Slashdot reviews 30 years of Adventure

[Mallus]

I dunno, I loved the essay from Sherman Alexie...

Sherman Alexie?!

"The Lone Ranger and Tonto Told People They Were Fistfighting in Heaven but Really They Were in Their Parents Basement Pretending to Be Elves"?

Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. Twenty times cooler than Vin Diesel...

 

[HiLiphNY]

Agree with all the above - I own it, and man is she ugly. Some good tidbits here and there, but overall, a miss. Good for nightime reading when I am having trouble getting to sleep. . . . glad I (Only?!?!?!) paid $32 for it. Sheesh.

 

[woodelf]

Man, with that poor an editing job, you'd think it was a non WOTC d20 product...

No, I mean Non-WOTC.

While people have pointed out rules inconsistancies in some WOTC books (skill points don't add up, etc.), I can pick up any module/book by AEG, Necromancer, etc., and immediately spot BAD mispellings, duplicated sentences, etc. that anyone who actually took a minute to READ the manuscript could have found. And we're talking about horrendous errors on practically every other page. It's sad, really.

Then say that. WotC books are pretty poorly edited. There may be other companies that are worse--i don't generally buy anything from the ones you've listed, and none of the companies that i buy from on a regular basis are that bad. And, more importantly, none of the RPG companies i buy from on a regular basis are as poorly edited as WotC. And that's before i hold WotC to a higher standard, because they've got the big bucks to do it right. Compared to Atlas, frex, WotC books look downright sloppy. So saying "non-WotC companies" and lumping them all together is just silly, at best. [I just transcribed a single section from Unearthed Arcana, just over a page long, and had to fix at least 3 obvious typos as i went. And that completely ignores some poor organizational, structural, or grammatical choices, which i wasn't inclined to clean up for a players' handout.] But i may be a bit biased: editing and layout aside, i haven't seen a single thing from WotC that i wanted to buy since they owned Ars Magica. Even when my primary RPing is D&D.

Now, back to the real point: man, i'm disappointed at the poor editing, and hope that the SlashDot review is overly harsh. I'll probably still buy it because (1) i'm a sucker for anything about RPGs (as opposed to for RPGs) and (2) i've got a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble, so that plus the cheap online price at BN.com makes it more acceptable.

...
ok, i've read the review now. Yeesh. I expected typical WotC graphic design. Which is to say, questionable-bordering-on-crappy. This sounds like they cranked the "poor design decisions" dial up to 11. That's really disappointing.

Yep, further examples of grammar going in the toilet: i'm really getting sick of people that don't know the difference between parantheses and brackets in direct quotes, don't understand the difference between compound and multiple adjectives or adverbs, and don't know how to use commas in a series. Check that--don't know how to use commas, period. And these are just things i picked up in the quoted excerpts, not even necessarily the things the reviewer is highlighting or complaining about.

From the summary of the review: "This book does not make me want to celebrate Dungeons & Dragons. It makes me frustrated and sort of angry that this sloppy product was foisted off on us. So much more could have been done, and so much better." You know, i guess i'm not that surprised--that was pretty much my reaction to D&D3E, and then D&D3.5E: so much more could have been done, and so much better. Which has pretty much set the tone of my expectations for WotC products for the last few years: i expect to be disappointed. Oh well, like i said--it'll effectively cost me $15, so i'll probably buy it. I've got all but a couple of the books ever written about RPGs, and even a couple books and articles never really published--i'm a bit obsessive that way.