Alright, so anyone who has played a decent number of FFG games knows that one of their biggest weaknesses is in having clear and easy to understand rules, and well-organized instructions. How many times have you been looking through a FFG rulebook or RPG book for a specific rule and then not been able to find the rule you wanted OR had a rule pertinent to one system being included in the chapter on a completely different system. I know that I've missed a lot of rules this way. Did you know that in Rogue Trader you always get the option to exchange DoS for your damage roll? I did not know this until I happened to be making a combat guide for new players. Too many rules like this only get mentioned once, or have no examples or Callout box to help players and GMs remember them.

That said, let's make this thread be about suggestions regarding organization and usability of the rulebook. I'm currently writing up a big suggestion on changes to the layout of the narrative chapter, but here are a couple minor things I've noticed.

How much ammunition is expended by a weapon seems to only be noted on one page (page 201) in a single paragraph under the header "Rate of Attack". That's not easy at all to look up, and can easily be missed. Add a Specific Header called "Ammunition for Ranged Attacks" and maybe even mention back in the Armory section on RoF, Damage, Clip Size, and so on how ammunition works.

The rules on starvation are hidden in the narrative chapter on page 245. This would probably be better suited to go with the rules on Fatigue and Conditions starting on 205.

So yeah, any other suggestions like this that people have? What rules should be moved around/rewritten in order to make them easier to look up and understand?

On this topic I would say that a complete index page is always a big plus, and has been a downfalling of FFGs products compaired to other publishers. I think a serious amount of time should be put into different ways of phrasing the same term and putting them into them into the index.

EG

Rate of fire - page x

Number of shots (See rate of fire) - page x

In terms of layout within the book, I can see there being a plus for it to be re-aranged a little, but there will always be gripes. The best way I can see of mitagating this is to put a concerted effort into crossreferencing.

EG

Annything that's associated with range that is not discussed in the range section of the armoury chapter is given as a page reference.

At the moment this is done to an extent, but it is not 100%

Its not just FFG to be fair.

I'll make a general point that frustrates me about many rulesets:

Mixing fluff with rules.

I want the mechanics of the rules clearly laid out, and clearly and concisely explained. If you employ professional writers that really shouldn't be difficult.

When a mechanical rule explanation is mixed in with a bunch of fluff, you end up reading a paragraph of nonsense when a concise sentence would do.

Alongside this is wordiness. Cut out the waffle please. The rulebooks could be crammed with more content if you didn't waste 50% of the word count of blather.

E.g.

Current text

Attack Actions (p197)

Attack actions are used to injure or subdue opponents. A character can only perform one attack action per turn, and can only perform attack actions on his turn. If a character is wielding two weapons, one in each hand, he can perform two attack actions per turn instead, one with each weapon. The second attack made in this way each turn suffers a –20 penalty.

68 words

Could easily be redrafted as:

Attack Actions (p197)

Attack actions are used to harm opponents. During his turn a character can perform one attack action. If armed with a weapon in each hand, he can perform one attack action with each weapon; the first at +0, the second at a -20 penalty.

47 words

Thats about 30% fewer words with no loss of clarity -simply but cutting out the waffle.

Much more succinct, great stuff.

Funny, I always considered 40k to be one of the easiest, most clearly written rulesets around.

If there's still rules for improvement, why not?

But as you've mentioned, this is already written by Freelance writers. So payed for. I don't know the details of their contracts, but I doubt a rewrite of the entire rules in the book something that were going to get, unless we maybe specify rule by rule how it could be made clearer.

I agree that only specific suggestions are likely to be taken. Asking for more succinctness and a better index are good, but I doubt they'll be implemented unless specific suggestions are made for index entries and where to decrease descriptions.

Dear FFG please ensure that the rules found on pages 1 through to 377 are written clearly and without blather, waffle, unnecessary verbiage or ambiguity.

The narrative tools chapter could use a summary of the social rules in it. They're cool, but the hardest section to read through.

Well, I was pretty stunned to find the beta rules to be over 300 pages WITHOUT any background chapters and illustrations... simply from that number I had suspected it to be somewhat bloated, although I haven't been able to put a finger on it.

Two chapters I found problematic were the skill and talent descriptions. I'm not convinced it is necessary to include 1-2 pages of detailed suggestions on how to use a skill or talent; especially if those suggestions are not meant as exhaustive examples anyway. As it is now you have 53 pages explaining how to use 32 skills and talents, respecively...

The 40K tabletop rulebook has a convention where they put the fluff about the skill/rule in the first paragraph and the mechanics in the second. Pathfinder/D&D tends to split skill/talent/etc descriptions rules into pre-defined groups. This sort of thing really does help finding a rule on the fly. But really I don't feel we're going to get this, not in this game anyway.

The 40K tabletop rulebook has a convention where they put the fluff about the skill/rule in the first paragraph and the mechanics in the second. Pathfinder/D&D tends to split skill/talent/etc descriptions rules into pre-defined groups. This sort of thing really does help finding a rule on the fly. But really I don't feel we're going to get this, not in this game anyway.

Ask and you shall receive?

1- Larger page numbers. If you're going to busy up the borders with artwork, make the numbers larger (approx. the size of DH1), and use a color that is easily visible against its background.

2- Stop using dark shadow art on the rules pages. I don't get excited about having to hold the book a certain way (most times uncomfortably) just to read the rules. Save that crap for the fluff pages.

3- In the absence of a thorough index, color code the page borders.

4- Regarding border art: does it really have to be a half inch wide all the way around the page? Save that space for more actual content.

5- Stop changing things simply for the sake of change. Example: 3x3 stat blocks. Why? Old hats are going to have difficulty with this for a while, and sure they'll get used to it, but why should they have to? Leave it the same. The only people that'll have to learn how it's laid out are new players, and they'd have to learn it anyway. Why confuse two groups of people?

6- Do. Not. Use. Red. Text. On. A. Dark. Background. Color. Example: Unnatural Characteristic totals in the stat lines of Only War- the numbers are tiny as, and red. Great, need lenses to read them. C'mon.

7- Please do not reuse John Blanche artwork. Please? It looks penned by a seizure victim and uses a color range akin to dog vomit. Besides we've seen the same twelve images for fifteen years, now. I'd personally prefer a great big blank space where I could put my own sloppy doodles.

8- As Luddite suggests, tone the unnecessary verbiage waaaay down. And I know proofreading can be a pain, but do it. Do . It . Then, have a few more people do it. Picking up a publication and reading a glaring mistake within the first three paragraphs does not foster confidence in a product that has a MSRP of $60 or more. Related: for the same reason, proof read the tidbits you post from upcoming publications before putting them online.

Dear FFG, please hire Luddite as your new (or perhaps first?) copy editor. Thanks.

I'd consider the job if offered at the right price.

My professional role requires me to write clear and concise corporate policy, safety-critical procedure, and legal contracts so i have a bit of experience. FFG are welcome to PM me if they want my services.

And I rather enjoy a bit of creative writing too http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/7797-the-prodigal-son/ et.al.

...uh...wait. Did i just go all LinkedIn there? Apologies everyone...

In my opinion you need a bit of padding. Removing padding may help the rules with clarity, but it can make the rules a rather dry read.

Think about how Laws and Scientific reports etc are written. They are written to maximize clarifity and to minimize abiguity. But they are (IMHO) painful and boring to read. I think people only read those things when they need to.

A little bit of padding makes it easier to read. Only when the padding starts to obscure the meaning, or words for words sake, does it start to become excessive.

It is a game not a legal document.

I do think some more examples could help, in particular combat examples, . Just because this system is so different from anything else, with the cumulative modifiers per wound (and from the previous attack, not the current one)... It took some puzzling out. I think some real clarification could be done there.

In my opinion you need a bit of padding. Removing padding may help the rules with clarity, but it can make the rules a rather dry read.

Think about how Laws and Scientific reports etc are written. They are written to maximize clarifity and to minimize abiguity. But they are (IMHO) painful and boring to read. I think people only read those things when they need to.

A little bit of padding makes it easier to read. Only when the padding starts to obscure the meaning, or words for words sake, does it start to become excessive.

It is a game not a legal document.

Thing is, FFG's rule waffle doesn't really make for much more of an easy read, it's just a greater amount of dry stuff to process. The best way to make rulebooks readable is to include a lot of fluff text (that's clearly seperate from the rules), and a lot of examples, like Vaeron said. Examples are always good, RPG rules can often be difficult to grasp correctly without some idea of how they work in action.

In my opinion you need a bit of padding. Removing padding may help the rules with clarity, but it can make the rules a rather dry read.

Think about how Laws and Scientific reports etc are written. They are written to maximize clarifity and to minimize abiguity. But they are (IMHO) painful and boring to read. I think people only read those things when they need to.

A little bit of padding makes it easier to read. Only when the padding starts to obscure the meaning, or words for words sake, does it start to become excessive.

It is a game not a legal document.

Thing is, FFG's rule waffle doesn't really make for much more of an easy read, it's just a greater amount of dry stuff to process. The best way to make rulebooks readable is to include a lot of fluff text (that's clearly separate from the rules), and a lot of examples, like Vaeron said. Examples are always good, RPG rules can often be difficult to grasp correctly without some idea of how they work in action.

Absolutely TC.

As i said the problem isn't the fluff, its mixing the fluff with the rules.

Keep all the lovely descriptive stuff, just keep it alongside the the rules not mixed up with them in a way that makes reading and understanding the mechanics far harder, and that introduces ambiguity and confusion.

As i said this is a general issue i find with most RPG and wargames rules actually.

@Tygre

'All rules need padding'. I fundamentally disagree. Padding for me is unnecessary waffle that adds nothing. I want to see clear and concise rules, backed up with inspiring, informative and useful narrative text (fluff, colourful, or descriptive, call it what you will).

I do not want to see 'padding' text - confusing, ambiguous, inspiring, irrelevant, repetitive filler that serves only to 'pad out' the text to meet a contracted word count.

One of the core principles i work under in my professional life is that information must be 'adequate for, relevant to, and not excessive to the required purpose'. I'd love to read a set of rules where those principles had been applied.

I'll be that guy: 4E D&D was great about splitting the rules and flavor. The fluff was right there, but the rules had an independent background color that clearly showed where the rule was, so you could see where the rules were from a mile away. I wish FFG would utilize something like that, maybe all rules on scrolls, or fluff on scrolls. So the page would have a few scrolls here and there to perhaps describe the special quality of certain weapons, or to highlight the hard to find rule about ammunition purchases.

I'll be that guy: 4E D&D was great about splitting the rules and flavor. The fluff was right there, but the rules had an independent background color that clearly showed where the rule was, so you could see where the rules were from a mile away. I wish FFG would utilize something like that, maybe all rules on scrolls, or fluff on scrolls. So the page would have a few scrolls here and there to perhaps describe the special quality of certain weapons, or to highlight the hard to find rule about ammunition purchases.

Problem is, the rules need to reflect the fluff. Which means that the line between rules and fluff can get blurry.

I'll be that guy: 4E D&D was great about splitting the rules and flavor. The fluff was right there, but the rules had an independent background color that clearly showed where the rule was, so you could see where the rules were from a mile away. I wish FFG would utilize something like that, maybe all rules on scrolls, or fluff on scrolls. So the page would have a few scrolls here and there to perhaps describe the special quality of certain weapons, or to highlight the hard to find rule about ammunition purchases.

Problem is, the rules need to reflect the fluff. Which means that the line between rules and fluff can get blurry.

You're absolutely correct, they do need to reflect the fluff, or we're not playing 40k. This can still be highlighted, even as simply as an emboldened rule within the text as currently presented. Just because the rules and fluff are next to each other doesn't mean that the rules can't be called out.

These are all great suggestions, but I really don't think FFG is going to do a serious rewrite unless they have specific suggestions on what to change (i.e. specific rules/wordings that are unclear). As tempting as it is to just say "all of it!" I don't think that will lead to any revisions...

NM.