Kaptain_Kantrip
First Post
JoeGKushner said:
LOL, heaven forbid a customer actually visits their website and finds a current product listing!
AEG: Have you ever thought about EDITING your products?
- Thread starter Kaptain_Kantrip
- Start date
LOL, heaven forbid a customer actually visits their website and finds a current product listing!
Psion
Adventurer
Kaptain_Kantrip said:
Me too. I know some of the one word books have problems, but these are the least error prone. Dragons has neat exposition, but rules stuff I would never ever use in my game. I like some ideas in Dungeon and Undead (except for the daft excuses for skipping save advancement for some of the classes. Yes, even undead need a fortitude save.) I am especially fond of the stuff by Mike Mearls and Eric Steiger.
Evil has a few good ideas, but is the worst put together of the books. The organization makes no sense at all.
Shawn Carman
Explorer
I work for AEG in a couple of capacities. I'm on a regular stipend to develop material for the L5R CCG, and I'm a freelancer on the Legend of the Five Rings/Rokugan line as well as some other RPG books in the Spycraft and "Topic" lines. I only mention this so that you can appreciate my point of view on the subject.
When I turn in a manuscript to AEG, I get a lot of communication from the particular editor that I work with. He emails me with questions and requests for more information or for me to finesse the material somewhat to bring it more in line with something another author has put elsewhere in the book. I never cease to be amazed at the depth and detail my editor goes to in his evaluations of the work.
So yes, they certainly do edit the books. I suspect the problems you're pointing out are at least partially a result of the low staff - to - product ratio at AEG. Although people tend to think of them as a big company, they're really not all that large in terms of staff.
Make of all this what you will. I just wanted to chime in on the subject, however briefly.
Shawn Carman
L5R Story Team
When I turn in a manuscript to AEG, I get a lot of communication from the particular editor that I work with. He emails me with questions and requests for more information or for me to finesse the material somewhat to bring it more in line with something another author has put elsewhere in the book. I never cease to be amazed at the depth and detail my editor goes to in his evaluations of the work.
So yes, they certainly do edit the books. I suspect the problems you're pointing out are at least partially a result of the low staff - to - product ratio at AEG. Although people tend to think of them as a big company, they're really not all that large in terms of staff.
Make of all this what you will. I just wanted to chime in on the subject, however briefly.
Shawn Carman
L5R Story Team
OaxacanWarrior
First Post
I bought AEG's Dragon a while ago and the sloppy thrown together style and editing of it has turned me off of their one word supplements even though I find some of the ideas very intriguing. I now plan to wait until another d20 company comes out with a similar book like Mongoose's Slayers Guide to Dragons or to Undead or WOTC's Book of Vile Darkness.
Kaptain_Kantrip
First Post
I appreciate hearing from you, Shawn, and while you say the editor (I'm guessing jim pinto?) performs an in depth evaluation of the work he receives, there is a massive number of mistakes carried over from the raw manuscript to the final, published product in nearly all of AEG's d20 products... Again, Rokugan and Spycraft excepted. The problem with Rokugan and Spycraft is AEG clearly shows they are more than capable of creating brilliant, gorgeous, properly edited books, then drops the ball on their other products. The one word and Swashbuckling Adventures books are clearly rushed, written by way too many authors all working in the dark as to what the others are doing, and the art and editing are extremely sloppy by comparison to Rokugan and Spycraft. I understand there is a low staff to product ratio, and AEG isn't as "big" as we might think based on their rather high profile, but proper editing is really IMPORTANT to the continued success and growth of the company.
IMO, AEG needs to reprioritize the editing of its books to include all of its d20 product lines. I'm not the only one complaining about it, either. A quick vote here or any online RPG forum would show that an overwhelming majority of gamers are fed up with the sloppy editing of AEG's d20 products, and that the continued sloppiness has caused many gamers to turn away from buying their products, because they simply cannot trust them to be properly edited and "rules kosher".
I want to make it clear that many of us (myself included) firmly believe that AEG has a VERY talented pool of freelance writers working for them (Mike Mearls, Kevin Wilson, Patrick Kapera, etc.), and this clearly shows in the great ideas presented in their products, but many of these ideas are not uniformly followed through with to make them playable--at least not without a certain amount of tweaking and guess work on the DM's part that shouldn't be there to begin with. I'm not talking about a quick individualized house ruling that AEG could not possibly plan for, I'm talking about rules that either are not clearly defined/converted, omitted entirely or are just plain broken and confusing to begin with. That's very bad, indeed.
I really like AEG's products---I've bought most of them, and I've always found some useful crunchy bits inside, despite all the glaring goofs---but AEG REALLY, REALLY need to professionally edit their books. I can't stress that enough!
IMO, AEG needs to reprioritize the editing of its books to include all of its d20 product lines. I'm not the only one complaining about it, either. A quick vote here or any online RPG forum would show that an overwhelming majority of gamers are fed up with the sloppy editing of AEG's d20 products, and that the continued sloppiness has caused many gamers to turn away from buying their products, because they simply cannot trust them to be properly edited and "rules kosher".
I want to make it clear that many of us (myself included) firmly believe that AEG has a VERY talented pool of freelance writers working for them (Mike Mearls, Kevin Wilson, Patrick Kapera, etc.), and this clearly shows in the great ideas presented in their products, but many of these ideas are not uniformly followed through with to make them playable--at least not without a certain amount of tweaking and guess work on the DM's part that shouldn't be there to begin with. I'm not talking about a quick individualized house ruling that AEG could not possibly plan for, I'm talking about rules that either are not clearly defined/converted, omitted entirely or are just plain broken and confusing to begin with. That's very bad, indeed.
I really like AEG's products---I've bought most of them, and I've always found some useful crunchy bits inside, despite all the glaring goofs---but AEG REALLY, REALLY need to professionally edit their books. I can't stress that enough!
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Anyone know when errata or 2nd edition will be coming?
Ranger REG
Explorer
So, who is the editor(s) and/or proofreader(s) for Spycraft? He, she, or they should be given a public praise.
Who is the editor(s) and/or proofreaders(s) for other AEG books? He, she, or they should be given a public criticism to do better.
Who is the editor(s) and/or proofreaders(s) for other AEG books? He, she, or they should be given a public criticism to do better.
Wikidogre
First Post
As for thier one word books, i like em, Gods sucked and so did Monsters, but i was able to pick-up a copy of Mercenaries at Origins, the thing that its thicker the the PHB, almost the size of the ELH. i was almost certain that the thing would be full of all kinds of errata, but i only found minor issues, and misspelled words. all in all, it was much better done that most of thier books. so when it hits the shelves i do promote it!
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