Quote from: Seanchai;402780But there's still the question of the willingness of publishers to release errata and their ease of doing so. Not having GURPS 4e or having played it, I don't know if it has issues to be fixed or not, but that aside, how willing and able a publisher is to release errata or patches or whatever you'd like to call them also affects the volume of errata released. You want something comparable, look at a game of equal complexity and a publisher like WotC.

SJ Games is a top notch publisher when it comes to supporting their. In comparing GURPS 4e to D&D 4e and SJ Games development vs Wizard's Development is an apples to apples comparison. You can see all their errata
at http://www.sjgames.com/errata/gurps/

SJ Games in the form of Steve Jackson himself and those he hires are very good game designers and developers. They stand at the top of the industry in this regard and done so for over two decades.

People are missing my point. It is about the volume of errata (37 pages) they released for the core rules. That level of errata is simply not a good thing for a game. And has caused problems for the long term popularity of various system.

It great that Wizards is releasing errata but I question why 4e needs so much and why it wasn't caught in the first place.  In of itself the errata issue is an annoyance. But combined with the other issues 4e is another factor that helping sink D&D 4e's ship. One of that I hope Essential doesn't repeat.

I said here and on my blog that a healthy Wizards and a healthy D&D 4e is a boon to the hobby but when it catches a cold all of the hobby catches a cold.

A big problem with the 4e rule updates has been cases where the basic, fundamental rules were broken (skill challenges, monsters) because wizards couldn't bother to do the math.  Another has been their constant tinkering with powers (that often cause as many problems as they fix).

Now, I'd forgive them a lot of this if they would go back and adjust the rule books so that future printings fixed these things, but instead of doing that they've decided to change things further and print those changes in the essentials products instead.

The actual number of pages of errata is not terribly important, since it's mostly a question of presentation. The Monster Manual only has 5 pages of errata, but they have subsequently repudiated the hit point and damage calculations that generated all of the monsters. That can be conveyed in a single sentence, but it means that every entry on every page is "wrong". That's a much bigger deal than fixing 22 pages of typos (plus mysteriously overhauling a few powers) in the PHB.

-Frank

Quote from: estar;402783People are missing my point.

No, we're disagreeing with it. There's a difference.

Quote from: estar;402783It great that Wizards is releasing errata but I question why 4e needs so much and why it wasn't caught in the first place.

Because that's the nature of the beast.

Seanchai

Quote from: estar;402415As a general RPG site the RPG Stack Exchange Site reflects the make up of the general population of roleplaying gamers.

Wrong. RPG gamers aren't online "in general".
Only some are.

Quote from: Benoist;402680Kyle, aren't one of these who got sick of GURPS 4e at some point?

I enjoyed it. However, the players I tend to get rarely read even six pages of some rules-light system, forget about 576 pages of GURPS. I had to walk them through character generation, walk them through combats, and so on.

The virtue of GURPS is its great detail. But if players aren't interested in that detail, then it becomes an obstacle to the smooth flow of play. Another GURPS GM kept the detail in, and as a result it took them two and a half sessions - or 10 hours - for 5 PCs to slay 12 gargoyles, which in game was a thirty second combat. Not wanting my players to go insane, I took the detail out, so I had a battle determining the fate of the Roman Republic which took half an hour of play.

If you're not using the detail, it's senseless having it. So I sold my GURPS books and now stick to lighter stuff. I'd be delighted to play or run it with a bunch of people who enjoy the detail, and know it well so that it moves smoothly and quickly. I've never met a group like that, though, and most GMs I've met simply can't handle that detail, things bog down.

I'm also not that thrilled that they've essentially stopped producing world books and produce mostly rules books now. GURPS used to be famous for its worldbooks, even people who didn't play it bought them. This has led to a level of rules detail which even I think is a bit much. I think we can have a decent game session without rules for changing from a narrow to a wide grip on a quarterstaff, targeting arteries or giving wedgies in a fistfight, thanks very much GURPS Martial Arts.

So I like a certain level of detail, but few players I know do, and fewer GMs handle it well; but after the corebooks it got too much even for me. Of course I don't have to use more than the corebooks, but again we come back to the issue of players not being interested even in those.

Hackmastergeneral, while much of the errata don't concern the core rule books, that shows a change of focus over the years - you used to be expected to flesh out the rules yourself. More rulings, less rules. So again, more pages than really are needed. Nobody's gone through with pruning shears to cut away the dead wood and leave behind only the useful growth.

And while much of the errata consist of commentary and discussion, the same goes for the rules themselves. For example, example text. Take everything out except the pure rules, and while D&D4e and its errata would be much shorter, older versions would be shorter still.