My Name in Bright Lights
Some news about editing work I have done and am available to do
The invisible work in your favorite game
I recently had the happy opportunity to work as part of the editing teams on two RPG products: Beyond the Pale and the Cairn 2e box set, both authored by Yochai Gal.
Well-produced RPG books, like other books and media, are the products of many people. Both BtP and Cairn 2e have excellent game design, writing, layout, and art. Oh, the art! And a publisher takes all of these things and actually prints them.
As others have remarked before, editing is one part of the design of a book that hopefully readers don’t notice. The writing or design should be noticeably useful and enrapturing. The art should inflame the senses—or at least draw you in.
But the editing should be unnoticeable, if it was successful and well-done. It just allows the writing, layout, and even the art to do their jobs.
And I will tell you, nonetheless, that it is very satisfying. When you are able to make suggestions that clarify a passage or that rearrange the text so that readers will have an easier and more enjoyable time with that text, there is a great sense of accomplishment, especially if you appreciate the text that you are working on. Even the proofreading of the text, to ensure that every word is spelled correctly or is used accurately, means that the end result will have fewer blemishes. (Even the best proofreaders can hardly promise no mistakes.)
Considering the quality works that Yochai and the rest of the team produced, I was very happy to be a part of clarifying them and getting them as blemish-free as possible. I highly recommend that you take a look at them and consider picking up a copy if they appeal to you.
Beyond the Pale, an adventure module based on Jewish folklore and designed for old-school roleplaying games, statted specifically for Cairn, is available at the website of Lost Pages, the publisher, and should be available in brick-and-mortar stores and on other websites soon enough.
Cairn 2e was Kickstarted earlier this year. The PDFs of all of the elements in the boxset have gone out to backers. I copyedited only some of the parts of the boxset, including the Player’s Guide, the Warden’s Guide, and Trouble in Twin Lakes, an adventure written by Yochai as well. The boxset also contains an adventure anthology written by several lights of the RPG scene, a warden’s screen, and beautiful character sheets. It’s a great set, expanding on Yochai’s work in the first edition of Cairn and giving gamemasters a huge number of tools to create a world for their players to explore. And yeah, the art is amazing.
Here’s the pitch
With all that said, I’d like to offer my services to others in the TTRPG world. If you need a copyeditor for a project, please feel free to reach out to me at jkrausz1635@gmail.com or at 917-495-1606.
[As I've subsequently learned, Google may send your emails to spam, so if you don't get a reply, please call or text me at my cell number.]
I don’t consider myself a development editor for TTRPGs, so my work would generally start once you already have a finished game that you want to lay out and publish. At the same time, part of my work in editing includes making sure that your text is the most usable it can be for GMs or players.
As someone who himself GMs, I’ve encountered works that are clear and useful and works that are less clear and harder to use. My aim is to make your work the kind that GMs pick up happily and recommend to others. I enjoy the hobby greatly and want to see quality projects succeed.
Because I have a day job (where I work as a writer and editor), I can only work on a limited number of projects at one time. I do work quickly, if thoroughly, and I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to assist in the on-time delivery of projects again and again. I’d be happy to help with yours, as well.