Delta Green D20 is an unedited mess

[talien]

I love Delta Green.

But the d20 conversion is a slap in the face. 99% of the book is just fine...it's the d20 entries that are horribly mangled. This single example sums it up, although there are more (from page 243-244). Please note, THIS IS TYPED VERBATIM. I did not create these typos!

Mi-Go Tech
Electric Gun:

D20 CoC Stats
It does 1d10 damage plus the victim must make two fortitude savings throws. The first (DC 12) determines whether the charachter's nervous system is overloaded, resulting in instant death. The second (DC 20) determines whether the charachter's

[Continued on next page]

to hit a target. The secondary effects only affect natural creatures (humans and animals).
The electric gun can be fired twice per round, unless it is low on energy. It carries an unlimited charge as long as it is fed

fresh meat regularly. The more it's used, the more voracious it becomes. Eventually it will attack anyone who picks it up. If not fed for six days, the "gun" dies and disolves.

The "gun" will fire two times a round when recently fed. After 5 uses it will fire once every round. After 10 more uses it fires once every two rounds. After ten more uses it will fire once every three rounds, and after two more uses.

The "gun" will fire two times a round when recently fed. After 5 uses it will fire once every round. After 10 more uses it fires once every two rounds. After ten more uses it will fire once every three rounds, and after two more uses it will attack whoever is wielding it.

So to recap:

• Fortitude is lower case.
• "savings throws"? I thought it was "saving throws."
• It's spelled CHARACTER!
• What happened between page 243 and 244?
• There's a space in the middle of the paragraph.
• It's DISSOLVES.
• You either spell out ten or you write 10 -- and which is it, does it fire once every two rounds or once every three rounds after ten more uses.
• Not to mention the repetitive sentence at the end.

Was the editor/author not fluent in English?

Some typos I can understand. But this is like a sucking black hole of editing mistakes formed in the center of the DG book and dragged all the other sentences into it. I'm even more offended because the book is so beautiful, and I have this monstrosity sitting in the middle of it.

What really gets my goat is that all the non-D20 entries are edited just fine. So we know they CAN do a good job of editing. This D20 version feels like the stats were slapped in there without any oversight.

Seriously guys. For shame.

 

[Henry]

Was the publisher Chaosium, by chance? Or was it contracted out? I know we've seen consistently poor love for d20 in the past from Chaosium, but I was thinking this was done by another company under license from them...

 

[Roudi]

You're bothered by the shoddy editing... but it's the mechanics that are scaring me in this little example. What's this business about the gun firing two times a round, then once a round, then once every other round, etc? What in heck is this mechanics supposed to accomplish? Not to mention, with the way it's worded, it sounds as if the gun's wielder has zero control over whether the gun fires or not.

 

[talien]

Was the publisher Chaosium, by chance? Or was it contracted out? I know we've seen consistently poor love for d20 in the past from Chaosium, but I was thinking this was done by another company under license from them...

Pagan Publishing. I love their work too, which is why it aggravates me so much that D20 got treated so poorly.

 

[talien]

There's a couple of other points I didn't even address, like the mechanics.

For example, in the original BRP version of the rules for this gun, it says the victim dies OR can be knocked unconscious if the GM is feeling kind. Apparently the D20 version is just more lethal (that seems to be rather telling about how the authors feel about D20, but whatever).

And you're right, the gun is actually a living organism, so it's not really under a normal human's control anyway (it's made for Mi-Go). I don't consider the concept of the gun or the description to be particularly challenging, but the outrageous number of typos, spelling errors, inconsistencies, and all-around lack of attention paid to this entry alone really drags the book down.

There are others, but this was by far the worst. It's also interesting that nobody's pointed out how atrocious the d20 part was handled in any of the reviews I've read of the book. I get the impression the majority of consumers are not using the D20 material anyway and are just grateful to own the book in any form.

This thing took years to produce, right? Shouldn't the editing on the d20 entries (which, proportionately, are much smaller than the rest of the book) be pristine as a result?

I know, I know, I'm talking crazy talk. But man. This is really bad.

 

[Pbartender]

You're bothered by the shoddy editing... but it's the mechanics that are scaring me in this little example. What's this business about the gun firing two times a round, then once a round, then once every other round, etc? What in heck is this mechanics supposed to accomplish? Not to mention, with the way it's worded, it sounds as if the gun's wielder has zero control over whether the gun fires or not.

It's a poor way of saying that the gun's rate of fire slows down if you don't feed it regularly.

 

[Garnfellow]

No question that the passage you've cited is an editing atrocity on oh so many levels, but your thread title is just a tad bit hysterical and somewhat misleading, don't you think?

I'll take your word that many of the d20 mechanical pieces are awful. If your cited passage is somehow representational of the other d20 sidebars, that's completely unacceptable and I'll gladly join you on the barricades.

But come on, the d20 mechanical sidebars are a pretty small part and of the whole book. I've been reading through everything BUT the mechanics and the editing of what I've read has been pretty good, if not excellent.

But this thread title makes it sound like the whole danged book is screwed up worse than the first printing of Mongoose's Conan book, which was probably the d20 low tide mark for editing.

 

[Henry]

But this thread title makes it sound like the whole danged book is screwed up worse than the first printing of Mongoose's Conan book, which was probably the d20 low tide mark for editing.

If the whole book is like that, I'd agree.

One question: Is the rest of the book pretty much the same as the original Delta Green work from eight years ago? Is it pretty much a reprint with the d20 info added, or does it contain extra material? I owned the original, and while it's a great campaign setting, it didn't grab me emotionally, and I couldn't see running a regular campaign of it. My gaming group just aren't X-files fans.

 

[trancejeremy]

It's just the original version with d20 stuff added, as Talien pointed out, fairly badly done. Honestly though, this was expected, because it seems obvious that the people writing the d20 stuff in the book didn't know anything about d20. And since CoC d20 isn't even in print anymore, I actually got the impression they just left the d20 stuff in because they didn't want to take it out, not that it was really relevent any more.

They also accidently left out MJ-9 (I guess they had to redo the layout of the book to make room for the d20 stuff), but that was only a couple paragraphs.

 

[Remus Lupin]

Uh-oh, I just pre-ordered the shiny new extra special edition yesterday. I've got the old version. Is there anythink extra in the new version worth having, or should I cancel my order?