A 250 Page Problem, Part II...

So there it was - WEGS Copper.

An introductory game book with "I'm Way Too Big" written all over it.

There was only one thing to do: get out the word-weed wacker and have at it. I figured I still had time to go through the book and trim out all the extras that I had added. As I recall, it was just January 2006. If I spent a month editing, I was certain I could get it ready for a May 2006 publishing deadline.

And that's what I did. I managed to trim the book down to a slim 200 pages. Instead of being half of 500 pages, it was now only a third of 600 - right?

So what happened to all the cut content? That got shelved away as content for WEGS Silver, naturally! There was no lost time really, I was simply taking one book and making it two. One of the bits to go were the Two-Handed Weapon rules. Really cool stuff - but not critical for initial WEGS play.

At this same time, I continued demo-ing WEGS as much as possible. On St. Patrick's Day, I was fortunate to be invited to Wittenberg University's gaming con, WittCon. It was a guest lecturer / game designer gig where I spoke a little about game design and then played session of WEGS non-stop until midnite. A nice and relaxed non-commercial college con. Good folk.

WittCon 2006 was my first "get there via plane" con. This meant that I needed to be smart about what I packed. I couldn't bring all my game stuff with me (unlike home cons where I could load everything into my car). I needed to travel light. This necessity brought another realization to my design process.

Inadvertantly, WEGS Copper was about to learn a little lesson from airline luggage restrictions.

To be continued...