New clarification PDF on the way!

[Rurik]

I havn't seen the SRD, as it hasn't been released to the public yet, so I don't know how the combat mechanics are described in the SRD (maybe they are clear - it may well not have the example from the rule book which is a big part of the problem).

I would think Mongoose wants combat to be explained as clearly as possible when it does become available to the general public - it is going to be many potential customers first impression of the rules.

 

[Claymore Driftwood Pub]

I havn't seen the SRD, as it hasn't been released to the public yet, so I don't know how the combat mechanics are described in the SRD (maybe they are clear - it may well not have the example from the rule book which is a big part of the problem).

I would think Mongoose wants combat to be explained as clearly as possible when it does become available to the general public - it is going to be many potential customers first impression of the rules.

It is explained in exactly the same way, but without the example, leaving the overall resolution a bit more up in the air.

 

[SteveMND]

You bought the book and it's unclear to you.

On the contrary, I have not picked up the book yet. In fact, I am waiting to see the SRD before I decide to purchase anything. I had the books pre-ordered when I first found out about the upcoming game, but as time went on and more and more previews came out, I became less and less optimistic that the game would suit my needs, and so cancelled my preorders.

But I decided not to completely write them off, though, and so I'm waiting for the SRD to come out so I can look at that and then make a final decision on whether the game mechanics are worth me spending money on.

Yet... if they don't update the SRD, which has techncially already been released to publishers (and I'm assuming you aren't a publisher) and is nothing but cut-and-dried, straight-up, rules-only text lacking the examples that have caused most of the confusion, that will be your breaking point?

Any decent company should be making corrections to their master files as errors are found, and creating a PDF from an existing document takes just a few moments. So if there are known errors in the PDF of the SRD that they released to publishers, and they still decide to release that same error-filled version to the public when the opportunity to fix those mistakes was there, that's not a company I want to spend my money on.

It's one thing to publish a document with errors that you didn't know were in there. That, I am somewhat forgiving of, to a point. But to knowingly publish -- physically or digitally -- a product that has known errors in it? I'm not at all forgiving on that.

Maybe the SRD PDF that was released earlier to publishers is error free, and a paragon of clarity. If so, great, and I look forward to it's re-release to the general public later this month. But if I get the public SRD and find the same mistakes, typos, etc. that have been dicussed here on the board within it, then my faith in the company diminishes, and there are other places and games to spend my money on.

 

[Malakor]

I purchased the book and the GM Screen (What a solid screen!) on Friday and am very happy with my purchases.

I went to the local game store on Saturday after one of the fellows that works there and I both spent Friday evening and Saturday morning perusing the rules, primarily the combat rules, and we spent about five hours Saturday afternoon running combat sessions for ourselves and several other customers.

We found a few minor things that we will houserule, and only two things we felt were truely errors (Bracing a Shortsword against charge, the damage for battle axes) and made on the spot alterations to those in our rulebooks. There was no confusion at all from anyone regarding combat resolution and the only complaint that was issued afterwards was that using the rules as written to create a wizard type character leaves one without much in the way of 'flash bang' or direct damage type combat spells, and this is a minor thing anyway, since I'm writing specific magic rules for my setting already.

All in All, I and my friends were pleased and my Leshan campaign will be using MRQ rules, and the store owner has a standing order to get me any non-Glorantha releases that come out.

I may pick up some Glorantha stuff to fill my shelves at home and steal some ideas from, but I'll be browsing them first

 

[SteveMND]

You know, just to clarify for Tim and others who think I may be somewhat harsh here in my expectations: it's because I don't have any stake in the Mongoose version. I don't really care if it succeeds or fails; clearly, it would be nice if it did well, but it's no skin on my back either way. I dearly love Glorantha and RQ, but I'm not going to spend money on something I feel may be poor quality "just because it's RuneQuest" or "just because it's Glorantha."

I have all the games I want or need to RP with, so if I spend my money on MRQ, it would be not for something I need for gaming, merely something I want for gaming. And my standards are higher for that sort of purchase.

 

[Rurik]

It is explained in exactly the same way, but without the example, leaving the overall resolution a bit more up in the air.

Well it is probably a lot easier to interpret it correctly without the example.

 

[mthomason]

In fact, I am waiting to see the SRD before I decide to purchase anything.

Ahhh, I'm understanding where you're coming from now

Any decent company should be making corrections to their master files as errors are found, and creating a PDF from an existing document takes just a few moments. So if there are known errors in the PDF of the SRD that they released to publishers, and they still decide to release that same error-filled version to the public when the opportunity to fix those mistakes was there, that's not a company I want to spend my money on.

Okay, I need to clear up some confusion here.

First off the SRD isn't a PDF, it's a bunch of MS Word files.

Secondly, the SRD is nowhere near being a "master document" - the master documents are the full version of the text thats in the rulebook, along with examples. That'll be the first thing Mongoose "correct", I would imagine, as both their rulebook and the PDF version of RQ will come off those files.

Think of the SRD as being what happened when someone was told to take copy+paste the text of the rulebook, delete all example text, delete some rules they don't want anyone else using, and delete anything that refers to the Glorantha setting.

It's a very bare-bones document, and it isn't linked in any way really to the text that is in the books, other than being a clone of some of it.

But if I get the public SRD and find the same mistakes, typos, etc. that have been dicussed here on the board within it, then my faith in the company diminishes, and there are other places and games to spend my money on.

Given what little text from the rulebook remains in the SRD version, thats probably quite unlikely. As a couple of others have mentioned, the SRD will not contain the majority of the text thats in the rulebook, so the majority of any typos are likely absent too

 

[klingsor]

Serenity is probably the worst recent example. Many editing problems – not so much the usual mistakes but different rules drafts used for different sections. Almost incomprehensible combat – with no worked example, no index and no character sheet.
It would be a nice product – if they finished it.

 

[SteveMND]

First off the SRD isn't a PDF, it's a bunch of MS Word files.

Wow, really? I thought PDFs were the 'industry standard' anymore for digital publishing, due to variances in the systems/OSes/software people are running. At any rate, that makes it even easier to update.

Regardless, the format doesn't matter. My point is, when an error is pointed out to a company, I fully expect for them to go back and fix that error in whatever it is they use for their master copy (or copies, if they use several formats).

And the next thing they publish/make available to the public -- be it a PDF or a hardcopy book or a collection of Word documents -- should be created using that corrected version. Anything less, IMHO, is just sloppy.

 

[mthomason]

First off the SRD isn't a PDF, it's a bunch of MS Word files.

Wow, really? I thought PDFs were the 'industry standard' anymore for digital publishing, due to variances in the systems/OSes/software people are running. At any rate, that makes it even easier to update.

Oh, PDFs are great for publishing in, but they make awful source files. Most writers want something they can cut+paste paragraphs from nicely - PDFs tend to treat everything as individual lines with line breaks, plus you lose the heading styles and so forth when you copy and just end up with ASCII text.

Maybe it'll help if you think of the SRD as "divorced" from the RuneQuest rulebook - it's a subproduct created using bits and pieces from the RQ rulebook, so any changes would have to be made in multiple places by hand. As it's a non-fee-charging subproduct, I really can't imagine any good reason to keep it updated until every single other paying job has been done, followed by the nonpaying jobs to customers such as S&P, free downloadable material, etc.

Now just so I'm not accused by anyone of overly defending Mongoose on this one - also bear in mind that any problems in the rulebook are most likely in the examples and the clearer rewording of the rules used there - the SRD is more than likely far more error-free than the rulebook, and therefore it's still a bad thing to use to as a test - you might of course find the SRD 100% error-free, only to go and buy the rulebook and find some errors that crept in during the writing of that.

The SRD isn't the rulebook text, so using it to judge how many errors the rulebook may have will give an erroneous result - it's like looking for errors in the script of the Lord of the Rings movies and assuming the book had the same errors, or (dare I mention) looking at the d20 SRD and using it to work out whether the Conan rulebook is free of errors.

Finally, yes, the SRD is being made available to the public, but it probably will not have gone through the QA procedures a finished product does - it's probably more like picking up the notes off the side of Matthew's table he made while he was writing the book - the industry does not expect SRDs to be "polished", or even to have been proofread.

 

[iamtim]

I thought PDFs were the 'industry standard' anymore for digital publishing, due to variances in the systems/OSes/software people are running.

Generally they are RTF formatted, which is pretty cross-platform acceptable. I can't remember what the RQ files are (they're at home and I'm at the day job), but I'd be surprsied if they were actual Word docs and not RTF. It just so happens that with Word installed, RTF defaults to opening with Word.

Keep in mind, though, any SRD is not an attempt at "digital publishing" in the same way that a PDF via DriveThruRPG or free download is an attempt at "digital publishing". Look and feel, organization, indexes, table of contents, formatting beyond simple H1, H2, and H3 type stuff... none of that is important in an SRD. It exists only to supply the basic rules to those people who want to make something out of them.

 

[Claymore Driftwood Pub]

I thought PDFs were the 'industry standard' anymore for digital publishing, due to variances in the systems/OSes/software people are running.

Generally they are RTF formatted, which is pretty cross-platform acceptable. I can't remember what the RQ files are (they're at home and I'm at the day job), but I'd be surprsied if they were actual Word docs and not RTF. It just so happens that with Word installed, RTF defaults to opening with Word.

They are in RTF format :wink:

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

In total fairness to Mongoose, both RQ2 and RQ3 had some right clangers in them that could have totally messed up the mechanics. Half of the weapon and armour tables had to be rewritten in the RQ2 errata, and RQ3 completely missed out on the initial training requirements for skills with a score of 0.

Both of these were far far worse than anything bad I've heard about MRQ (mind you, I'm waiting on the PDF so I haven't seen the rules yet). I think it's time to give the folks a break, and not be jumping on everything and shouting the B word.

 

[mthomason]

In total fairness to Mongoose, both RQ2 and RQ3 had some right clangers in them that could have totally messed up the mechanics. Half of the weapon and armour tables had to be rewritten in the RQ2 errata, and RQ3 completely missed out on the initial training requirements for skills with a score of 0.

Shush.

There are people on these boards who will lynch you for statements like that

I'm yet to find a game where I haven't had to change *something* I didn't like because I felt it didn't work properly.

 

[SteveMND]

The industry does not expect SRDs to be "polished", or even to have been proofread.

Then I weep for the industry.

 

[Claymore Driftwood Pub]

Word, files, not RTF files. My mistake!

 

[mthomason]

Then I weep for the industry.

I'm really failing to understand you here

I'm hoping we've just got some wires crossed somewhere, because I get the feeling we're talking at cross purposes.

Why would game developers want a formatted document laid out, spellchecked, and grammatical mistakes removed? It's their job to do that after they finish writing whatever they want to use the SRD to write.

More importantly, If Mongoose *did* create a nicely polished SRD, why would anyone buy the rulebook PDF?

 

[SteveMND]

Why would game developers want a formatted document laid out, spellchecked, and grammatical mistakes removed?

That question just boggles my mind. That's like asking, if I'm going to repair my own car, why would I care if the instuction manual is correct?

If I'm going to spend time, money and other resources on creating a product to be used with another company's OGL, I would want the SRD they provide me to at least be as error-free as possible. Fancy, no. But I'd at least expect it to be correct.

Any eight-year old with a computer can click the 'spellcheck' button on his PC. If a major publishing company can't even be bothered to do the same on the SRD they make available to other publishers, hell if I'm hooking my financial wagon to that train wreck waiting to happen.

 

[Balbinus]

In total fairness to Mongoose, both RQ2 and RQ3 had some right clangers in them that could have totally messed up the mechanics. Half of the weapon and armour tables had to be rewritten in the RQ2 errata, and RQ3 completely missed out on the initial training requirements for skills with a score of 0.

Both of these were far far worse than anything bad I've heard about MRQ (mind you, I'm waiting on the PDF so I haven't seen the rules yet). I think it's time to give the folks a break, and not be jumping on everything and shouting the B word.

I can't speak to RQ3, I don't remember to be honest, but definitely true for 2. Tons of errata, I think about four pages worth though I may be misremembering.

 

[mthomason]

That question just boggles my mind. That's like asking, if I'm going to repair my own car, why would I care if the instuction manual is correct?

Actually it's more like asking what state the installation instructions for a computer hard drive are like. A car manual is aimed at the end user, a hard drive manual is aimed at an engineer who probably doesn't need to read it anyway.

I repair my own computers, and half the documentation that comes with the replacement parts is in poorly-translated english because it was originally written in the far east. Hard drive manufacturers really don't care what their little photocopied pamphlet looks like because they know most customers will never see or even want them, and they don't want to raise the prices of the drives just to cover a nice little booklet.

If I'm going to spend time, money and other resources on creating a product to be used with another company's OGL, I would want the SRD they provide me to at least be as error-free as possible. Fancy, no. But I'd at least expect it to be correct.

But thats the point I've been trying to make - the SRD is so bare-bones that there's little room for anything other than errors in the system itself. There's no explanation of how things work, so there's very little text to actually check. Any errors are likely to be gramattical, and they'll get lost when you rewrite the thing into your product.

Any eight-year old with a computer can click the 'spellcheck' button on his PC. If a major publishing company can't even be bothered to do the same on the SRD they make available to other publishers, hell if I'm hooking my financial wagon to that train wreck waiting to happen.

My use of "spellcheck" was bad, and I apologize. Grammar on the other hand is something that only has to get the point across. Examples are absent, completely, because you assume the game developer has a copy of the printed rulebook *as well* as the SRD to work from. The SRD just contains the stuff you can copy into your own work, you really do need to read it alongside a real rulebook to make any sense of it, so you can refer to the examples to clarify just how the heck this or that rule works.