styles early saves hours of later reformatting. Researching how successful games solve similar presentation challenges provides shortcuts and proven approaches rather than reinventing solutions.
Current Status and Future Direction
By session’s end, the Chrysalis Quickstart foundation had solidified. The document exports cleanly, visual hierarchy reads clearly, and core systems receive proper formatting. It’s deliberately imperfect – this represents a working beta designed for feedback rather than final publication.
Perfection was never the goal at this development stage. Instead, I aimed to create something functional enough to capture the game’s essence for meaningful playtesting. Players need to understand mechanics, feel the setting’s atmosphere, and see how their characters function in this world of fallen gods and divine transformation.
The next development phase will complete the playbook introduction and individual character sheets. This presents different challenges requiring new layout approaches for character options, advancement tracks, and interconnected systems that make each adventurer type distinctive.
Why Share This Process
Documenting this development work serves multiple purposes and audiences. For indie creators, it demonstrates the real investment and iterative nature required for professional-looking layout work. For Affinity Publisher users, it provides practical workflow examples and honest feature assessments. For RPG enthusiasts, it reveals how design decisions directly impact playing experience.
Creative work’s messy, iterative nature often disappears behind polished final products. Showing the actual process – including dead ends, tool limitations, unexpected discoveries, and pragmatic solutions – helps others approach similar projects with realistic expectations and useful techniques.
This work isn’t glamorous, but it’s essential. Every formatting decision, every tracked-down missing rule, every visual refinement contributes to the final player experience. Layout work serves dual purposes: ensuring functionality while creating beauty. Both aspects matter equally for successful game publication.
Real-time documentation also creates accountability and reference material valuable for future projects. Explaining decisions as they happen forces clearer thinking about design choices, while the recorded process provides useful material for ongoing refinement and development.
Godflesh: Cycle of Inheritance is a tabletop RPG about mortals ascending to godhood in a world shaped by divine power and transformation. The public playtest is now available.