Don't know if this was mentioned yet, but I had the Dungeon Crawl Classics book for a while.  I thought the book was great, but one complaint I had was that the sentences went right into the gutter of the book (if that's the correct term).  Made reading more difficult than it should have been for me.

Quote from: The Butcher;722167Thanks. I somehow missed that.

In any case, a +Str +Dex sylvan elf race for 4e would make some amazing melee-oriented Ranger. Pity WotC missed that.

Yep-Starting from AD&D 1e when they started getting actual stat bonuses, Wood elves have had + Strength, in the Unearthed Arcana book when they introduced the sub-races to the primary races. (They also had Wild Elves/Grugach in that, which I think were actually a +2 instead of a +1, which was pretty big shit back in those days.)  

2e you'll find it in the book of Elves when they describe the sub-races(I don't blame you for shoving that one out of memory. ) 3x they showed up in the FR book/MM Core Rulebook with other sub-race rules. (They were adjusted between 3 and 3.5, they had a Charisma negative along with the Con and Int minuses in 3, in 3.5, this was changed to +2 Str/Dex, -2 Con/Int.) And yeah, their favored class was Ranger.

I mean they've been like this so long I'm surprised they missed it for 4e and now 5e. Luckily it's easily houseruled in both of them.

I'm reading the 4E Essentials Rules Compendium right now, and it's the best RPG instructional and reference document I've read. The writing is clear, concise, and logical. It flows and reads well. There's no ambiguity or distracting kludges. The organization and cross-referencing is sterling.

Just as importantly, it's written in an attractive, large font, with lots of white space. I don't know how many RPG books I've read with cramped 8 or 7 pt type. The worst is the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2E core book. It's an otherwise attractive and well organized book. But I can't read it for longer than about 4 or 5 minutes before I have to set it down and rub my eyes. Layout 101 is you don't print anything you want people to voluntarily read any smaller than 10 pt.

Whatever else you may think of WotC, they have the best writing, layout, and editing in the business. So regardless of the quality of the content, you know you're going to get something easily readable and effective in presentation.

Quote from: RunningLaser;722194Don't know if this was mentioned yet, but I had the Dungeon Crawl Classics book for a while.  I thought the book was great, but one complaint I had was that the sentences went right into the gutter of the book (if that's the correct term).  Made reading more difficult than it should have been for me.

Yup, gutter is the correct term. That bugs me a lot too. Completely breaks up reading. Almost as bad as books that use different colored text in part or whole, disregarding the fact that some of their readers (like me) will have some variation of colorblindness.

I hate books without character sheets; you can learn quite a bit about a game from it's character sheet.

What I also hate is books with character sheets that blatantly don't give enough space to write the things the game actually expects you to write down; any game with spells, feats, or other distinct rules chunks, for example. I make my own spellbooks for Shadowrun and Ars Magica, or discipline lists for Vampire, but that's another few sheets of paper I have to track.

Quote from: Zeea;722191*I'm not a big fan of academic writing either, because quite a few professors seem to believe, through some confusion of things which must have been learned prior to the current time--which is to say the time of writing--that in all circumstances, save for those that mandate brevity, that ludicrously complex sentences with poor concept flow--to say nothing of overuse of prepositional phrases and constant interruptions--are, in essence, an amazingly effective way to demonstrate competency and skill. (See what I did there?)

You know I almost commented about another poster's use that absurd nominalization "The Ask".

I'll just leave this here:

Quote from: George OrwellI returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

Quote from: Ladybird;722207I hate books without character sheets; you can learn quite a bit about a game from it's character sheet.

What I also hate is books with character sheets that blatantly don't give enough space to write the things the game actually expects you to write down; any game with spells, feats, or other distinct rules chunks, for example. I make my own spellbooks for Shadowrun and Ars Magica, or discipline lists for Vampire, but that's another few sheets of paper I have to track.

Ugh, I also hate the "phone it in" Character sheets.

I'm going to stare at this page for hours on end, please put more care into it than simply firing up Word one afternoon and calling it a day.

Quote from: Ladybird;722207I hate books without character sheets; you can learn quite a bit about a game from it's character sheet.

What I also hate is books with character sheets that blatantly don't give enough space to write the things the game actually expects you to write down; any game with spells, feats, or other distinct rules chunks, for example. I make my own spellbooks for Shadowrun and Ars Magica, or discipline lists for Vampire, but that's another few sheets of paper I have to track.

I really hate that, too. Especially sheets that give you huge amounts of space for crap nobody cares about and tiny space for long lists.

Another thing that irritates me a bit is the infamous misleading character sheet. I really wish I could have had the game I imagined from looking at the Exalted 1e character sheet, for instance. If not that, I'd have loved to have an actual charm sheet in the original book, since that was the basis of the game.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;722035Editors are kind of like bass players, people don't notice them until they screw up or aren't present.

Which is why Metallica and Dethklok just dub those parts in at the mix stage.

JG

Quote from: Warthur;722044Nah, I'm pretty sure a lot of the coming of age stuff in Ender's Game had been covered more than adequately by Heinlein juveniles etc.

Still have my hardback copy of Red Planet.

Quote from: Warthur;722044Nah, I'm pretty sure a lot of the coming of age stuff in Ender's Game had been covered more than adequately by Heinlein juveniles etc.

Fair enough, I'm mistaken. It's not really my domain of expertise anyway.

Anyone have a theory as to how Ender's Game became so popular?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;722378Fair enough, I'm mistaken. It's not really my domain of expertise anyway.

Anyone have a theory as to how Ender's Game became so popular?

It plays up to that "In special but misunderstood and one day when a contrived situation arises that makes my specialness really special Ill show them all" myth so many people who read SciFi like to believe about themselves.

Quote from: Zeea;722191*I'm not a big fan of academic writing either, because quite a few professors seem to believe, through some confusion of things which must have been learned prior to the current time--which is to say the time of writing--that in all circumstances, save for those that mandate brevity, that ludicrously complex sentences with poor concept flow--to say nothing of overuse of prepositional phrases and constant interruptions--are, in essence, an amazingly effective way to demonstrate competency and skill. (See what I did there?)

This is a thing of beauty.

Robotech Sentinels (which I have previously grumbled about) suffers from this. Every other page it's "decimated this... decimated that... decimated by the whoever is in the bloody narrative". I don't think that means what he thinks it means. If it did, well. 10% and all that. The writing is basically crap.

Marvel Heroic Roleplay is NOT a good book to reference either. Nice examples of how it works throughout, but a simple easy explanation would surely negate that? >inb4 target audience

Thoughts. Fragments. To be parsed.

Quote from: Haffrung;722197I'm reading the 4E Essentials Rules Compendium right now, and it's the best RPG instructional and reference document I've read. The writing is clear, concise, and logical. It flows and reads well. There's no ambiguity or distracting kludges. The organization and cross-referencing is sterling.

This I have to agree with. Over produced pages (WoD, Dresden, MHR etc) make my teeth itch. So many times I find myself cutting and pasting text out of the PDFs and into a reference document to speed up the comprehension of what I am supposed to be doing.

Quote from: James Gillen;722355Which is why Metallica and Dethklok just dub those parts in at the mix stage.

JG

You'd think they'd get a drum machine to replace Lars. You only have to punch the information into one of those once.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;722378Fair enough, I'm mistaken. It's not really my domain of expertise anyway.

Anyone have a theory as to how Ender's Game became so popular?

I think it's a combination of elements. It's a well written text - Card has interesting rhythms in his writing, despite the fact that his diction is extremely accessible to a wide range of readers. In other words, there's enough meat in the words-on-the-page to be interesting to adults, but it's still comprehensible to juvenile readers. Though, to be fair, there are issues with pacing and the division of different narrative strands throughout.

Thematically, the text deals a lot with issues of guilt, ideas of political necessity, and questions of psychological determinism versus personal will and desire. The novel is a tragedy, ultimately, and it's painted at such - despite being a very special person (from a family of very special persons), Ender and his siblings are desperately unhappy people. Despite the book's reputation, there's no real element of "nerds are the secret supermen! See? It doesn't matter that you were bullied!" in it; Ender, as I said, is very special due to his innate intelligence and ability at tactics, but he's almost completely isolated and alienated.

I dislike descriptions of the book as "paeans to Space Hitler" or what-have-you, too, since they seem to miss the point: Yes, Ender is entirely compromised and does not-nice things throughout the book, but the interrogation of the moral value of realpolitik (and the effect realpolitik decisions can have on the lives of the participants) is something that the text consistently calls into question. If anything, the novel doesn't rest on its laurels and make any segment of society feel better about itself - the nerd is left feeling like a pariah, the pragmatic like a monster, the empathic like a traitor. It challenges and pushes against assumptions, leaving little chance for equanimity in a universe where the slightest misunderstanding can lead easily to catastrophe for all involved.

I haven't worked on it professionally, nor am I familiar with any critical analyses of the book, but I'm sure there's a good amount out there. It's a valuable text, and a cracking good read.

Quote from: Piestrio;722240You know I almost commented about another poster's use that absurd nominalization "The Ask".

Trifling vexation? Indubitably.