sourcebooks with lot of "copy-paste"

[Valaryc]

i think i have to ramble again :lol: but from some pn's with other users here i know, i'm not alone


at first...i appreciate Vincent's work a lot !!!! i have great respect for his tremendous research and style of writing !!!!!

BUT....

why is there so much copy - paste ??? i seems to me, you want o make more pages with easy working. look at "ruins"....everytime there is the reprinted rule for falling debris copied...but it is explained under the "ruins features"...why not just "use the rules for falling debris (p.XY)" ? you could have used the space for some creature or a good illustration.

tito's....a collection of "copy-paste" (perhaps it would be nice to mention it on the back of the book?)

aquilonia....many pages about the westermarck with copied text you could have used much better! somwhere was a prestige class for "bandit" from S&P mentioned but not reprinted....ok...not everyone has every rulebook. but even fewer have every S&P issue ! why not reprinting THIS stuff instead of parts of the same or other books ? why not just a short notice about the westermarck and mentioning "across thunder river" ?

sorry....but it make me upset reading an expensive book and turn 8 pages westermarck i already know here and some pages about "military life in aquilonia" i know too, there

and please....not the old "not everyone has every rulebook" story.... i play RPGs since 1986...i know a lot of systems....i can't remember a system with so much "copy paste" in its sourcebooks.

 

[VincentDarlage]

Well, my thought when writing Aquilonia was to have everything about Aquilonia in the sourcebook because I hate crossreferencing. If I don't own a book, I don't want to have to buy another book just to have everything about Aquilonia - even though the book claims to be all about Aquilonia. I wanted it to be a complete sourcebook.

You may notice that Stygia went away from that mentality. The material on Stygian tombs is not in Stygia, it is in Ruins of Hyboria. Many places reference the previous works. You'll note that Faith & Fervour reprints very little of the religious information found in Stygia, but instead references the reader back to Stygia. You may also note that the Stygian games & chariots in Tito's are also not reprinted in Stygia.

As for the falling rocks thing in Ruins, I guess I could have combined all that into one section. I either didn't think of it (being more concerned about other aspects), or perhaps was thinking that I would rather have the rule with the ruin I was playing in than have to constantly be flipping pages to find rules. A reader might also notice the same thing in various monster entries in WotC books - they reprint the same text for "improved grab" and other special attacks for every monster that has "improved grab" or other special attack shared by many monsters. I am not entirely sure, to be honest, what my thought process was with that, anyway. Let's just call it an Ooops! and be done with it. The complaint is noted and I will try to be more observant about such things in the future.

As for Tito's - I did what I was told to do and that is all I have to say on that book.

Also, and this may be something most may be unaware of, the books are not published in the order I write them. If I don't know which book will be printed first, I am not sure which book the material is best in (when it seems to me to belong to both), so I either put it in both and hope editing fixes it, or I take my best guess.

As for me, I prefer having as complete a book as possible - I have a hard time remembering where things are, but by golly if I am looking up a question about Stygia, I think the answer should be found in a book about Stygia. I wanted the books to be individually encyclopedian (is that a word?). However, there are a lot of complaints about that, so I have since moved away from that philosophy. In future books, readers will see a lot more references to prior material. I tried it my way, but people didn't seem to like it, so now I am trying it your way.

(This means that to play in Aquilonia, a GM really only needs Aquilonia-Flower of the West. This new way, if a GM wants to play in Stygia, to be truly complete, the GM needs to have Stygia, Tito's (for the games, chariots), Ruins (for the tombs & pyramids), Pirate Isles (for Stygian ships) and so on.)

Although I prefer criticism to be levied in private, I hope that answers your points. (I grew up with the maxim "praise publically, criticize privately". I still think that is a good rule of thumb.)

 

[High Lord Dee]

Thanks for the feedback Vincent. One of the problems with gaming series such as Conan is that the publisher's never seem to know how long the series will last. They may have grand plans covering a period of 3-5 years or it could be based more on the "Old Wait and See" method to determine which books should be released next (if at all!).

It seems to me that Conan probably falls somewhere in the middle. Its success may have been a bit of a surprise (I have no inside info on that one). Again, Mongoose is a company which means it is profit driven. It boils down to the money. How many books can be sold?

With that being said, one of my biggest frustrations with the books is the redundancy or lack of foresight into future rule changes (i.e. Temptress could/should have been included in the core book IMHO). At some point, I think a 2nd Ed. will be required to accomplish exactly what Tito's accomplished. I agree that Tito's is a "cut and paste" of the previous books but as Vincent mentioned, it was much needed. In good gaming systems, equipment and weapons should all be centrally located for quick reference while gaming. The goal is to play not to flip through tomes of rules trying to answer a question :? . But it was a very good point that it should have been stated on the back of the book BEFORE someone decided to purchase it.

A suggestion would be for Mongoose to focus on books such as Aquilonia and Stygia. Background reference and materials for gaming usually survives a 2nd Ed. pass. It remains new and fresh but can also point to the other books that are already pusblished. Looking forward to Argos and Zingara! Modules such as Heretics, Tower of the Elephant, etc. are needed to keep good, ready-to-run material in the hands of the Game Masters as well or the system will slowly die to lack of time and, possibly, creativity.

I have every book and plan to continue as long as the quality remains. Faiths and Ruins were awesome. Keep 'em coming.

Thanks.

HLD

 

[Valaryc]

Although I prefer criticism to be levied in private, I hope that answers your points. (I grew up with the maxim "praise publically, criticize privately". I still think that is a good rule of thumb.)

as i said...i talked to other users and they have the same oppionion on this so i decided to post it. otherwise i would have sent them your answer and don't know if that would be against "your privacy".


however...thank you for your answer (quick and precise as always)!
it's a shame there is no chance to know in which order the books will be published...that would make work easier and would stop reprinting.

i see your point in "having all in one book" and agree that some reprinting have to be....but not from the same book [like falling debris]. your right about the "improved grapple" reprinting...has to be a D20 syndrom

so....keep up your enthusiasm....and i think every conan rpg maniac will buy every book he can, if you keep up your style and time for research... so you don't have to worry about it and don't need redundancy :wink:

thnx

 

[Strom]

I have every book and plan to continue as long as the quality remains.

that's the key for me - the quality is keeping me coming back. But I can see the issue with Tito. However, if you own the core book and see all the weapons/clothing provided there then common sense dictates that a book on weapons/clothes/items would contain the same things as the core book and other supplements. The issue is so obvious that a disclaimer would be redundant, IMO.

To Mongoose's credit they have not come out with books just for the sake of it - like a bestiary.

 

[ricardo440]

Although I prefer criticism to be levied in private, I hope that answers your points. (I grew up with the maxim "praise publically, criticize privately". I still think that is a good rule of thumb.)

I actually think that all the issues raised are those of editing not authorship so I don't think you should take this against yourself personally.

I too was very dissapointed with Tito reading parts and thinking "i'm sure I have seen this before". My fault for buying it blind over the intranet.

My taste for Aquilona was also marred by the fact that one of the first bits I read was a character description (can't remember which one and it is upstairs) but I read the first paragraph, and then the second; the second was a complete tautology of the first. That is another editing issue.

Rather dissapointingly I have simply come to expect them from mongoose. Not a good public image for a publishing house to have really.

 

[jadrax]

At least Tito diden't have the collapsing stool made by dwarfs anymore! ;o)

 

[Vincent791]

Hey Vincent, I'm glad the guy made this comment public, although I'm overall satisfied with the quality of the books, that small detail somehow bother me from time to time. Now that you took your time to explain the situation I'm completely satisfied.

It's impossible to satisfy every costumer, as you said, if you use the copy-paste a lot of people will complain about that, if you just use new material a lot of people will be like "why do I need 4 books for the same city?"

Anyway, I rather have the whole info in one book.

 

[greenjelly]

For what it is worth, I prefer not to go searching for everything myself, so I like the way the books were written. Just purely because it saves flipping through the book every time a rule is mentioned. Not that it is that much of a problem if you have to, it just makes things quicker.

 

[Darkspawn]

Another game system that I liked except for it's lack of the very copy paste you mentioned drove me crazy. It had hundreds of spells in seperate lists and it would drive me nuts when it said "Kill XYZ: As Kill XYZ on the Butterfinger List".
I really prefer the copy paste. But mine is just one voice among many.

 

[jadrax]

Another game system that I liked except for it's lack of the very copy paste you mentioned drove me crazy. It had hundreds of spells in seperate lists and it would drive me nuts when it said "Kill XYZ: As Kill XYZ on the Butterfinger List".
I really prefer the copy paste. But mine is just one voice among many.

I smell rolemaster!

 

[Darkspawn]

Another game system that I liked except for it's lack of the very copy paste you mentioned drove me crazy. It had hundreds of spells in seperate lists and it would drive me nuts when it said "Kill XYZ: As Kill XYZ on the Butterfinger List".
I really prefer the copy paste. But mine is just one voice among many.

I smell rolemaster!

Heh, you have a delicate and intuitive sense of smell. But I would like to say that I NEVER mentioned the game system. Never. :lol:

 

[Mark Dunder]

I don't like to flip pages, so Vincent's cut and paste to keep the information handy is good for me. Also, I like a work to be as complete as possible, so having a bunch of references to other references gives me a real pain. So I think Vincent Darlage is doing it up right.

 

[ricardo440]

I like the repetition of reminder rules in - say - a monster reference. But the whole sale copying of a chapter from one book to another is not good.

e.g. Tito'#s slaves chapter and Messantia - slaves chapter. They are identical. It is not as if the rules are required as a reminder.

 

[Thamilon]

I like the repetition of reminder rules in - say - a monster reference. But the whole sale copying of a chapter from one book to another is not good.

e.g. Tito'#s slaves chapter and Messantia - slaves chapter. They are identical. It is not as if the rules are required as a reminder.

Well, by that token... what about the GM who HADN'T bought the Messatina set because he had little interest in doing a campaign in Argos? Not all GMs are completists about buying every single book if they don't think they'll need it and a lot of us can't afford to be.

Heck, I have the Messatina set and I never noticed the alternate slave-pricing rules until after I got the Tito book... and I really could have used that running my current campaign, set in Shadizar...

 

[mthomason]

Just like to add my vote to "keep all the books as complete as possible without too much cross-referencing". I find it very hard to understand why people were complaining about it, short of "theres four whole pages worth of material in this 96-page book I already had, what a waste of money!" - personally I'd rather have those four "redundant" pages.

I'd probably draw the line at anything more than 10% of the space being used in that way though. Any more than that and I'd prefer a "requires book X to use" message on the back cover.