Collection Labeling

In my last post, I broke up what I feel are the major issues with organizing a PDF/E-Book collection (that lives outside an ecosystem such as Amazon books) into three categories. The first is labeling.  Labeling is all about identifying specific ( such as the title ) and general ( such as its genre ) qualities of a book so that it can be categorized and found when desired. For Tabletop gaming books, labels fall into these general categories.

Production

Production labels are concrete facts about a product. These include:

• Publisher – The manufacturer of the product
• Title – The Title of the product
• Author(s) – The credited writer(s)
• Editor(s) – The credited editor(s)
• Artists(s) – The credited artist(s)
• Page Count – “Actual” page count, as opposed to highest numbered page
• Page Format – A4, Letter, digest, etc.
• File Format – PDF, MOBI, EPUB, etc.
• Printer Friendly – Is this a low-ink, toner-friendly version of this book?
• Black and White – Is this it a Black and White edition?
• Full Color – Is it a color edition?
• Indexed – Does it have an index?
• Interactive  -Does it include interactive features such as a fill-in character sheet.

Some of these labels are potentially plural, others not so much. At the minimum, a product should have a Title, Publisher, Page count, and at least one Author.

Product Line

This covers the whats and withs of the product. Is it an RPG? Does it require any particular products to be usable? Is it for a specific edition? These include:

• Game Line(s) – The Product line and/or sublines this belongs to. Examples: World of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade
• Game System – The game system, if named. Examples: Cypher System, Hero System
• Requires for Use – Used for a supplemental product to indicate the core rules needed for play, supplements for extended rules, etc.

Genre and Playstyle

Here is where we label what kind of game it is and where it falls in the gaming spectrum. Here is where the most subjectivity will come into play and I would expect the most debate.

• Game Type(s) – RPG, Miniatures, Boardgame, CCG
• Genre(s) – Is it a Superhero setting? Horror? Cyberpunk Fantasy?
• Subgenre(s) – This is for narrower categories of the above. Lovecraftian Horror, Science Police Super Heroes, Arthurian Fantasy, etc.
• GM’d – Does this game use a referee
• Player Agency – Does this game allow the player to alter events beyond conflict resolution? Values of None, Low, Medium, and High.
• Crunchiness – How deep are the rules? Lite, Moderate, Heavy, Crunchy

Thoughts?