Do you care about quality editing in RPG supplements and press releases?

[Wraith Form]

While poor editing in a press release sounds off warning bells in my head, it's editing in the actually product I worry about. I doubt the editor who worked on the book (if one did) worked on the press release as well.

I was going to say the "actual product," but that would be picking a nit, wouldn't it?

I agree, though--I looked over Mongoose's Bab 5 "Signs and Portents" pre-release PDF. In the designer's comments (a mere two pages, mind you) I saw glaring, abrupt mistakes in grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. In TWO PAGES. And this was just the frikkin' DESIGNER'S NOTES. It made me exceptionally wary of purchasing the book. Lo and behold, after losing the battle against my evil half and buying the book, I found it to be rife with poor editing mistakes.

I also find it difficult to read EN World's reviews when the reviewers can't distinguish between "their", "there" and "they're" (for example). Aggghhh.

Poor grammar, spelling and sentence structure make a written document (book, PDF or game review) difficult to take seriously, as the writer--and worse, the editor--didn't take the time to proof the material. That's just plain slipshod. You wouldn't pay money for a new car that had bad alignment, scratched paint and flat tires, would you?

 

[Wraith Form]

I have to agree with Mr. Cashel, but then again, I'm an editor, too.

I think that there are at least 2 reasons for poor-quality editing in a big-cost production, like a nice core book (or core books)

* A lack of a genuinely fresh pair of eyes reviewing the work. I know that after reading & rereading someting for lord knows how long, some errors are going to slip through the cracks. This is especially true if the editorial dept. of the company is severely understaffed &/or overworked.

* There's a good amount of pressure from the higher-ups in the company to meet a particular publication date, especially if there's a lot of fanfare about the product's release. This could be fine & dandy if things go well, but more likely than not, there'll be delays occuring somewhere in the system--either the authors/editors/artists/people working on the project aren't delivering their workload on time, or there's an issue that causes a setback for the product, bringing about a good amount of rework. Then again, the product could simply require more time to work on than initially envisioned, but the higher-ups aren't very willing to push back the schedule (& thus, pub date) to accomodate this.

I'm very sure there's a lot more reasons why, but these are the first 2 that come to mind. It can be very frustrating for an editor, whose job is to ensure the best quality product possible, to be told to meet quick-approaching deadlines with limited resources and time split amongst several projects. It's even worse when the editorial dept. is understaffed, because that's less people able to contribute time & effort on the product, as well as provide a fresh new perspective that may catch things that the primary editor may have missed in the midst of rewrites, revisions, various versions of different chapters, etc.

As much as I'm interested in the Lord of the Rings RPG, I was a bit hesitant about getting the game (my group really isn't that keen on LotR, esp. after any experience with MERP). After hearing about poor organization and quality issues regarding the book, I'm glad I didn't purchase it at all. Along the same lines, I bought the Marvel Universe RPG only to be disappointed by the inconsistencies within the text. Quality counts, especially when it's for a bound, published, on-the-shelves product that people are paying good money for (don't get me wrong--electronic, online resources should hav ehte same level of quality, but at least an online resource can be easily pulled at the last minute for edits, compared to the very costly action stopping a print run of a book).

So there's my vote--quality counts. I think it's very important--so important that I urge people to "vote" with their buying power, purchasing only products that they want that are of high quality. If the quality's low, then let the sales dwindle away. I'm sure the people who actually physically worked on the product know this, but it's equally important to show the people primarily involved in sales & revenue the impact that poor worksmanship, especially due to poor business planning, has on the bottom line.

Sorry about that--didn't mean to get too preachy, but it's something that's near & dear to my heart (heck, it's my livelihood!). You should see me when it comes to issues of censorship, consistency in writing, & the issues of canon works!

Mind you, I'm sure there are a few errors in this little post right here, but then again, it's a low-budget work with a rushed publication date.

You've expressed my sentiments admirably. Thank you. (I'd kiss you, but I'm a guy and guys don't do that sorta thing on the first date.) (With other guys I mean.) And I *DO* try to express my frustration via not purchasing crap work.

P.S. Point #1 is invalid if the mistake is something a basic, inexpensive word processor (or even a Microsoft product) could catch. To me, that's inexcusable.
(Err, the mistake, not the Microsoft product. Umm, usually not the MS product. Ahh, never mind.)

 

[Wraith Form]

Hmm. I sat and read every single post (even my own) and ironically, a large number of the posts had editing problems..! Interesting..!

Why can't people just do a brief proofread of their posts before hitting that cute little gray "Submit Reply" button?? Why oh why?? Such itchy trigger fingers!

 

[mythusmage]

I took the first option. Rare typos and punctuation glitches are one thing, but rampant typographical errors, spelling mistakes, and grammatical blunders tell me the publisher doesn't care.

In the publishing business a shortage of competent editors is a common thing. Many fiction publishers now expect some self-editing and proofing by the author himself. That way their editors have clean copy to assess rather than the mess they'd otherwise have to handle.

I suspect the problem many RPG publishers have is due to the following factors:

Low standards. Publishers see a need to get product out on the shelves, so they accept material that is weak in execution, poorly edited, and incompetently laid out. The goal being to keep publishing in the hopes that quantity will make up for the lack of quality.

So we get poorly composed prose, graphics swollen pages, and page layout that wastes space along with typeface selection that makes it hard to read what is there.

My advice?

Never use a paragraph/section/chapter/book when a sentence will do.

Take the time to explain something. An item that is clear to you won't, necessarily, be clear to the reader.

Editing can make or break a book. Invest the resources for good editing, it will pay for itself in due time.

No one element of graphics can overwhelm the others or draw attention to itself. Layout, illustration, and typeface must act together to make reading a pleasure. With that in mind some graphics advice.

Justify your margins. Ragged right hand margins are amateur and indicate a lazyness of thought on the part of the publisher.

Indent the first line of a paragraph, with the exception of the first paragraph in a section. This is a better indication of a paragraph's start than a blank space between paragraphs and allows for the elimination of such.

Minimize space between lines of type. Excessive white space between lines of type draws attention to itself and makes reading harder.

Illustrations should complement the prose. Above all, the illustrations should never overpower the prose. Better a single, small black and white illustration that supplements the writing than a large color illo that hides the writing in its shadow (allegorically speaking). To put it another way, if prose and illustration are to share a page then the art should take up no more than half the page.

Pet Peeve Warning: If you must use comic book style art (which most everybody seems to like), do your book in a 'graphic novel' style. This sort of attention grabbing art is ill suited to a prose heavy work such as a rule book. Try more 'subdued' art to illustrate your book on half gnoll dire illithids (for example) As I noted above, the illustrations should complement and 'illustrate' the prose, not overwhelm it.

Choose a typeface, a font that is comfortable to read. Any font that draws attention to itself [cough]Engel[/cough] is just plain wrong.

In short, you want your customer to read your books. So you want to do all you can to make reading those books a pleasure for those customers, keeping in mind the demands RPGs make upon people. If you can find nothing appropriate in the way of illustrations, do it plain text. Good writing and layout with a readable font will make up for the lack of art.

Those are my thoughts on the subject.

 

[Kichwas]

One of the reasons I think there's such a disagreement between gamers and industry over what the price should be is the shoddy, 3rd grade, completely unprofessional editing and research that goes into most RPG work.

I suspect that if I didn't find 10+ pages worth of errata in the average 5 page product I might actually be willing to concede that it was worth what they're trying to charge for it these days.

Sometimes it seems the same guy who used to translate Japanese calculator manuals in 1982 is now doing all the editing for the RPG industry. From what I read and hear in the community, gamers in general are just about fed up over this issue.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

P.S. Point #1 is invalid if the mistake is something a basic, inexpensive word processor (or even a Microsoft product) could catch. To me, that's inexcusable.
(Err, the mistake, not the Microsoft product. Umm, usually not the MS product. Ahh, never mind.)

Very true, but even software can fail. A word processor's spell check will register "form" and "from" as correct spellings, even though the sentence should read "The orcs came from the caverns." but instead reads "The orcs came form the caverns."

And, a grammar check can mess up, too. It can try to force a verb tense change when the verb's tense is actually correct. For example (for example's sake only--see note below), "The dwarf from the vast mountain ranges runs to the door." A grammar checker may try to force a tense change from "runs" to "run," pairing up the verb "runs" with the plural object "mountain ranges" (from the preceding propositional phrase) rather than with the singular noun "dwarf."

(BTW, I tested this with my word processor, & this specific example didn't work--checked out OK. However, this is merely a simplified example: with sentences that have extremely complex or unique construction, &/or if the sentence uses atypical terminology, this becomes an issue.)

I say this because I know the "joy" of being burned by relying on software tools for basic editing from time to time. Find & replace doesn't always find & replace everything in the document; spell-checkers may flag every instance of an atypical name but miss a correctly-spelled mistake (ala form/from); and the grammar checker may skip over the use of a "from" when it should have actually been an "in" or a "of."

Technology sure has made it easier for people to work on documents and correct them, but it sure has made it easier for people to screw up, too.

 

[Marius Delphus]

As a tyrannical curmudgeon in these matters, I experience pangs of despair whenever I encounter glaring grammar or usage errors in written works. These make it quite difficult for me to enjoy a book that's not fairly well executed, mechanically. I tend to go easy on message board posts, e-mails, instant messages, and what have you, but I have a habit of scrutinizing the books (and, lately, PDFs, even if that might be slightly less "fair" somehow ) I read for mistakes while taking in their content.

So I voted accordingly.

 

[BSF]

If the content is stellar, I can accomodate editing errors. However, poor editing on press releases, or in product content if I am "flipping the pages" is a warning signal to me. It is enough a warning signal that if I am trying to decide between two products, I will generally choose the one that seems to have gone through better editing.

 

[Hackenslash]

Get it right first time....they have enough money !!!!

I voted for presentation, as with the 3.5 DnD Books, they were a disgrace, very badly edited and way too many mistakes, it's almost as if they got Non-Gamers to edit the books who did not have a clue about the game. Also there were some typos and other grammer errors. I do not have a lot of tollerence for poor presentation, if they want my money, they should make a better effort to get it right first time. However, having said all of that, I still bought all three 3.5 core rule books, so I suppose it depends on how badly you want the product. It's a shame that maybe developers take advantage of this fact and produce poorly edited work, knowing that the public will still buy it. [sighs !!]

However on a more positive note, I suppose a newer company with less money could be excused for poor editing and I would tend to give them more of a break. Just my 2 cents...Cheers All.

 

[Arnwyn]

Why can't people just do a brief proofread of their posts before hitting that cute little gray "Submit Reply" button?? Why oh why?? Such itchy trigger fingers!

Uh... it's a D&D internet messageboard. If you're expecting sparkling and eloquent dissertations, you sure as hell aren't going to find it here.

(Not that I'm defending bad grammar and unreadable posts. But your expectations may be a bit... um... ridiculous.)

As for edited products - I value those highly, unless they're free (in which I don't expect much). But if I'm paying for it...