[projectaon] Re: More errata.
- From: "David Davis" <feline1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:08:58 +0100
Whilst I sympathise with Ingo not wanting to burden the books with
endless footnotes,
when I was a child playing the books, I did feel a bit disconcerted by
ambiguities in the rules, as I generally wanted to play the books "properly"
and "without cheating", and it would spoil my enjoyment a bit if I thought
I was getting it wrong, or there seemed to be inconsistencies.
For what it's worth, I even remember one of those issues brought up
last week, about the text in Flight from the Dark referring to a particular
weapon, but my route to the section had meant i had a different weapon -
I remember being put out by that in 1984!
So, generally, on balance, I think it is good to footnote these things.
DAVID
----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Osborne" <outspaced@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 2:00 PM
Subject: [projectaon] Re: More errata.
Ingo Kloecker wrote:
On Friday 29 August 2008, Simon Osborne wrote:
Jonathan Blake wrote:
1) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/04tcod/sect44.htm
I had always assumed that they were gettable. I had a strange
tendency to collect as many items as possible. I was a collector in
other words. I intentionally killed these Redeemers just so I could
have one of their amulets. The item is never used in the books as
far as I can find so this change won't have any gameplay impact.
Reordered the sentences as per my proposal. Fixed.
Please revert this change. There is nothing in the text (maybe except for
the lack of capitalization of the amulets ?) that warrants this change.
What harm does it do if the reader decides to pick up the amulets?
Answer: No harm at all.
No harm, although it is pointless. However, to bring it into line with the
rules given in the Equipment section, we would need to capitalise Amulets
in both 44 and 149. We would also need to add a note to 44 that the Amulet
(singular) is a Special Item and should be recorded as a Wooden Fish
Amulet (or similar). All that for an item that is never referenced again.
Additionally, the original wording of the section is certainly awkward.
The sentence "If you wish to keep any of these [i]tems, remember to mark
them on your Action Chart." seems to appear in the middle of a different
thought, since the preceding sentence relates to you noticing the amulets,
and the subsequent choices relate to whether you recognise these amulets
or not.
While I cheerfully admit that I often propose changes that might not
necessarily need to be made, I definitely think the section benefits from
this change, as does the gameplay.
I think we are slowly reaching a stage of analness that does Joe's text
more harm than good. Please let's leave at least some decisions to the
readers of the books. And, no, it's not necessary to footnote every
little ambiguity with our interpretations/suggestions. Joe's books are,
well, books. They are no boring algorithms without any room for
interpretation. If we remove any room for interpretation then the books
will lose a lot.
And yet many people are writing to us and asking questions for
clarifications, or reporting ambiguities as problems. They clearly feel
these things detract from the text. I disagree that the books will lose
anything by clarifying foggy things--I think the books benefit from
clarity, and I personally would have liked these issues cleared up when I
was a kid reading these for the first time. Any game needs clearly defined
and well implemented rules--and these are _game_books, not
straight-written books. (It's not like "life", which, as we all know, has
no rules--or, none that I've ever discovered, anyway! ;-) )
To show how the rules should be implemented (or, sometimes, how they
*might* be implemented, thinking of the WILLPOWER issues in Grey Star) is
advantageous IMHO.
Removing ambiguities also makes it easier for software readers to be
written. Having to implement several conflicting sets of rules that might
only exist in certain sections of certain books is a real pain that would
create plenty of extra /and unnecessary/ work--that's probably one of the
reasons so many of them have been dropped by the coders.
Let's stick to fixing orthographic and grammatical errors, and problems
with the game flow.
Of course, this is just my opinion. Feel free to ignore it.
No! I don't think we should ignore the thoughts of a regular and valued
contributor, Ingo. Not on any level.
I do politely disagree--not with the essence of what you're saying, but
with the practical implementation. While I can see where you're coming
from with this, I do feel that removing ambiguous rules benefits both the
readers and the coders--and therefore a "second tier" of readers who read
the books using that software.
2) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/04tcod/sect12.htm
I have always taken this to mean: take all that you need. Should
we footnote this for clarity?
Agreed.
Footnote added. Fixed.
Same here. Is this footnote really necessary? IMO it is not needed. Let
the reader decide without forcing our decision on him.
Not everyone understands English as she is spoke
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_As_She_Is_Spoke> and that includes
many native English-speakers. Here, using the word "choice" is vaguely
ambiguous, since it could (and clearly does) indicate to some that it is
an "option". After all, we call the options at the bottom of each section
"choices"--i.e. something you may only choose one of. So once again, I
feel strongly this should be noted. It doesn't alter the actual wording of
the section, but it does clarify what is meant by it.
7) http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/05sots/sect58.htm
If we had a reason, I don't remember it now, though the wording was
always awkward. Perhaps we removed them because they wouldn't make
sense in potential non-linked versions (e.g. plain text) or
versions that didn't have a numbered section page (e.g. PDF).
Yes! That was it. I've added this to the Errata Page for Book 5 as a
reminder of why we don't link to the Numbered Sections.
I think it's a wrong decision to cripple the HTML version just because
such a link does not make sense/is not necessary for versions in other
formats.
I can see both sides for this. I don't see it as *crippling* the HTML
versions, though. Just maybe making them a little harder to use than if
we'd included a link. Such a link does become irrelevant and possibly
confusing in the single-page, PDF, software, card punch, Iphone, etc.
versions of the books, though.
I hope that's an impassioned enough plea to keep us all moving in the same
direction! :-)
And just to note that the Mongoose editions are using many of our
footnotes in their editions, only they are including the text in the main
body rather than having them as footnotes. So they must agree with us, to
an extent.
--
Simon Osborne
Project Aon
~~~~~~
Manage your subscription at http://www.freelists.org/list/projectaon
~~~~~~
Manage your subscription at http://www.freelists.org/list/projectaon
Other related posts: