Rulebooks as living documents (AKA The Case for E-Books)

[Raineh Daze]

-Cut for getting ridiculously long.-

I'd like to redirect you to what even got me to post in the first place (also, page bloat is an issue if you write things with only digital constraints in mind, pictures or no >_>)

See, you say that... "for the feels," but I'm pretty sure people can still look stuff up faster from a single, physical reference book than they can on their smart phones and their hyper-linked PDFs.

See, that's the problem. Right now the digital copies we have are poorly formatted versions of physical ones. They were still physical first, and don't take advantage of the digital format. The fact that they were physical books FIRST, then digitized as an afterthought or for more distribution is what's keeping them from being formatted optimally. Sidebars and pretty pictures make E-Readers cry since they just can't format them right.

Also, I use my PDFs MUCH faster than physical books, provided they are FORMATTED RIGHT. Even the ones that have searchable text are many times faster than my physical book, since I can CTRL+F, type Wealth By Level, then hit enter a hell of a lot faster than most people can look it up in the index, then flip to that page.

What you basically say right here is to not include formatting that includes... oh, pictures.

Hell, by this point you don't seem to be arguing for an e-book at all. You're arguing for a wiki. Because you seem to be saying 'don't include pictures with the text, everything should be neatly separated, have more and more and more pages'.

Also for some bizarre reason, you're attached to PDFs. Really.

You know, I think I'd much rather have a static, non-errata'd hardback where the book looks good than have an e-book I must keep updating, that's basically walls of text broken up occasionally by a page that's a single picture. Because you seem to be arguing for something that's ugly and has a bit of convenience (errata is inserted into it rather than separate) instead. Since Ctrl+F is only much good if you know exactly what you're looking for, spell it right, and the first result or first few results happen to match what you're looking for. Otherwise you have no speed improvement over just looking in the index.

[Unbeliever]

There's no reason there couldn't be a stripped down, bare bones reference version alongside the "pretty" one.  The current SRD fills this role, and there are game guides that you can buy.  I can readily see the utility of this sort of thing.  In the digital world, there's no space consideration. 

I've been looking at playing White Wolf again -- a hilariously poor designed product line, seriously, it's almost willful in its badness -- and I think that's driven a bit of a kneejerk reaction against "prettiness."  I'd like my books to be readable, thank you, and also easy to reference.  Really, the high water marks for pretty gaming books are Mouseguard and DC Adventures.  Anything busier than that needs to go back to the editor. 

For character creation I find digital documents much more convenient.  There's a lot of flipping back and forth and going through a dozen books at a time.  At least that's the case in D&D, but it's true in many systems as well.  It's easier to have 8 books open on my computer or tablet than it is to have to buy a bigger desk. 

Sorry for the tangent, but really is the only motivation for the OP errata?  B/c really there should never be that great a need for errata.  I don't find myself referencing errata all that often, but maybe there's a lot more of it out there than I think there is.

[Raineh Daze]

For character creation I find digital documents much more convenient.  There's a lot of flipping back and forth and going through a dozen books at a time.  At least that's the case in D&D, but it's true in many systems as well.  It's easier to have 8 books open on my computer or tablet than it is to have to buy a bigger desk.

Eww, tablets. Too small.

I find having lots of books open easier than lots of documents. I keep track of them better... XD

Sorry for the tangent, but really is the only motivation for the OP errata?  B/c really there should never be that great a need for errata.  I don't find myself referencing errata all that often, but maybe there's a lot more of it out there than I think there is.

Well, that seems to be the entire cause of the OP. The ability to search it seems more of a tangent, and implies that you're really bad at using the index for it to grant such a huge improvement. :/

[Nytemare3701]

What you basically say right here is to not include formatting that includes... oh, pictures.

Having pictures isn't the problem. Having uneditable, unsearchable image-style tables and sidebars all over your pages and pictures preventing dynamic formatting is the problem. This is why I advocated pictures on seperate pages.

Hell, by this point you don't seem to be arguing for an e-book at all. You're arguing for a wiki. Because you seem to be saying 'don't include pictures with the text, everything should be neatly separated, have more and more and more pages'.

I'm arguing for my book about rules for playing a game to prioritize said rules, actually HAVING the content they intended, up to date and accurate, instead of being static and cut down due to printing restrictions.

Also for some bizarre reason, you're attached to PDFs. Really.

Using it as shorthand for digitally distributed e-book format. I would prefer a better format.

You know, I think I'd much rather have a static, non-errata'd hardback where the book looks good than have an e-book I must keep updating, that's basically walls of text broken up occasionally by a page that's a single picture. Because you seem to be arguing for something that's ugly and has a bit of convenience (errata is inserted into it rather than separate) instead. Since Ctrl+F is only much good if you know exactly what you're looking for, spell it right, and the first result or first few results happen to match what you're looking for. Otherwise you have no speed improvement over just looking in the index.

You make it sound like text is an eyesore on its own. There is an entire system devoted to making text clear and readable. It's called formatting.
I've never said it has to be ugly. I said I want it to do provide the FUNCTION a rulebook provides: giving me the rules to the game I'm trying to play. CTRL+F is good for searching for just about anything. Basic keyword searches take all of 5 seconds to do, and can be done equally fast on a book you are opening for the first time as a book you know by heart. If SPELLING is seriously an issue with searches, then learn to SPELL. That's not the designer's problem, that's a problem with the consumer failing to meet the bare minimum criteria to find information in the digital age. As for the speed of a search vs index, I still stand by my statement that I can much more efficiently use a computer to find any given section of the rules, ESPECIALLY across dozens of books, than I can with physical books.

There's no reason there couldn't be a stripped down, bare bones reference version alongside the "pretty" one.  The current SRD fills this role, and there are game guides that you can buy.  I can readily see the utility of this sort of thing.  In the digital world, there's no space consideration. 

The problem here is that the very existence of static formats causes a divide between those who have up to date rules and those who don't. See every MMO patch ever, also see below.

Sorry for the tangent, but really is the only motivation for the OP errata?  B/c really there should never be that great a need for errata.  I don't find myself referencing errata all that often, but maybe there's a lot more of it out there than I think there is.

You are unwittingly hitting the nail on the head here. There isn't errata that often in tabletop gaming, because errata is a dirty word for tabletop designers. It's blatantly admitting they published a physical product that they fucked up on, and have to give you a sheet of paper LISTING ALL THEIR FUCKUPS and expect you to follow them. That's not mature behavior. Video games have patches, not errata. Patches are continual improvement of the existing product, something that everyone MUST have or they can't play with the rest of the people playing, because they would be playing with an older, inherently less balanced ruleset.

Just imagine for a moment if a game company not only didn't use patches, but itemized and released a list of their failures in design.

• Marines do 20 more damage than intended, please go to your config.ini and change the "MarineGaussRifleDamage" field from 50 to 30.
• Tooltips are incorrect for more units than we care to count. Use your best judgement about what the unit really does.

90% of the players proceed to ignore said errata, since it's too much of a bother to implement, and they prefer having better marines anyway, balance be damned.
10% of the players take the time to implement the errata, but don't agree on what the tooltips mean. This leads to countless threads and flamewars about RAW vs RAI.

None of this would happen if rulebooks were living documents that were updated regularly and supported by the companies that make them. If I buy a book promising me rules to play a game, I want it to contain ACCURATE RULES TO PLAY THE GAME, not a bunch of poorly formatted & compromised rules they tried to shove into their pagecount during the editor's crunch.

Remember the 4E tool that was supposed to contain all the rulebooks as long as you payed their subscription service? Make a program that has purchasable E-Books that are continually updated through the service.

[Raineh Daze]

Spelling can also include cultural differences, e.g. colour vs color and grey vs gray. 'Spelling something wrong' can also mean searching for something by name but not knowing how the NAME is spelled, because the name isn't part of the language itself. :/

[Nytemare3701]

Spelling can also include cultural differences, e.g. colour vs color and grey vs gray. 'Spelling something wrong' can also mean searching for something by name but not knowing how the NAME is spelled, because the name isn't part of the language itself. :/

You will have many of those same problems in the index as well, and you will find out if cultural differences are present the first time you hit search for such a word.

[Raineh Daze]

Spelling can also include cultural differences, e.g. colour vs color and grey vs gray. 'Spelling something wrong' can also mean searching for something by name but not knowing how the NAME is spelled, because the name isn't part of the language itself. :/

You will have many of those same problems in the index as well, and you will find out if cultural differences are present the first time you hit search for such a word.

Because clearly minor differences in spelling will radically alter the alphabetisation of an index.

[Nytemare3701]

Spelling can also include cultural differences, e.g. colour vs color and grey vs gray. 'Spelling something wrong' can also mean searching for something by name but not knowing how the NAME is spelled, because the name isn't part of the language itself. :/

You will have many of those same problems in the index as well, and you will find out if cultural differences are present the first time you hit search for such a word.

Because clearly minor differences in spelling will radically alter the alphabetisation of an index.

It is if you are used to languages that uses things like K for C sounds. This is extremely tangential though, as you still can't check the index of dozens to hundreds of books at the same time, much less actually have the space for them at a given table.

[oslecamo]

90% of the players proceed to ignore said errata, since it's too much of a bother to implement, and they prefer having better marines anyway, balance be damned.

You just answered your original question.

90% of tabletop players don't really want errata. Most of them actually revel on the inbalances and poor wordings. Whole campaigns if not whole settings and spin-offs have been done on the basis of absurd interpretations and extrapolations and other  things the designers never intended or imagined.

Instant errata erases all of that.

It also happens that the company would need to have a bunch of extra costs with servers and coding teams to keep all the stuff cleaned up properly.

[Nytemare3701]

90% of the players proceed to ignore said errata, since it's too much of a bother to implement, and they prefer having better marines anyway, balance be damned.

You just answered your original question.

90% of tabletop players don't really want errata. Most of them actually revel on the inbalances and poor wordings. Whole campaigns if not whole settings and spin-offs have been done on the basis of absurd interpretations and extrapolations and other  things the designers never intended or imagined.

Instant errata erases all of that.

It also happens that the company would need to have a bunch of extra costs with servers and coding teams to keep all the stuff cleaned up properly.

Right, so this is the crux of the issue then. If you are making a game, which is more important? Having a solid product that people trust, or people having a good laugh at your shitty product? If people need your product to be bad for them to play, something is wrong.

As for costs, digital distribution is inherently cheaper than the equivalent hardcover distribution method. The profit margin from that alone would more than cover the cost to keep a download server running for patches to text files. This isn't exactly a supercomputer dishing out multi-GB game patches.

[Raineh Daze]

90% of the players proceed to ignore said errata, since it's too much of a bother to implement, and they prefer having better marines anyway, balance be damned.

You just answered your original question.

90% of tabletop players don't really want errata. Most of them actually revel on the inbalances and poor wordings. Whole campaigns if not whole settings and spin-offs have been done on the basis of absurd interpretations and extrapolations and other  things the designers never intended or imagined.

Instant errata erases all of that.

It also happens that the company would need to have a bunch of extra costs with servers and coding teams to keep all the stuff cleaned up properly.

Right, so this is the crux of the issue then. If you are making a game, which is more important? Having a solid product that people trust, or people having a good laugh at your shitty product? If people need your product to be bad for them to play, something is wrong.

As for costs, digital distribution is inherently cheaper than the equivalent hardcover distribution method. The profit margin from that alone would more than cover the cost to keep a download server running for patches to text files. This isn't exactly a supercomputer dishing out multi-GB game patches.

'Solid product that people trust' might be a bit overkill. 'That people enjoy' is a better goal. It does not need to be absolutely perfect for people to be able to enjoy it. It doesn't mean they're laughing at you if they take the balance issues to extremes for the fun of it.

[oslecamo]

As long as it has enough crazyness and allows players to fulfill their power fantasies of crushing/dominating everything on their path, a lot of people out there will actually choose the inbalanced ruleset. Not just D&D, but plenty of other tabletop games and countless computer games.

Digital distribution is cheaper for the company yes. But for the player, computers/toys pads and e-readers are expensive and not that convenient to bring to the table, and electricity isn't free either. Thus the hardcover ends up being cheaper for the consumer in the long run.

[Nytemare3701]

It does not need to be absolutely perfect for people to be able to enjoy it. It doesn't mean they're laughing at you if they take the balance issues to extremes for the fun of it.

There sure is a lot of evidence to the contrary on these forums, since balance is a huge concern that is constantly being fought over, and we make fun of WoTC relentlessly for their balance failures.

As long as it has enough crazyness and allows players to fulfill their power fantasies of crushing/dominating everything on their path, a lot of people out there will actually choose the inbalanced ruleset. Not just D&D, but plenty of other tabletop games and countless computer games.

Since when did "Our game sucks, but that's ok because people don't care if our game is balanced" hold up in any form of game design? When I buy a game, one of the few assumptions is that it's supposed to be balanced for all involved, or that being unbalanced isn't important to the gameplay. If a social contract (which is in itself a form of houserule, since they are different between groups, encompass different restrictions, etc) is required for your game to function, then your game is BROKEN. Once again, Oberoni comes into play.

Digital distribution is cheaper for the company yes. But for the player, computers/toys pads and e-readers are expensive and not that convenient to bring to the table, and electricity isn't free either. Thus the hardcover ends up being cheaper for the consumer in the long run.

The same argument can be made for every technological advance ever. I'm not saying every game ever has to switch to digital distribution. I'm saying that I'm not buying another game as a hardcover book, because it makes absolutely no sense for me to do so.

[Raineh Daze]

It does not need to be absolutely perfect for people to be able to enjoy it. It doesn't mean they're laughing at you if they take the balance issues to extremes for the fun of it.

There sure is a lot of evidence to the contrary on these forums, since balance is a huge concern that is constantly being fought over, and we make fun of WoTC relentlessly for their balance failures.

This is the worst possibly sample. :|

[Nytemare3701]

It does not need to be absolutely perfect for people to be able to enjoy it. It doesn't mean they're laughing at you if they take the balance issues to extremes for the fun of it.

There sure is a lot of evidence to the contrary on these forums, since balance is a huge concern that is constantly being fought over, and we make fun of WoTC relentlessly for their balance failures.

This is the worst possibly sample. :|

It's a sample of people who are proficient enough with the game to understand exactly how broken it is. That sample is rather hard to find elsewhere.

[Raineh Daze]

It does not need to be absolutely perfect for people to be able to enjoy it. It doesn't mean they're laughing at you if they take the balance issues to extremes for the fun of it.

There sure is a lot of evidence to the contrary on these forums, since balance is a huge concern that is constantly being fought over, and we make fun of WoTC relentlessly for their balance failures.

This is the worst possibly sample. :|

It's a sample of people who are proficient enough with the game to understand exactly how broken it is. That sample is rather hard to find elsewhere.

I think that reinforces that errata like this is unnecessary, since the sample of people that can understand how broken the game is happens to be so damn tiny and will just break the errata anyway. >.>

[veekie]

Also note that what is described here already exists as an adjunct to a game. The PFSRD is exactly as described.

[Nytemare3701]

Also note that what is described here already exists as an adjunct to a game. The PFSRD is exactly as described.

And the PFSRD is amazing. Unfortunately, it's not exactly what is described here. It's not dynamically formatted, they still use tables that fuck up e-books, it's not in a format that can be easily transferred TO an e-book, and is also under restrictions about what can be posted on it due to PF licenses.

[Raineh Daze]

It's a damn webpage. You are obsessing over e-books when there's an easy alternative to hand. It's not perfect but it's not really like anything ever is. :|

[Nytemare3701]

It's a damn webpage. You are obsessing over e-books when there's an easy alternative to hand. It's not perfect but it's not really like anything ever is. :|

Nothing is ever perfect, but that doesn't ever mean we stop trying. This is just another kind of minmax :-P

The webpage thing leads right back into video games. Being required to connect to patch isn't a big deal. Being required to connect every time you want to play at all IS.