Smudges - All Core books

[Agamon]

This happened in my 2nd and 3rd edition books (yes, even 3.5), too. So I've since learned not to leave my finger in a book for any length of time, I use something else as a bookmark.

 

[Belorin]

My 4E books have the same page thickness and magazine style printing that I identify with 3.5, 3E, 2E and 1E books. Nowhere near the thin and smudgy KotS books.

Bel

 

[Yaezakura]

I honestly can't see how people can say their 3.5 books never smudged. Mine smudged almost constantly. I don't need to worry about writing my name in them--my fingerprints are there plain as day on pretty much every page, where the ink transfered from page to finger and back to page. I can't possibly see the 4th edition books being any worse off.

 

[Ninja-to]

I honestly can't see how people can say their 3.5 books never smudged. Mine smudged almost constantly. I don't need to worry about writing my name in them--my fingerprints are there plain as day on pretty much every page, where the ink transfered from page to finger and back to page. I can't possibly see the 4th edition books being any worse off.

I'm guessing then we have an odd occurrence. My own 3.5 books never smudged, and don't now. The 4th edition core ones I had, did. It seems there are different batches of books out there, both 3.5 and 4th edition.

In a twisted way it gives me hope that my 4th ed books (the next set) will be a 'good' batch. If not, then I seriously will stop buying more supplements. I'll stick to the core books and just write my own mods from there on. Too bad really.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

My books, thus far, are fine.

Sweet, I get to quote myself. Today I drove to lunch and my buddy (who is not a gamer, but wouldn't be a convert when what happened happened) said "Cool, are these the new DnD books?" I admitted they were, and he picked up the Monster Manual to flip through.

I saw from the corner of my eye a page fall down and heard "What the h-e-doublehockysticks!" He then proceeded to flip through the book some more as individual pages, and then hunks of pages began to separate from the cloth binding strip like hair in a radiation victims skull.

So, to put it bluntly, my Monster Manual is now only about 80% bound.

I asked him to flip through the DMG and he said nothing was falling out, but that it looked a little iffy to him. I didn't inspect them closely myself yet.

So, I guess I need to figure out how to return stuff to Amazon.

Not cool.

DS

 

[Yaezakura]

I'm guessing then we have an odd occurrence. My own 3.5 books never smudged, and don't now. The 4th edition core ones I had, did. It seems there are different batches of books out there, both 3.5 and 4th edition.

In a twisted way it gives me hope that my 4th ed books (the next set) will be a 'good' batch. If not, then I seriously will stop buying more supplements. I'll stick to the core books and just write my own mods from there on. Too bad really.

If it was just the core 3.5 books that did it to me, I may agree with you. But every 3.5 book I have does it. So I'm not really inclined to believe it's a problem with printing, but rather simply a fact of things. Ink will smear. There's no such thing as a truly permanent ink. It does suck when it happens to you. But happen it will, sooner or later.

The best way to avoid it is with precaution. Wash and dry your hands thoroughly before handling your books. Avoid touching your face (especially the sides of your nose) while reading. Do your best not to directly touch words and slide your fingers across the page, which is basically begging for the ink to smear.

 

[Riley]

<---Mentions old AD&D Unearthed Arcana then wanders off muttering under his breath and feeling old.

1st ed Unearthed Arcana - now that was a crappily built book. Pages falling out, and all that.

My PHB has slightly wavy page edges, but otherwise my 4e books are just fine. Also, the waviness is already better today than it was yesterday.

Yesterday was so humid that the front cover of one my paperback perfect-bound books (not a gaming book) curled up into a friggin' cylinder.

 

[KarinsDad]

Wavy pages are caused by humidity in the paper. Mine are wavy too but when i talked with the product engineer and quality assurance managers about this they said it would settle out and flatten.

As for the paper stock and ink, the ink and paper are the same as we used in 3.5. The smudging can happen and it depends on many factors including the oils and acidity of your hands. We do test for this stuff through our QA process and we found the inks and paper durability was within normal tolerances (but obviously is a bummer if it happens to your books). I have tried the smudge test on books here at my desk (PHBs and KotSF) with my own hands and not had a problem. Could be my body chemistry is fine with the books although the oils on my hands don't like the inks on my car's buttons and several of them that I use often (like the radio on/off ) have smeared ink now.

Other issues like uncut pages, double prints, etc are quality problems and should be returned to the store or contact our CS department about an exchange.

It goes with out saying as with any purchase keep your receipt. You FLGS and our CS team will likely need that.

Yeah, funny when you take it to the mechanic:

"Nothing is wrong."

Sorry Scott, but I doubt you have never seen an issue like this.

Sure, if you hands are perfectly clean and dry, you should be ok.

But, I have never seen this level of smudginess (is that a word?) in a DND core product. I used the 1E PHB, DMG, and MM heavily for 10 years (and had to re-tape 2 our of the 3 edges) and did not get the kind of smear results I am getting immediately in these recent books. Ditto for the 2E, 3E, and 3.5 core and many of the splat books.

I don't buy the corporate line "it's not happening here" when so MANY people are reporting it in the field.

And it's annoying to "keep the receipt" on a one for one trade back. Who expects that a major company which has historically put out good product would suddenly put out a third rate one (paper and ink only, not content)?

Is an Amazon on line record of the purchase good enough?

And what is your company doing to improve the printing process? I think whichever printing company did this to you ripped you off (either that, or you got what you paid for). It's one of the worse quality print jobs I have ever seen. On par with a newspaper with regard to how much it smudges. I know it ticked me off when it happened the first time on my PHB. A section of my feat table is now hard to read. It's so annoying and should be unexceptable to your company.

 

[Warbringer]

It goes with out saying as with any purchase keep your receipt. You FLGS and our CS team will likely need that.

Scott, you're kidding, right?

You're CS department needs a receipt to take care of a QA problem that is clearly a WoTC issue with miscut pages??

Come on

 

[Dice4Hire]

Never had a problem with 3.5 and have not had one with 4E. Maybe others are, but I don't think it is a prevelant as those few are making it out to be.

Maybe a squeaky wheel syndrome?