Basic Rules LITE

Another week’s gone by, during which I found myself sucked into a side project (instead of Pool of Memory). Basically, I have a free product called the Imperium Grab Bag that people snatch up like hotcakes, so for a while now I’ve been thinking about offering something a little more substantial for free. That got me thinking about having a “Lite” version of the Basic Rules that people could download. This is actually pretty common: there’s a GURPS Lite and a d20 Traveller Lite, for example.

What is a Lite version? Well, mostly it’s a stripped down edition of the regular rules that introduces people to the game system who might otherwise pass on buying the full version. The trouble lies in how much or how little of the full version you’re going to include. If you keep too much, then there’s really no reason for the person to buy the full rules. If you keep too little, then the person might think your rules have nothing to offer. So, with that in mind, I’ve spent the last several days stripping out stuff from the full Basic Rules to create a Lite version. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, however. For one thing, I had to make sure that I removed any references to things I’ve taken out. I also had to make clear to the reader that there really was a lot more in the Full version that they were missing out on, and thus suggesting that, if they like what they saw, they should buy the regular rules. To that end, I included a little chart (similar to what software makers use) to compare the free version with the pay edition (click to enlarge):

Anyway, I’m hoping that I’ll have the Lite version ready this week so I can post it on DriveThruRPG by the weekend. It’s all a big gamble since there’s no guarantee that anyone will actually buy the Full rules after downloading the free version. Nevertheless, I’m hopeful it will help sales so I can be rich and famous like all the other Pen & Paper game authors. ;-)