Editing Whine

[satori01]

I understand completely.

I laughed so hard when I read this. My wife looked at me strangely and asked what was so funny, I couldnt even begin to succinctly explain.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

There's also the issue of "return on investment." Few RPG books make such an amazing amount of profit that there's money to put into more rounds of editing.

I don't understand this. Competent editing shouldn't be considered optional for any kind of book.

It doesn't matter if it is a technical manual, work of fiction or a rulebook.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

You may be a whiner, but I'm a boozer.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I don't understand this. Competent editing shouldn't be considered optional for any kind of book.

It doesn't matter if it is a technical manual, work of fiction or a rulebook.

He was replying to my idea about multiple editors. The best any RPG company will have is probably only one paid editor, not counting the designer(s) and playtesters. From experience, playtesters don't do any editing and, more importantly, are encouraged not to do any editing. And, since it's really hard to edit your own work, that leaves one person. IMO, that's insufficient, but having more is probably not worth the ROI.

 

[jdrakeh]

I'd love to see better editing or, at the very least, more proofreading in products. In the last four years I've gotten very picky about RPG purchases due to what I perceive as a nearly industry wide decrease in thorough editing and proofreading standards. I can think of only one company whose products I've purchased in the last year that impressed me with their lack of errata and overall lack of copy and paste errors.

Some rather prominant publishers confirmed that this perception was not wholly without merit in numerous threads on RPGnet, stating that many publishers no longer invest in multiple editing passes or dedicated proofreaders due to the fact that consumers continue to purchase products despite the lack thereof. I really dislike this line, and part of me wants to scream that it's nothing but an excuse for publishing crap... but...

To be perfectly fair, I can't disagree with this rationale. Why would I, as a publisher, ever want to spend money on something that doesn't noticably increase my sales per annum? Similarly, why would I want to spend money on something that my books manage to sell without? From a business standpoint, I can't fault the logic. At all. It makes perfect sense. Which makes me realize...

My real gripe isn't with publishers who fail to implement high editing or proofreading standards, but with the consumers who continue to throw money at horribly edited, error-riddled, products. These consumers are the reason that the marketing rationale of 'Why bother?' exists in the first place. Vote with your wallet - quit sending the message to publishers that crap is acceptable.

For god's sake, folks - if it's crap, don't buy it!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Wish it was just WoTC. Other companies are rarely any better. I love the Wilderlands but man, they flubbed most of the monster stats using 3.0 rules instead of 3.5. Probably a result of the long delay and all. Thankfully the monsters are just a small part of that, but in tandum with the map errors...

That's another interesting thing. The product could be a top of the line collectors item of a 32 page adventure. It seems that the editing gets the same amount of work regardless. Sad really.

 

[Davelozzi]

My editing pet peeve is when descriptions in the text don't match the maps.

A recent example that suffered from some map/text disconnect was "Murder in Oakbridge" in the last issue of Dungeon. It was clear that after they had Rob Lazretti redraw the neighborhood, the various locations were all assigned spots on the map by someone who wasn't even looking at the text. For example, if I remember correctly, a few locations are described in the text as free-standing buildings, or having courtyards, or whatever, but on the map, each appears to be part of one Sharn's giant towers.

A related problem is giving the wrong directions. Mixing up east and west is very common, and in the 2e days, it seemed like there was about a 50% chance it would be wrong. Things are better now, but there are still problems. This seems to happen especially frequently when maps are not oriented with North at the top, which is always a mistake in my opinion. Dungeon seems to be doing this with increasing frequency lately.

Despite the fact that I cite Dungeon in both halfs of the complaint, I don't mean to single them out. In fact, I think that overall they do an excellent job. If anything, the reason I'm catching more mistakes there is because that's where I'm doing most of my adventure reading these days.

 

[JimAde]

While I understand that paying extra editors might not be worthwhile, I'm certain you could find competent proofreaders who would be willing to work for free product.

I can think of at least one right off the top of my head...

On a big project you could get a small cadre of them (5 or 10 maybe) and probably catch the vast majority of mistakes of the type described in the OP.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

Heck, I would work for free product. I buy almost everything from WotC, Malhavoc, and Green Ronin ANYWAY...

 

[jdrakeh]

While I understand that paying extra editors might not be worthwhile, I'm certain you could find competent proofreaders who would be willing to work for free product.

Some publishers do, in fact, do this (I've worked in this capacity for at least two different publishers).

On a big project you could get a small cadre of them (5 or 10 maybe) and probably catch the vast majority of mistakes of the type described in the OP.

I agree.