So, About That Errata 2

[Cyouni]

Bast L. wrote:

I hope not. Rules specificity is one of the best things PF2 has going for it, imo. Clear rules covering many situations. "Ask your GM" is just lazy. It puts more work on the GM, and makes it unclear what characters you can play, and how they'll work in a game where it's useful to plan your character out many levels in advance.

One example of PF2 being very good about rules specificity is the Prescient Planner feat. Someone wanted to take it in my game, and I was like, "ugh, I hate all those matter creation feats, they're always like, 'ask the GM if the item is okay,'" but then I read it, and PF2's version is not up to me at all. It's very clear what you can make, and no input is needed from the GM.

I need to note that I disagree on this.

PF2 has clearly leaned away from rules specificity compared to PF1, which heartily encouraged it. It's the difference between "trained/expert/master/legendary Acrobatics task to Balance" and "specific DCs for specific balancing widths in inches, with specific DC increases/decreases for angle of incline/situations". There's a lot more GM-dependent bonuses in PF2 vs the "if you flip your hat upside down and wear it, you get a +1 bonus to convincing people that you're a circus performer" of PF1.

However, I will agree that intent on some of the rules (Battle Medicine likely being the prime one) hasn't necessarily been conveyed clearly.

[Vallarthis]

Cyouni wrote:

Bast L. wrote:

I hope not. Rules specificity is one of the best things PF2 has going for it, imo. Clear rules covering many situations. "Ask your GM" is just lazy. It puts more work on the GM, and makes it unclear what characters you can play, and how they'll work in a game where it's useful to plan your character out many levels in advance.

One example of PF2 being very good about rules specificity is the Prescient Planner feat. Someone wanted to take it in my game, and I was like, "ugh, I hate all those matter creation feats, they're always like, 'ask the GM if the item is okay,'" but then I read it, and PF2's version is not up to me at all. It's very clear what you can make, and no input is needed from the GM.

I need to note that I disagree on this.

PF2 has clearly leaned away from rules specificity compared to PF1, which heartily encouraged it. It's the difference between "trained/expert/master/legendary Acrobatics task to Balance" and "specific DCs for specific balancing widths in inches, with specific DC increases/decreases for angle of incline/situations". There's a lot more GM-dependent bonuses in PF2 vs the "if you flip your hat upside down and wear it, you get a +1 bonus to convincing people that you're a circus performer" of PF1.

However, I will agree that intent on some of the rules (Battle Medicine likely being the prime one) hasn't necessarily been conveyed clearly.

I strongly agree with both of you. You seem to be using relative terms with different points of reference: Cyouni is comparing it to PF1, whereas Bast appears to be referring to something more like 5e. PF2 is, in my view, the best of both worlds.

[CorvusMask]

Can I just point out that same person who sparked the toxic argument between Graystone and Dirtypool is also the one who said while ago that developers should suck it up because they get paid for listening angry forum comments? :p (and the comment on it being okay to abuse customer service caused another argument on that thread)

I mean, yeah, most of their sarcasm is at people insulting them, but they do have talent for making posters angry or streeing conversation towards arguments. They either don't believe in being respectful or polite when giving constructive criticism or they have talent for making people argue and consistently continue sparking further arguments. (and no, other people doing so doesn't make it okay, I've been annoyed at Gorbacz often unnecessarely causing arguments with trolling relatively innocent complains :p)

Like, if they don't do it on purpose and don't like seeing people argue, they should examine why they keep being around flame wars that keeps happening after they have said something flammatory.

(that said, I was pretty annoyed at Gratystone and Dirtypool both for continuing argument for three pages despite both being like "I don't want to continue this argument", but I almost forgot about that since last page really made me mad :P )

[Ruzza]

You should still call out reprehensible behavior when you see it. Moreso if this is a community you'd like to be inclusive and welcoming and not pointed to as a case study in toxicity.

[CorvusMask]

Toxicity in general creates more toxicity. Like I've noticed that constant sarcasm and insults just makes other people angry and insult back at those people who then just insult them back. Same way reacting to complains always with 100% "Okay they are enemy, we must defeat their opinion by calling them incorrect!" leads to arguments escalating and becoming verbally abusive when it keeps happening over and over and both sides consider other side to be jerk who doesn't listen to them.

Its super easy to forget, but best way to avoid it is just to report it to mods and bow out of the conversation because engaging in it isn't going to work unless other people in conversation genuinely wants to be nice. Otherwise they are just going to double dip in being abusive. (That or they misunderstand what your intention is because you can't read tone in internet and assume more hostility in what you wrote because as said earlier, the point by point quoting to reply to everystatement style posting does contribute to feeling of being attacked.)

...Its something I should remember too that even though its hard to not call out behaviour you find jerkish, its honestly better to just avoid it on internet unless you trust the person enough to course correct their own actions. If you think they will change their behaviour when called out, then it makes sense. But if you know or believe that they will just continue laughing at you, then you bothering to point it out is just going to spend your energy getting angry at something you know is pointless.

(note: I should probably make rule about waiting until afternoon before reading paizo.com, everytime I post in morning I'm more likely to jump on a rant about something even when I start to realize during rant that it would have been better to just continue ignoring it :P)

[HumbleGamer]

Somehow, it reminds me of the Trevor's Axiom from South Park.

[Unicore]

I have personally found much more enjoyment from trying to contributing positively to these threads by making sure I am only talking about ideas, and not people, even when I start to feel personally attacked.

It does feel disheartening when you want to talk about the topic of the original thread, and add a new idea, only for it to get buried in 35 of 40 new posts of people having a personal discussion on a public board.

Nobody wins by making the people designing new content for this game feel like the work they are doing is not valued because we want them to spend their time focusing on elements of the game we can resolve in 5 to 10 minutes at our own tables.

Now that isn't to say I am not looking forward to Errata when it comes out, as I have design intent questions too, but I can recognize that having people threaten to leave the game entirely if their interpretation of the rules is not endorsed by the developers makes it a lot easier for developers to just decide that participating in conversations like this is not a productive use of their time.

[Wheldrake]

It's a pity there isn't a forum moderator who can just lock toxic threads like this one.

And the news that forum toxicity has actually discouraged Paizo people (and James in particular) from posting is just sad.

I suggest that we all simply refrain from posting to this thread, so it can die the natural death of uncommented forum threads and drift off the board on its own.

[Themetricsystem]

This isn't meant to me critical of your team or decision on how these forums should be managed but...

Paizo staff: Why not start using heavier moderation, warnings, and bans for this kind of thing?

Bust out that +3 Striking Holy Flaming War(Ban)hammer and put it to use, and while you're at it post up a message stating what occurred on that day like a signpost to let people know that the kind of behavior won't be tolerated. I understand the desire to let things self-regulate but that's clearly not happening here, instead, we end up with old-school flame wars and folks arguing like their liveihood hinged upon it when, in fact, it's YOUR livlihood (Paizo staff) and mental health that is at risk.

[Thomas5251212]

Djinn71 wrote:

dirtypool wrote:

Thomas5251212 wrote:

in the case of people who only buy physical books, if true that's really unfortunate; its worse in its way than not doing errata at all.)

The situation I described to you is the errata process as it has existed in the print industry for centuries, originally it was to fix errors in the type setting of the print block and new print runs of the book simply included the newest version of the text. An itemized listing of changes made from one edition to the next was incredibly rare and usually only for reference materials that needed to benefit from currency.

I realize that but I think when it comes to game rules, I think your last line above is far closer to the situation than with a lot of books; it may not be as serious as something like medical or legal texts, but its also not something you want to be having to deal with discrepencies without a common reference.

[Thomas5251212]

krobrina wrote:

Patches can also include new content, which errata usually does not.

Depending on how you count "new", the usually in the above sentence is doing some potentially heavy lifting. I've certainly seen plenty of errata that included missing text, sometimes halfway extensive missing text.

Quote:

Errata for a TTRPG is a "bug fix", which would be distributed as a code patch.

If you consider errata as patches, you might expect new content in an errata, which will not happen.

I have to say I don't typically see notable new content in regular patches for computer games, either.

[dirtypool]

Thomas5251212 wrote:

I realize that but I think when it comes to game rules, I think your last line above is far closer to the situation than with a lot of books; it may not be as serious as something like medical or legal texts, but its also not something you want to be having to deal with discrepencies without a common reference.

Sure.

The point I was making is that there are a lot of companies out there who follow the traditional model where the next printing gets the errata updates and is released to the public without any notification beyond a statement on the Editions Page (sometimes called the Copyright Page) calling it out as a revised printing.

It isn't that these game books didn't get errata, it's just that there was no notification about it and no separate document that contained just the changes.

[Thomas5251212]

dirtypool wrote:

Thomas5251212 wrote:

I realize that but I think when it comes to game rules, I think your last line above is far closer to the situation than with a lot of books; it may not be as serious as something like medical or legal texts, but its also not something you want to be having to deal with discrepencies without a common reference.

Sure.

The point I was making is that there are a lot of companies out there who follow the traditional model where the next printing gets the errata updates and is released to the public without any notification beyond a statement on the Editions Page (sometimes called the Copyright Page) calling it out as a revised printing.

It isn't that these game books didn't get errata, it's just that there was no notification about it and no separate document that contained just the changes.

I think that's kind of a problem too, to be honest. Moreso than a late errata at least.

[dirtypool]

Thomas5251212 wrote:

I think that's kind of a problem too, to be honest. Moreso than a late errata at least.

I hear what you're saying, but I don't think that a publishing choice a company has made for their product line is necessarily a problem until it impacts that companies business practices.

More importantly it isn't an issue for the Paizo forums as their errata process is to release a compilation document publicly in between print editions and then again when the second printing occurs.

[Quayuazue]

Any chance you guys would discuss what things need to be addressed in the errata. I have not read through to find all the things that the community may have found and I would like to know what to look for in my up coming game so I can address them as best as possible. What’s broken ? What needs fixing? What are some solutions to these ?

Thanx
Q

[The Gleeful Grognard]

Quayuazue wrote:

Any chance you guys would discuss what things need to be addressed in the errata. I have not read through to find all the things that the community may have found and I would like to know what to look for in my up coming game so I can address them as best as possible. What’s broken ? What needs fixing? What are some solutions to these ?

Thanx
Q

There is a whole thread on reported issues / FAQ candidates. Start there.

[Nocte ex Mortis]

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Quayuazue wrote:

Any chance you guys would discuss what things need to be addressed in the errata. I have not read through to find all the things that the community may have found and I would like to know what to look for in my up coming game so I can address them as best as possible. What’s broken ? What needs fixing? What are some solutions to these ?

Thanx
Q

There is a whole thread on reported issues / FAQ candidates. Start there.

Bring a lunch and something to drink, it’s a LOT to slog through.

[Joan H.]

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[Sam Phelan]

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