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<blockquote data-quote="jelmore" data-source="post: 4353120" data-attributes="member: 56412">Being in customer service is not the same thing as being a mechanic. Have you ever worked a customer service job in your life?Your hypothetical auto mechanic has probably spent a lot of time being trained and educated about his profession, not just on the principles of how a car works but also the ins and outs of specific brands and models. Most customer service are hired for their communication and interpersonal skills; in-depth knowledge of a product or industry would be a perk.I wouldn't know how WotC has their CS department organized, but I would never expect the phone and email jockeys to be 100% proficient with a rules system that, IMO, isn't done yet. Unless the people manning the phones are the same people who are writing the rulebooks -- or breathing the same air as them -- it's going to be difficult to be sure of the intent behind a rule or effect. It's never occurred to me to call WotC's customer service line for help with rules questions, precisely for that reason. I'm more likely to head to Ask the Sage or look for posts from developers on forums.(At the same time, the only reasons you should get different answers to the same question would be errata or a revision to a rule or effect in a later sourcebook. Where I work, we rolled our own internal wiki for just this reason -- so we could make sure we're giving the same answers every time.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jelmore, post: 4353120, member: 56412"] Being in customer service is not the same thing as being a mechanic. Have you ever worked a customer service job in your life? Your hypothetical auto mechanic has probably spent a lot of time being trained and educated about his profession, not just on the principles of how a car works but also the ins and outs of specific brands and models. Most customer service are hired for their communication and interpersonal skills; in-depth knowledge of a product or industry would be a perk. I wouldn't know how WotC has their CS department organized, but I would never expect the phone and email jockeys to be 100% proficient with a rules system that, IMO, [I]isn't done yet[/I]. Unless the people manning the phones are the same people who are writing the rulebooks -- or breathing the same air as them -- it's going to be difficult to be sure of the intent behind a rule or effect. It's never occurred to me to call WotC's customer service line for help with [I]rules questions[/I], precisely for that reason. I'm more likely to head to Ask the Sage or look for posts from developers on forums. (At the same time, the only reasons you should get different answers to the same question would be errata or a revision to a rule or effect in a later sourcebook. Where I work, we rolled our own internal wiki for just this reason -- so we could make sure we're giving the same answers every time.) [/QUOTE]

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