Teaching With Examples

In most RPG rulebooks, I often feel like the examples are an afterthought compared to the rules.  And I sort of get why. Good concise examples are hard to write -- probably even harder to write than the rules themselves.  And of course, space is at a premium.

But examples are such a key part of how we learn.  Think of how many people learn how to play D&D by watching actual plays.

So in Smile Police, I've given examples a first-class graphic treatment. The dialogue bubbles are something I started doing in my fantasy WIP and I liked them so much, I started using them here. They take up space where admittedly there'd probably be more spot illustrations, but if you read my devlog last week on the role of illustrations, I think that's a good tradeoff to make. 

It can make some of the pages feel a bit text heavy (the one below is an extreme example), but I think the examples are more than pulling their weight.