Traveller Core Rule page count

[TrippyHippy]

Has anybody noticed that the page count of the Core Rules has just gone up from 160 pages to 220 Pages? The price is still the same (£20 - Hardback book)

Might it be suggested that this is a good thing?

What could the new stuff possibly be including, d'ya think?

 

[far-trader]

...What could the new stuff possibly be including, d'ya think?

Verboseness?

:wink:

I fear it's simple word bloat. I hope it's language clarity and examples of every bit of rules needing it.

Or maybe it's pictures

 

[TrippyHippy]

Well, we've got the playtest files.

Do we think they're verbose?

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

I'm not sure they're verbose, per se. Roughly written and unformatted throughout, yes; unclear in a lot of places, yes; *but*...

It's a playtest document. I'm not going to worry about the page count at the moment - once the rules are nailed down and the words trimmed to whatever word count maximum is in place, I'm sure the page count will drop and the book will flow.

 

[TrippyHippy]

No..I'm not talking about the page count of the playtest files. That's about 140 pages or so, so far. I'm talking about the advertised page count of the final product. It's just shot up from 160 pages to 220 pages.

Me? I think it's good news, because it either means that the layout will include lots of illustrations and large, well-spaced fonts or, we are going to see a fair whack of additional information - which could include a load of essays about technology, or more rules examples, or maybe even a short adventure perhaps.

 

[Allensh]

No..I'm not talking about the page count of the playtest files. That's about 140 pages or so, so far. I'm talking about the advertised page count of the final product. It's just shot up from 160 pages to 220 pages.

Me? I think it's good news, because it either means that the layout will include lots of illustrations and large, well-spaced fonts or, we are going to see a fair whack of additional information - which could include a load of essays about technology, or more rules examples, or maybe even a short adventure perhaps.

Just as long as its not Exit Visa...*shudder*

Allen

 

[EDG]

Personally I think 220 pages is the lower end of "worthwhile". I'd much rather all the stuff that would be in Mercenary and High Guard should be in the corebook rather than spread out over several books (the supplements being thinner) for the sake of it.

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

No..I'm not talking about the page count of the playtest files. That's about 140 pages or so, so far. I'm talking about the advertised page count of the final product. It's just shot up from 160 pages to 220 pages.

Sorry, misunderstood where you were coming from. But, yes, increased page count in the final product (without an associated hike in price) is good news and hopefully worthwhile.

 

[weasel_fierce]

I imagine the artwork will add a fair deal to the page count

 

[GamerDude]

I do know that the start of the combat chapter sucks. It is the most disjointed and confusing explanation I have ever seen for a RPG rule.

I wish they would have either numbered each chapter/section OR put the name of it in the footer with the page numbers. But I don't understand why each section has to start over at "1". That really messed me up when I first tried to print this doublesided (print all odd pages, flip, print all even pages).

I MP is a UK company, but can we maybe get some consideration for those in parts of the world who use regular "Letter" sized paper (8.5" x 11") instead of A4 (8.3" x 11.7"). I have to go and tell Acrobat to print "to printer margins" so it will shrink the page to fit on letter sized paper. This isn't just the Traveller stuff, but the MI documents and such.

[/rant off]

 

[SableWyvern]

I MP is a UK company, but can we maybe get some consideration for those in parts of the world who use regular "Letter" sized paper (8.5" x 11") instead of A4 (8.3" x 11.7"). I have to go and tell Acrobat to print "to printer margins" so it will shrink the page to fit on letter sized paper. This isn't just the Traveller stuff, but the MI documents and such.[/rant off]

Does anyone outside the US use Letter? And do they take the rest of the A4 using world into account when they make PDFs?

Having to deal with US companies and their antiquated measuring systems with the majority of English-language RPG documents out there, I don't think "shrink to page" is a particularly odious requirement.

Edit: Apparently, Letter is used in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Philipines. And, it is no longer the official standard in the US, despite it's continued popularity there.

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

I MP is a UK company, but can we maybe get some consideration for those in parts of the world who use regular "Letter" sized paper (8.5" x 11") instead of A4 (8.3" x 11.7"). I have to go and tell Acrobat to print "to printer margins" so it will shrink the page to fit on letter sized paper. This isn't just the Traveller stuff, but the MI documents and such.[/rant off]

Does anyone outside the US use Letter?

I bought some American sized paper cheap from a stationery shop before it closed down here in the UK - they had received a delivery of it by mistake and hadn't sent it back. But, yes, Europe and the UK use the "A" paper sizes (A0 is *huge*!)

And do they take the rest of the A4 using world into account when they make PDFs?

Having to deal with US companies and their antiquated measuring systems with the majority of English-language RPG documents out there, I don't think "shrink to page" is a particularly odious requirement.

Edit: Apparently, Letter is used in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Philipines. And, it is no longer the official standard in the US, despite it's continued popularity there.

It really isn't a major hassle to get the pages to print within the printable area of a page by clicking a tick box. I do this the other way round - printing an American paper sized document onto A4 requires a tick in the box in the print dialogue box, too. It really isn't a life-destroying issue

 

[AKAramis]

Edit: Apparently, Letter is used in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Philipines. And, it is no longer the official standard in the US, despite it's continued popularity there.

There have been dual standards in the US for paper for well over a century:
Letter (8.5" x 11") and Legal (8.5" x 14"). Almost all US Gov't documents I've encountered (I'd say 95%) outside of legal fields are on letter size, and about 90% of legal field stuff is on legal sized. I worked in a branch office of the US National Archives, and performed holdings maintenance on a variety of regord groups. US Marshals used legal exclusively up to the 1940's if their Alaska records are exemplary of their overall practice.)

Common but non-official sizes include half-letter (5.5x8.5") and quarter-legal (7x4.25"). Many government forms are one of those two sizes.

11x17 is used for making 8.5x11" folded, and 22x17 for folios.
prior to WWII, 14x17 and 28x17 were also used for legal sized signatures and folded.

Notebook lined filler is often sub-sized, by about a quarter inch.

I have never seen a US government document on A4.

I have bought a few games printed to A4 size... but all were imports.

 

[Se Chris]

Just as a random point, Mongoose books are all 'standard RPG size', not A4. I don't actually know what standard RPG size is off the top of my head, but it's shorter and wider than a piece of A4.

European RPG books, on the other hand, are A4 sized. I know this because they don't fit on the same shelves.

 

[Poi]

OMG!

I don't beleive you managed to talk about paper sizes!

How about the paper weight?

What about the brand of ink being used?



Mods, I'll be happy for you to delete my post, but please take the whole thread out at the same time!

 

[Deniable]

Most of my American RPG books appear to be about 280 x 220 mm. (~11x8.5 in.)

PDF is easy to deal with for the letter / A4 switch. If you want a real nightmare, try it on a Word document with a lot of fiddly layout. Yuck.

As for standards, Metric has been "the Preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce," since the '80s. It wouldn't surprise me if there is an official standard of A4 somewhere.

 

[Tathlum]

As for standards, Metric has been "the Preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce," since the '80s.

Sweet. So when are they going to put the date in the right order? :wink:

 

[Deniable]

You may want to look at the ISO Standard for dates.

 

[Court Jester]

OMG!

I don't beleive you managed to talk about paper sizes!

How about the paper weight?

What about the brand of ink being used?



Mods, I'll be happy for you to delete my post, but please take the whole thread out at the same time!

Maybe Traveller shoulod have some sort of Paper Science skill... Or would it be more Academic...

 

[Tathlum]

You may want to look at the ISO Standard for dates.

Seen it. It goes yyyy-mm-dd. Most Americans go mm-dd-yy right? So they are still wrong. But it was just a throw-away joke. Lets not get started Aluminium/Aluminum, tyre/tire, color/colour......