|
Why are the FAQs for the Adventure Card games getting more love than the Pathfinder RPG games? The ACs are getting updates almost weekly, while we RPGers have to wait for at least a month (or longer) for a new FAQ. Some RPG books haven't been seen a new FAQ in over a year! And there's plenty of material/questions/errata within the RPG books that needs updates. So jealous. :(
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The ACG and RPG FAQs are handled by entirely separate teams with entirely separate viewpoints on when and how FAQs are made.
On the RPG side of things, new FAQs are handled by the Pathfinder Design Team (PDT), and generally at most one FAQ is published a week (on Friday). In addition to their FAQ duties, the PDT also is working on new books. When an FAQ comes along, I'd imagine it sparks a fair amount of internal discussion, and for complex questions they may need to hunt down who originally wrote a thing to ask them what their intent was. I obviously don't know the internal processes in play, but it certainly seems like it could be quite complex. The amount of questions the PDT needs to triage for the FAQ (based on FAQ clicks) is also quite high compared to the ACG which is a significantly lower-traffic forum.
On the ACG side of things, new FAQs are handled by Lone Shark Games in combination with Vic Wertz (Vic's role is largely editorial in nature from what I can remember here, he decides on the final wording of things and actually puts the posts up on the FAQ page). Obviously Mike Selinker and the others at Lone Shark are working on new content as well, but since everyone is there under one house instead of having freelancers writing lots of content as in the case of RPG lines, I'd imagine discussions to determine intent can happen a lot faster. Additionally, there is no "rule" that the ACG FAQs can only get one update a week, so things are pushed when they're ready.
Finally, the entire philosophy between what needs an FAQ and what does not differs. On the RPG side, an unclear rule may never get an FAQ because the PDT wants GMs to have the flexibility to decide that particular thing for themselves. On the ACG side, there is no GM; everything needs to be crystal-clear and things that are not need errata to shore up the wording. Other FAQs are issued for the ACG (like the recent spate of Construct FAQs) to account for templating changes made in more recent sets, so that the wording of cards in older sets are brought up to date with the most recent way a particular thing is worded. These sorts of wording/terminology updates have never happened to my recollection in the RPG line, likely so the PDT can avoid being burned on the stake for the gigantic backlash it would cause and also because rewriting all of the old books to use some new terminology would be a massive undertaking and nobody has time for that.
