FFG Rulebooks

The problem with second person is that most modern games have players taking actions on other player's turns, and it can be difficult to disassociate the two players from one another. I'll agree that as a general rule (particularly when describing the basic running gear of a game turn) second person is nice because it helps provide a narrative of the turn and brings the reader into the action. When there are interrupts by other players third person is often a better choice, and provides an aural clue that you're talking about someone else.

Fury of Dracula's rules don't have a solid connection to the narrative of play, and at times you have one hell of a hard time figuring out where the rule you want to reference is. You can remember it's there, but you can't find the damn thing. I always confuse the Headlines rule in Fury with the Headlines rule in Arkham, but in Arkham I can find the special rule on the cards. In Fury I have a devil of a time finding it. All in all I think their books have gotten better, but there's still room to grow. After I wrote an article on writing rules years back one of their designers contacted me for a review, but the communication abruptly stopped, perhaps because I indicated that hours of work marking up a big rule book might require me to get some level of remuneration for the effort.

S.

black inferno wrote:
What do you notice? That's right: you. You notice clear, conversational instructions that are directed at you because they're expressed in second person indicative or imperative.

Preach it, brother! I've been a tech writer for almost 20 years, and every online help system, user guide, and instruction manual I've ever written has been in the second-person.

To be fair, it's not like FFG has the corner of the market on shitty rulebooks. Plaid Hat's Mice & Mystics has probably the worst rule book I've ever encountered. Even the storybook is pretty bad. It reads like some crappy fan-fiction.

Why do companies go balls-out on graphic design and physical components, but then not hire a decent writer and editor?

Joebot wrote: Why do companies go balls-out on graphic design and physical components, but then not hire a decent writer and editor?

Softball question of the week.

Because the vast majority of purchasers are more impressed by bling bling than content, especially at purchase-decision time, and often at Internet chat time. Graphic Design sells games, the primary goal of every publisher on earth.

S.

I'm with dragonstout that Wiz-War is the most overwrought book they've done. That is a much easier game than the rules would have you believe. In my case this might be hampered a little by using a ton of what FFG calls "variant rules".

I haven't played Arkham Horror for a while, but even when I was playing it all the time I had to have a flowchart glued to my hand at all times. I'm not sure if that's the fault of the rulebook or the game itself being so busy. I also admit that it could just mean I'm a dummy. Fury of Dracula, like Sag said, has a weird layout. Although in that case, I'd much rather there was a player aid with all of the encounter token effects printed on it so that everyone could see them all the time. That's less a rulebook issue.

Death Angel, if I remember, had a weirdly obtuse rulebook. All of the rules were in there, but a couple of key elements were thrown in odd places.

But overall I have never had too much trouble with FFG. I think the problem is more that they can be exhaustive in their detail, which is a big problem in games like Wiz-War.

Sagrilarus wrote:

Joebot wrote: Why do companies go balls-out on graphic design and physical components, but then not hire a decent writer and editor?

Softball question of the week.

Because the vast majority of purchasers are more impressed by bling bling than content, especially at purchase-decision time, and often at Internet chat time. Graphic Design sells games, the primary goal of every publisher on earth.

S.

And if your story is any indication, they clearly expect to find someone to write and edit rules for free.

Flabby, overproduced and overwritten rulebooks are part of FFG's schtick. It makes it seem like you've bought a bigger, more complex product. Pages are wasted to convince you of the setting with needless fluff (Protip- the narrative should be in the gameplay, not in short stories). The rules are usually OK, but the format is a mess- call out boxes, confusing page breaks, over-reliance on detailed examples for simpler processes. And when 75% of a design is in card text, there are inevitably 100 different eventualities to cover.

Obtuse is the perfect way to describe the Death Angel rulebook. It's kind of like a little sampling or diet version of the issues of the Pax Porfiriana rulebook.

San Il Defanso wrote: And if your story is any indication, they clearly expect to find someone to write and edit rules for free.

Technical writers get no respect anywhere. They're considered whiners and interlopers that make you work harder than you think you should have to. They're indispensable for companies producing complex products, but their English degree and generally late assignment to the project means they don't get the level of credit they deserve.

I have other stories about the results of that article, where I did the work for smaller efforts (promised small rewards in return for my efforts) and got nothing. No more gentleman's agreements for me.

I could very easily see three people in a meeting room at a game publisher, one making the observation, "someone will do this for us and post it on BGG." It just makes good business sense to not pay for something that will happen either way. The graphical efforts -- those need to be done in-house. No one is going to create the kind of artistic display that you see in FoD or AH at no charge. At least I haven't seen one to date.

S.

[quote="DukeofChutney" post=183150
The issue is that they take a very simple game and some how create a 20 page rulebook for it that takes two read throughs to grasp.

[/quote]

I think this sums it all up in a nutshell. I've never looked, but I bet there are rules summaries/cheat sheets for games like RUNEWARS that consolidate it all down to like 3 pages.

That said, I can't recall too many rules ambiguities or questions I couldn't find the answer to once I searched the PDF. Their lack of indexes are annoying, but they are hardly alone in this regard.

Those little condensed versions of the rulebooks are for a limited audience though--folks that already know how to play boardgames. You can collapse a lot of thought into small turns of phrase if you don't have to define them. Official rulebooks are written for the "put the board in the middle of the table" crowd, and not anyone that would visit a site like this on purpose.

That said, I want to "hear, hear" on the DEATH ANGEL rulebook--it is laid out like their are teams for Marines and Genestealers--putting the rules out of turn order when the Genestealer Attack rules come before the Marines Do Their Thing rules, even though Genestealers attack AFTER. And Travel seems to be in a different place every time I try to look it up.