RPGs are a peculiar animal. They're designed to be used as is, and yet there are few creatures in the "things people make for purchase" field that can be so readily disassembled, ransacked or pillaged for spare ideas or mechanics that are then riveted into another work. Sure, an artist can steal a composition from another artist, or a musician can swipe a few chords from another song — but RPGs stand out. They're such large and complicated works, a mix of mechanics setting and genre and player-created content (which can be anything from their characters alone to major swaths of the game universe and mechanics) and most often randomly generated resolutions. In a way, gaming is sort of like being a Lego nerd — only if Legos could be clicked into unison with Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, Erector sets and all those other building toy sets.

Complicating matters is the fact that RPGs can theoretically be an entirely passive form of entertainment for some. Ever bought an RPG just to read it? It's sort of like if Legos came pre-assembled, and you got a Lego castle just to display it or turn it over and look at it from various angles.

I said "theoretically" up above, so I'm going to qualify that. I don't think it's true that RPGs can be entirely passive. Even if you purchase a book, read it throughout, and never play that particular game, you're working your imagination as you go. Most likely you think about what sort of characters could be built, or perhaps run through a combat scene in your head that the authors don't describe — you're encouraged to create even if you don't put stuff down on paper. And that's only if you don't find any ideas that you can swipe for later. Roleplayers are mental packrats, particularly Storytellers; we see things everywhere that we file in our heads "for later," just as writers do. Reading games gives us an opportunity to strip out ideas, character concepts, mechanics, even odd little turns of phrase and use 'em later. And let's face it, for many folks there's much more time to read RPGs than there is to play them — nothing to be embarrassed about. Reading for an hour in bed is a lot easier than gaming for an hour in bed before you fall asleep. (I'll beat you to the joke of "what about bedtime roleplaying with your SO?" I'm pretty sure that's a generally homebrew thing.)

So this brings us around to the game design question: What sort of utility do you expect your customers to get out of a book? And I'll tell you what my ideal is: I want the whole enchilada. Easier said than done, of course. But we try.

First of all, you want a game that works. You want it to be clear and legible. You want the rules to be intuitive enough that when a question the rules don't cover arises, the players and/or Storyteller can extrapolate a likely solution from the way the mechanics handle similar situations, and have said extrapolated solution feel right. You want it to work well under stresses such as crossover. Much of the changes to the Storytelling system were driven by this principle; it's decidedly a leaner, meaner system that has greater consistency and fewer odd exceptions.

Second, though, you want something that provides that idea utility. It should be full of neat concepts, the sort of things that people might rip out and graft into other games. To provide a personal example, I've torn basic concepts about the way the spirit world works in the WoD (both versions) into my own homebrew settings; the concept of the Penumbra or the Shadow works incredibly well. This is also where crossover may tend to pop up again; you might be running Vampire, but you always liked the idea of vampires and werewolves caught in a bloody feud, so you pick up a Werewolf book or two to see if they bring any ideas or images to the table you hadn't thought of.

Third, you want the books to be fun to read. I remember, back before I started at White Wolf, picking up the Black Furies Tribebook precisely because I was interested in reading about the Black Furies. I had no prospects of a Werewolf game at the time, but there were nice pictures and kicky words. I'd like that to still be possible for people who pick up books I work on. I'd like them to read about interesting monsters or supernatural intrigues.

All three of these things are utilities. The trick is balancing them properly. You absolutely cannot ignore the first one: if you have a game nobody can play, the game will never grow. However, if you focus too much on the first utility, to the point that the second and third utilities atrophy away, then nobody will look at your game in the first place. It has no ideas for them that they can't get elsewhere, and it's not colorful and vivid enough to catch their attention when they start skimming the text. Now, the miracles that Production brings to bear can really help with utilities 2 and 3, but from a clearly game-design standpoint, you can't rely on them to do your job for you in addition to their own jobs. A good game is interesting and exciting from the raw playtest files — from the outline, from the very pitch. And you need to work hard to preserve that. The excitement needs to be retained even into the final product.

Not all of these utilities are equally important to all gamers, of course. There are some who are interested only in a good read, having no real time to game any more. There are also those who are interested only in the toolbox; including even those who think that art in an RPG is wasted space. (I don't understand you people at all!) If you're reading this post, I would say you are likely interested in a mix of all three, though. White Wolf has always been a proponent of idea-utility and fun-to-read books to the point that few pure system junkies tended to be attracted to our work — we "waste too much space" — yet we're also committed to making those games work, too, as the Storytelling system proves.