Do publishers fear the John Cooper review?

[Frilf]

Anyone concerned with doing a good job will look forward to a John Cooper review with a bit of fear and trepidation. After all, he is truly the King of Nitpickers - and that's a good thing, IMHO - a very good thing. We've been able to make our products much, much tighter just by reading his reviews. Sure, we edit, slave and worry away, but his reviews and keen eye tend to catch all the little stuff that sometimes slips through the cracks anyway.

In brief: Yes, he's a nitpicker. Yes, he can be brutal. Yes, he airs out your dirty laundry for the entire universe to see. But I like him and respect him. I look forward to his reviews because they alert me to things I should look for in future releases. He's a litmus test for us to see how well we're doing! Keep up the great work, John!

BTW, Tavis Allison is right. We're all a little egotistical or we wouldn't publish in the first place. So everyone should go buy Behemoth3's stirge book and read the obscure reference to one of our templates therein - then go buy our book containing said template

 

[Darrin Drader]

Yes, I dislike it when an RPG book is riddled with typos, grammar mistakes, poor punctuation, and the like, and I make sure to include how well the book does in that regard in my reviews as well. I've never bought into the theory that these are "just" game books and thus should be held to a lower standard; a printed product is a printed product (ditto with PDFs, in my mind), and the rules of the English language are as important to me as the d20 rules.

I'll completely agree with this. Nothing bothers me more than when I'm reading through a gaming book and I find these types of mistakes. It distracts me from absorbing the information. I completely understand how they happen, but isn't that what editing is for?

Speaking of which, there was one book I worked on (and no, I'm not saying which one) that is painful for me to read because of exactly these types of issues. It isn't that the ideas are bad, IMHO, which is probably why it actually did rather well with the reviewers, but I spotted all kinds of issues with the text I wrote after it was in print. This includes clumsiness in the working, split infinitives, and using the passive voice. It irks me that it made it through editing this way, but it irks me even more than I didn't take responsibility for the edited text before it went to print and correct the remaining issues. Strangely, this isn't something that made it into any of the reviews, but it does bother me.

Of course I am not one to be happy with less than acceptable work. I am a perfectionist, and that is why issues like the one above are like an open wound that has become infected. The next time I did a project for this publisher, I went through the "final" manuscript after it had come back from editing, and I recommended about 2 pages worth of changes. I have a much easier time looking at that book that I do the first one.

 

[Vocenoctum]

<snip>Dweomercraft: Familiars<snip>

You will note that he did a review of our last product released. I liked the result of his detailed analysis... even though he didn't get us a fantastic score. I believe it was 3/5. I chose to accept that as a sample of his work, and hired him on.

Could you have him look at the description for Familiar? That first paragraph hurts my brain.

 

[Ed Cha]

Ed Cha: I hope you don't feel that I fall into the category of reviewer you mentioned!

No, I was talking about someone else.

 

[Psion]

No, I was talking about someone else.

That's the danger of not being clear who you are talking about. People you weren't talking about feel acused.

To dispel any confusion: I'm fairly certain that it's me he has a grudge against for daring to grade a product differently that other reviewers. Ah well, won't be the first, won't be the last.

 

[Ed Cha]

That's the danger of not being clear who you are talking about. People you weren't talking about feel acused.

To dispel any confusion: I'm fairly certain that it's me he has a grudge against for daring to grade a product differently that other reviewers. Ah well, won't be the first, won't be the last.

You're entitled to your own interpretation, Psion. No further comment since this is certainly veering off-topic.

 

[Ghostwind]

As an example, a publisher I won't name has released an update to 3.5 of a very popular book. I was very excited about it, and was going to buy it sight unseen (my FLGS does not carry it). However, in an ad for it in one of the gaming magazines, they used the word "then" when they should have used the word "than." I was totally turned off, and will not buy the book for fear that more such errors lurk within.

In defense of the un-named publisher, this could be an error on the part of the typesetter for the magazine who has to do the layout of the text and ads. Just something to think about...

 

[Desdichado]

I'll completely agree with this. Nothing bothers me more than when I'm reading through a gaming book and I find these types of mistakes. It distracts me from absorbing the information. I completely understand how they happen, but isn't that what editing is for?

Gah! Whisperfoot, you do realize that some of us use different skins, right? That color completely disappears on the PHB skin.

 

[RangerWickett]

2. To evert the fear, he does proofreading on some of our products. He rocks. We are hiring him on for the E.N.World Gamer also as our proofreader.

First, you misspelled 'avert.'

Second, . . . he's going to be proofreading the magazine? Hmm. Well I guess that cuts down my workload a bit. *grin*

 

[eyebeams]

I enjoy Cooper's rules detail. Stuff like the MM3 editorials on monster ecologies and such is what I don't care for, because for the most part, the idea of a plausible ecologies and physiologies for most fantasy creatures is unnecessary and would fall apart for pretty much anything.

I'm generally suspicious of the idea of a "rules guru," to boot, 'cause frankly, some o' y'all (though not most or all) are frontin'. Some of the discussions about what constitutes a proper D20 implementation are highly contentious. Mind you, if somebody doesn't have a grasp of game design, they shouldn't necessarily even give writing something a go and I don't mean to say that this makes every change something a reviewer can't spot as a potential problem.

What concerns me is whether or certain perceived orthodoxies are actually inherent to what makes an implementation work or whether they're simply handed down. I just finished writing an extremely unorthodox XP and skill system (including skills that replace BAB and saves -- something that would be a *huge* mistake is not for a few specific systems on the side) for something I'm working on and have some doubts as to whether it would really get a fair shake.

What's really important is to have a guy just look over the math (and, if a D&D port, check against the core). Other issues are part of any ddecent editorial process and still can't account foir things like transfer errors in production, which account for a non-trivial number of problems.