D&D 4E Will errata ever be incorporated in 4E books?

[Jhaelen]

Waiting for errata to be incorporated in printed books is hardly the unreasonable or unwise choice you're trying to paint it as (after all, I'm paying money for these things). Besides, you've missed an option — it's not a question of making due with a crippled product or going without. I can choose to purchase and support other products that do incorporate errata or that don't need much of it to begin with (which is what I've done). I haven't been without. I've been playing other games. In other words: the problem that you mention? I don't have it.

Except you do have the problem, even if you're not aware of it!

Providing errata is an ongoing process. You'll never get a version of the books that is 'final', i.e. free of anything that might still require errata.

It's like saying "I'll buy this software product once it's free of bugs."

Since software will never be free of bugs (and even if it was, it would be impossible to prove it!), you'll end up never buying the software product.

You're saying "But there are software companies providing service backs for their software". Sure, but that doesn't mean that the software won't require additional service packs in the future.

And all of this is even less practicable for print media. Even if they did a new print run including errata after every round of errata who'd buy the same books again and again? This way lies madness.

 

[jdrakeh]

Except you do have the problem, even if you're not aware of it!

You have, twice now, asserted that my only options are to play D&D 4e as-is or not game at all. As I clearly indicate, while I wait for the errata to be incorporated, I play other games. The reality is that I'm not limited to playing only D&D 4e or not gaming at all. Again, that problem? I. Don't. Have. it. I play other games. I honestly don't know how how much more clear I can be.

As to your rebuttal of points I never raised. . .

I've never claimed that I want all errata to be perpetually incorporated into printed D&D 4e books, nor have I claimed that I am waiting for a "final" revision of the rules. That's unrealistic. I know that. That said, there is quite a bit of errata right now and expecting at least that to be incorporated into the printed books isn't unreasonable (especially when, as noted, WotC has done this for other game lines and past editions of D&D).

Am I waiting for a substantially better version of the printed rules? Yes. Am I waiting for a 100% flawless version? No.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I suspect that at least the Essential Lines at the end of this year will have all errata incorporated. Of course, they are new books so there shouldn't be any problems with existing layouts or some such.

Didn't they say the Deluxe versions of the Core books would contain errata, or did this not happen (either they didn't say or they didn't do?).

I am still amused by the way one could "errata" the DM screen - print out this PDF, cut out this table, and glue it over the table on the screen. It works great.

 

[jdrakeh]

Didn't they say the Deluxe versions of the Core books would contain errata, or did this not happen (either they didn't say or they didn't do?).

They did contain errata, but very little of it (as most of the current errata was actually issued after the deluxe versions were printed). This was discussed a little earlier in the thread. Some people (myself included) wish they hadn't released the deluxe versions so quickly after the game's debut but, rather, held off like they did on the 3x deluxe versions so that more errors could be uncovered and corrected.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

As to your rebuttal of points I never raised. . .

I've never claimed that I want all errata to be perpetually incorporated into printed D&D 4e books, nor have I claimed that I am waiting for a "final" revision of the rules. That's unrealistic. I know that. That said, there is quite a bit of errata right now and expecting at least that to be incorporated into the printed books isn't unreasonable (especially when, as noted, WotC has done this for other game lines and past editions of D&D).

Am I waiting for a substantially better version of the printed rules? Yes. Am I waiting for a 100% flawless version? No.

Actually, you kinda did raise those points. One of the issues is that you're not really clarifying "how much is too much"? Some of the 4e books have several pages of errata, some have very little. So at what point is something "too much", or at what point is it a "substantially better" version? Are you saying that you won't play until the entire edition has new books that between them only eventually end up with 1 page of errata? If so, I (and others like Jhaelen) think that's probably unrealistic.

In the meantime though, they've also changed the way that they've one their errata. It's now all in one giant PDF with new changes and old ones, and it's formatted similar to the pages in the books so that one could easily just print it off, cut it out and then paperclip (or if you're really craty, tape/glue it) to the relevant pages. This allows you to have the books and have all the errata handy and attached to the relevant pages it effects. Were you aware of this feature?

 

[eriktheguy]

The DDI vs print issue is why I don't buy books anymore (now that I have a DDI subscription). My brother still buys them all (he gets store credit at the place he works). Anyways, I'm a 'do everything on my computer' sort of guy, and I'm hoping that 5e leans more towards the digital side of things. I've been completely thrilled with the incorporation of errata into DDI and I love the character builder and what the adventure tools are shaping up to be.

I'm hoping that 5e is primarily digital with a 'physical book' option. Remember how WotC eased us into point buy with 3e and then made it the default in 4e? They're sneaky. Hopefully this digital trend they started continues into future editions.

They were new at marketing digital when they started their company, and they could definitely look at existing business models as an example. PDFs were a bad idea for Wizards (great idea for pirates). There are secure ways to market digital products online (systems like steam are making embarrassing amounts of money).

I did some research and even recent releases of DDI are harder to pirate than they used to be (I don't condone piracy, I pay for my subscription).

So once Wizards gets the hang of this 'internet' thing, I don't expect errata to be too much of a future problem.

The question is, will they be able to implement major math fixes for issues like expertise?

 

[Jhaelen]

Am I waiting for a substantially better version of the printed rules? Yes. Am I waiting for a 100% flawless version? No.

That sounds more reasonable.

Maybe you'll find what you're looking for in the forthcoming Rules Compendium, then.

 

[bagger245]

I'm hoping that 5e is primarily digital with a 'physical book' option. Remember how WotC eased us into point buy with 3e and then made it the default in 4e? They're sneaky. Hopefully this digital trend they started continues into future editions.

I can understand from a crunch point of view that having it online is better in terms of rules update, but for fluff and adventures, I still like them printed. Also, if D&D books cease to be, their presence especially in gameshops or online shops will be less. Promoting D&D as mainly a software based tabletop rules will somehow make it compete with crpgs instead of print rpgs and we all know isn't going to go well. The current model is good imo.

 

[Nifft]

I can understand from a crunch point of view that having it online is better in terms of rules update, but for fluff and adventures, I still like them printed.

That sounds like a pretty ideal separation of content types.

I'd love it if all the games I played published their crunch in a digital, updated version and sold books full of pretty pictures surrounded by flavor text and setting details.

Cheers, -- N