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D&D 5E Would a repeat of the large errata from the previous edition put you off of Next?

Will large amounts of errata put you off the game?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 71 45.2%
  • No.

    Votes: 49 31.2%
  • I'm not bothered either way.

    Votes: 24 15.3%
  • I don't use errata.

    Votes: 13 8.3%

Li Shenron

Legend
Once again, for the 3rd time I think, nobody here is realistically expecting an errata free game.

I am! :cool:

A later print (usually not more than the 2nd or 3rd) incorporates all corrections and is therefore error-free. So if they took some extra time, or hire some extra eyes, the first print could already be error-free.

That they don't want to invest in that, doesn't mean it couldn't be done.
 

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Errata needs to happen. Mistakes will always make it through and the company needs to be able to fix errors that crop up and clarify unclear rules. However, errata is NOT a substitute for editing. It is not acceptable to release a product that has not been properly developed because it can be errated after publication.
Too much devalues the physical books. Too little devalues the edition.

Because of the above paradox, there's a line: WotC needs to learn where it is and how much errata they can provide without crossing.

I want the physical books to be thoroughly edited and developed. It should be possible to play without ever looking at errata. However, when mistakes do come up, they should be fixed and clarified, but kept few in number so the individual errors can be remembered.
 

n00bdragon

First Post
Once again, for the 3rd time I think, nobody here is realistically expecting an errata free game. Several other posters have already said this but I want to say it again; large amounts of errata are the problem. Nobody is against actually fixing things, what I am against is things a 5 year old child could see, is being missed.

Your expectations are completely unrealistic. "Things a 5 year old child could see" is a bar that very few professionally produced works meet 100% of the time on the first try. If the 4e errata simply never happened this discussion would not be here, plain and simple. You probably wouldn't have noticed more than a handful of the errors and if you did you'd just chuckle a little like you did with every single RPG material you had ever held before that. This is all 100% artificial outrage and 4e bashing at is most classic. People aren't against errata per se, oh no, but the edition we all love to hate just so happened to cross that magical and never defined line.

I get it. The implication is that "hurf durf, well if they would review this stuff more there wouldn't be so much" as if they aren't doing as much as they possibly can and are just rushing anything they can slap down out the door. I must then be the only person here not privy to the WotC copy editing and internal playtesting process because you all seem so knowledgeable about how deficient it is.

Actually, I change my stance. I hope they don't release any errata at all. How about just printing whatever the **** and not even bothering to look at it a second time. It worked for TSR and 3e and no one bitched about it. Why not 5e? Getting back to the roots of the game man and the days of just telling your players to deal with it.
 


Hussar

Legend
I know that TSR had multiple printings of the core books but was any errata included in subsequent printings? I don't think so.

Given how sloppy AdnD books are, can you imagine how long the errata would be for those books?
 


OmegaMan950

First Post
Errata is fine. Look at past options: writing in to Sage Advice for clarification and waiting for Dragon to come out, re-releasing 3.0 as 3.5 over a few fixes, or providing broken material to sidestep issues (2Es Player's Option). Errata is the lesser of all evils.
 

Tequila Sunrise

Adventurer
Actually, I change my stance. I hope they don't release any errata at all. How about just printing whatever the **** and not even bothering to look at it a second time. It worked for TSR and 3e and no one bitched about it. Why not 5e? Getting back to the roots of the game man and the days of just telling your players to deal with it.
Well said. :)

I too hope for little-to-no errata, because it'll make me that much more confident in my [probable] decision to avoid 5e.
 


sunshadow21

Explorer
To me, it depends on what you define as "errata." The massive amount of rule changes and adjustments they made in both 3.5 and 4E do not qualify as "errata" to me; they are significant changes to the game itself that even if they were necessary should never have been classified as errata, which is clarifying language, fixing misspelling and omissions, and similar small things that do not actually change the game in any way, shape, or form. WotC has a bad habit of publishing something without thinking about the consequences just to publish something and than "fixing" it later through "errata" and that tends to annoy a lot of people. Errata is good; there will always be things that need clarified and corrected. Too much tinkering at the level that WotC has done for most of its ownership of the brand, both through drastic changes between each edition and "errata" within each edition, destabilizes the brand and makes it much, much harder to create a consistent, solid identity to build on. Paizo seems to have found a decent balance for this; every once in a while something will pop up that significantly changes an ability, but not very often, and they do a good job of incorporating any errata they do make into the printed product instead of relying just on a separate document that has to be cross referenced continually. I would love it if WotC could find that same kind of balance rather than constantly tinkering with stuff before they know what changes, if any, actually need to be made; of course, better playtesting and actually going over what they are putting out before releasing it to the public instead of simply publishing something for the sake of publishing it would help considerably in that department.
 

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