When did the FAQ lose credibility?

[Fieari]

Pardon me? By definition, the Core Books are 100% accurate. Any and all other rules have to be measured against them. It's the yard stick. The official weights and measures.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Pardon me? By definition, the Core Books are 100% accurate. Any and all other rules have to be measured against them. It's the yard stick. The official weights and measures.

Are you talking about the Core books as printed, or the Core books once errata are taken into consideration?

-Hyp.

 

[Ranger REG]

Are you talking about the Core books as printed, or the Core books once errata are taken into consideration?

Unless otherwise noted, the rulebook is not faulty.

(Of course, it has been otherwise noted too many times, so the above statement is moot.)

 

[Hypersmurf]

Unless otherwise noted, the rulebook is not faulty.

But the existence of errata documents means that the published hard copy you have does not represent the correct rules. Which makes the Core books faulty, unless they've had the corrections pasted over the errors...

-Hyp.

 

[caudor]

I wouldn't say "lost its credibility" but I don't treat it as canon, which I used to, even though I shouldn't have. Expecting one fallible being to answer all the questions about WOTC's new and frequent cash-money grabs, I mean "supplements that enrich the game for all and are always balanced and easy to understand" is preposterous.

I agree. There is only one being that could process all that information and deliver perfect answers every time: Primus The One & The Prime....and he's dead now.
Thank you Orcus

It does not matter to me if the FAQ is 99% or 95% accurate; I only use what I please anyway.

 

[Felon]

I'm pretty sure it was already during Skip's 'reign.' I seem to remember that a few people were relieved to see Skip leave the post of the Sage, and people continue to rail against and pick apart his Rules of the Game articles.

I sent in a fair amount of questions to Skip during his sage advice tenture, and was often amazed at what a sizable chip he had on his shoulder. His replies sometimes contained remarks like "well, I"ll try to answer your question, but since I was the person who wrote the original rules that you clearly find to be so inadequate and unhelpful, I don't think it'll do much good." Very high-strung.

Another thing that you had to understand about Skip's answers was that his goal was to interpret and support the RAW as-is; if you illustrated a scenario where the RAW operated in a counter-intuitive, cumbersome, or flat-out nonsensical manner, Skip did not see it as the sage's job to provide loopholes or exceptions. He wouldn't hesitate to say "yep, that's just how it works" rather than "yeah, you're right, the rule as-written doesn't work well in that situation--handle it this way instead". Some respected that, some didn't.

For instance, a lot of folks think AoO's take away more from the game than they add, and there are certainly a great number of scenarios where they operate in a downright bizarre manner, but they're part of the system and Skip can't back down from being the system's advocate. So questions like "can someone use the Cleave feat after an AoO" or "what would happen if an AoO provoked an AoO, and that AoO in turn provoked an AoO, and both characters have Combat Reflexes" are kind of a no-win scenario. The sage either has to engineer an exception to the RAW, or he has to simply put on a straight face and say "yes, you can blenderize an opponent with extra attacks by having someone herd some blind, sickly kobolds past you".

Not sure how I'd handle it were I in his shoes.

 

[XCorvis]

Pardon me? By definition, the Core Books are 100% accurate. Any and all other rules have to be measured against them. It's the yard stick. The official weights and measures.

You don't have any house rules?

 

[satori01]

But the existence of errata documents means that the published hard copy you have does not represent the correct rules. Which makes the Core books faulty, unless they've had the corrections pasted over the errors...

-Hyp.

This is a very mechanical way of looking at the rules, and I think erronously applies objective real world like criteria to a solely artificial and fabricated rule set. One I guess could say that those who thought the world was flat back in history where playing with the incorrect rule set...and over time the spread of this knowlede was an update, an errata, and the spead of the FAQ.

Problem is I would wager, (and wager heavily) that most gamers, that most groups ,probably do not monitor the FAQ or the Errata very assidously. In a game where all the parties argee, and help create the "reality" is it really fair to say that the small minority that tracks every change to the FAQ is playing "correctly".

Gaming fun will find a way to exist, and most groups will make small adjustments w/o refrencing the FAQ to make their game fun. Rule 0, hardwires that into the rules, for those rules junkies out there that will argrue the rules as if they were physics.

Those people that never bought Races of the Wild, the PHB II, or read the FAQ are blissifully unaware that a myriad of flip flopping has been done on Polymorph/Wildshape. Those same people have probably never ventured over to the WOTC Optimzation boards to create a game breaking polymorph combo. Those groups are playing serenely enough with the RAW.

The FAQ is great for those that need the FAQ, but again I suspect it is a much smaller percentage of gamers than one would think.

I would also suggest the FAQ will not be used by the extreme Experimental Gaming groups. The ones that have embraced D20 fully and have groups with Wookie Totem Ragers, next to an Elven Jedi, next to a AE Giant Warmain, with a Dwarf Aes Sedai thrown in for fun.
That extreme of Rule 0 territory, and I supspect the DM and players of that game are more than comfortable hashing out solutions to thorny problems w/o guidance.

 

[Drowbane]

Pretty much.

Both Skip Williams and Andy Collins give answers without necessarily doing all of the research to see how other books, eratta, etc. previously attempted to answer the question.

When Gygax was writing sage advice, there were a lot less books and his answer was more authoritative.

QFT.

Quite often the FAQs are dead on... but they're not 100% reliable. If I have my doubts about a rule, I go to ENworld and look for Hypersmurf or another of our resident "know it alls".

 

[satori01]

I
Another thing that you had to understand about Skip's answers was that his goal was to interpret and support the RAW as-is; if you illustrated a scenario where the RAW operated in a counter-intuitive, cumbersome, or flat-out nonsensical manner, Skip did not see it as the sage's job to provide loopholes or exceptions. He wouldn't hesitate to say "yep, that's just how it works" rather than "yeah, you're right, the rule as-written doesn't work well in that situation--handle it this way instead". Some respected that, some didn't.

Perception is the key here. I remember many people being upset when Skip did interperet a thorny rule circumstance, (say weapon sizing in 3.5), and yelled bloody murder at his house rulling.

Andy Collins is a better fit for 3.5 Sage, as he seemed the principal leader for the update, and Skip was by that time solely a freelancer at WOTC. I personanly do not think it is the perview of the Sage to offer suggestions as to how to handle implmenting the rules w/o say AOO.
When you go off the map, it is unreasonable to complain to Thomas Guide that they are not showing you the way.

For the record I will say I think Skip was the man for 2e. He was the rule master, and often would provide sensible guidelines for handling uncharted rules interactions for the less defined previous edition.

3.5 has a very well defined baseline of terms, but alot of the rules interact by inference. Skip and Andy have both said, the ruling should be X...but X is stupid, so I suggest ruling it as Y.