Chief Technical Officer
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The last S&S set just came out a few weeks ago, and I want to make sure we shake out all the bugs before we make an errata deck, but we *will* make one not that long from now. (In fact, I'm beginning to compile it this week.) We'll also do something for the first four class decks around the same time—and since we're talking about just a few cards for each of the seven decks, that's probably going to be a single pack for all of them.
That said, I do want to discuss the root of the issue here, and that's that errata for a game with thousands of interacting cards is inevitable, whether it's a relatively simple game like Pokémon (errata PDF), or a more complicated game like Magic: the Gathering (the update bulletin released along with their January set comes in two parts, cards and rules—and they release updates like these a couple times per year). Perhaps a closer scale to our game would be the A Game of Thrones ACG (update PDF). Of course, there are many, many, many more examples out there.
The big difference is that most publishers only release errata as web pages or PDFs, meaning players usually need to print them out and keep them at hand during play. (We offer that option too.) But the fact that we make it *possible* to seamlessly replace the cards is an advantage that most companies don’t even offer for their games.
Finally, the volume of clarifications that we've issued through the FAQ is because we have a very broad policy of making improvements where most companies would not. That is to say, a *huge* percentage of our clarifications would be below the threshold of most other company's FAQs. The majority of the cards we've fixed, for example, work correctly as originally written—we just saw the opportunity for improvement (most often by making things a little more clear, not by actually changing the way things function) and we took it.
For example, here's one of our most recent FAQ entries—one of the lengthiest entries in quite some time. Paraphrasing with non-game terms, the question is essentially "Do I do this thing that the rules never tell me to do?" The answer is "no." Some companies wouldn't even MAKE a FAQ entry for that—why are you asking if you have to do something we didn't tell you to do? And many companies would simply have a FAQ entry with the one-word answer "No." But we've taken the opportunity to rewrite a couple paragraphs in the rules so that people using the new version will not only understand not to do the thing, but they'll understand *why* they don't do the thing. And the next time we print a rulebook, it'll have *these* rules, and the game will be better for it.
But... did you *need* that rewrite? Did you ever *ask* that particular question? The game has been out a year and a half, and to my knowledge, *nobody* asked that question until recently. Thousands upon thousands of people played and enjoyed the game without needing the answer to that question. But that doesn't mean that changing the rules to answer it is a sign of a poorly designed game—I'd say it's a sign of a responsive publisher who works hard to make the game better tomorrow than it was yesterday.
You should divide them into FAQs and IAQs. :)
May I ask what "custom cards for OP" entails?
Does that mean that, down the track, I'll be able to buy a pack of cards and play through an Organised Play season without needing to download any PDFs?
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Chief Technical Officer
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No—the OP PDFs often include new cards that you use proxies for in normal play (that is, we tell you to shuffle in Buccaneers, and when you find one, treat it as this brand-new card we designed for the scenario). The OP pack will contain all of those such cards from Season of the Shackles, so you can ignore the Buccaneer-proxy step... but they'll be meaningless without the PDF-only scenarios that use them.
Ah, okay. Not quite what I'd hoped for. Nonetheless thanks for the quick answer, Vic.
You're right there. Flavor is why I play in the Pathfinder universe. :)
I've never looked at the Organised Play stuff - I'm fundamentally lazy when it comes to these things. The less I have to learn the better.
For example, here's one of our most recent FAQ entries—one of the lengthiest entries in quite some time. Paraphrasing with non-game terms, the question is essentially "Do I do this thing that the rules never tell me to do?" The answer is "no." Some companies wouldn't even MAKE a FAQ entry for that—why are you asking if you have to do something we didn't tell you to do? And many companies would simply have a FAQ entry with the one-word answer "No." But we've taken the opportunity to rewrite a couple paragraphs in the rules so that people using the new version will not only understand not to do the thing, but they'll understand *why* they don't do the thing. And the next time we print a rulebook, it'll have *these* rules, and the game will be better for it.
Another element of this: We are a year ahead of you guys. We keep making things that make us reexamine our previous cards. That lengthy entry is designed to future-proof earlier cards for what's coming up. So if we make a change, it might not be for why you think we're doing it. But we're doing it so that things hold up whenever you play our game.
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Questions that will now not be frequently asked - a kind of grandfather paradox in action.
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Thanks Vic.
I for one applaud you offering errata reprints and recognise the efforts you go to.
I have been a long time Legend of the Five Rings player and the only time those cards ever see errata is if they are reprinted in another set (not very often) and players are expected to remember all the errata
I feel you guys are definately above the average for your level of support for your games
Keep it up!
So there's only really 1 thing that peeves me - I can't get a reference document that allows me to grab all the most recent text versions of all the cards to reference during play. I understand why Vic can't do this. But it's still frustrating (and the bulk of the time I play is before the card erratas are even released, so having the option to that, while helpful in a lot of circumstances, is not helpful in this one).
This is something Magic _does_ have (Oracle is awesome). FFG did buy cardgamedb.com but the owner doesn't seem to update the database with errata (so it's not just that Magic is a Trading Card Game).
This means I have to remember which errata goes where. Or keep a document with all the most recent card texts somewhere (privately, of course).
The biggest errata problems were the ones that made the scenarios problematic - Bizarre Love Triangle is by far the biggest offender (it's absolutely miserable if you play it as written), but some of the other issues with missing components (Free Captain's Regatta, Home Sweet Home, and Best Served Cold) were a close second. But that's an editing/development issue more than a "how do we get this errata out to people" one.
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Chief Technical Officer
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...if I was ever to have a complaint extremely personally, it would just be the amount of cards that appear with missing the word magic, or armors that don't have the recharge when resetting hand section...
That armor issue is actually a *perfect* example of what Mike was talking about above. We're learning a lot about our game as it evolves, and responding to that. When Rise of the Runelords came out, there *was* no design rule that said that magic armor other than robes, bucklers and helms should be rechargeable on reset. That rule didn't evolve in the designers' view until we were working on Wrath, and wasn't finalized until the end of January. So all of these armors from RotR, S&S, and the first 7 class decks that had recharge text added weren't "missing" text when they went to print—they said exactly what they were supposed to say at the time. But some of them were going to appear in Wrath under the new paradigm, and others could appear in future sets, so we updated them to be consistent with that new vision.
So there's only really 1 thing that peeves me - I can't get a reference document that allows me to grab all the most recent text versions of all the cards to reference during play. I understand why Vic can't do this. But it's still frustrating (and the bulk of the time I play is before the card erratas are even released, so having the option to that, while helpful in a lot of circumstances, is not helpful in this one).
I'm curious about this... Have you tried the free pdf of the RotR Errata Cards? Or are you in the midst of Skull & Shackles?
I found a pdf of the S&S FAQ/Errata on BGG and printed it out months ago (it probably needs reprinting at this point). Very handy, even if it's hard at times to remember which cards are on it (without checking upon seeing every card, which would silly).
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So there's only really 1 thing that peeves me - I can't get a reference document that allows me to grab all the most recent text versions of all the cards to reference during play. I understand why Vic can't do this. But it's still frustrating (and the bulk of the time I play is before the card erratas are even released, so having the option to that, while helpful in a lot of circumstances, is not helpful in this one).I'm curious about this... Have you tried the free pdf of the RotR Errata Cards? Or are you in the midst of Skull & Shackles?
I found a pdf of the S&S FAQ/Errata on BGG and printed it out months ago (it probably needs reprinting at this point). Very handy, even if it's hard at times to remember which cards are on it (without checking upon seeing every card, which would silly).
Hawkmoon has put out Errata card PDFs for RotR, S&S and the Class Decks (on BGG). He's been pretty good about updating these on a regular basis as the FAQ gets updated. You can always print them out and cut them out and slide them over the real cards in sleeves. That can hold you over.