Reply To: Rule Books. How do you like them?

[Norm S]

My major nit-pick with rules is the idea that you have to buy into several volumes, the sort of Codex idea. I don’t mind paying for a rulebook that is fully self contained.

I would also point out that a £2.50 rule book in 1980 cannot be compared directly to a £25 rulebook today, because wages and wealth and inflation bring those two costs much closer together than initially seems to be the case and then one you factor in a hard cover, bigger page, higher page count and tons of colour etc, the comparisons become harder to make.

I think a person or group who have really done a lot of work on a ruleset and they work properly (i.e. are not half baked), then those rules are deserving of good presentation and the authors are deserving of good recompense to reflect the work that has gone into the game – I am guessing that if you were working out pay by the hour, the author would be receiving nothing like a true or justified level of reward. It seems to be that figure and terrain manufacturers are allowed to put out the best product they can at a reflective price, but that rule authors cannot.

Just the production effort that goes into producing a lovely rule book must be immense.

I think the old fashioned A5, stapled cheap text only formats with a few lined drawings are probably fine for people like me, who like to mess around with amateur level rule / design, it is not a good enough format for the hobby, which has professionalised in most of the areas that it operates in.

I can see the problem that rule junkies will have, but if you are the sort of buyer that tends just to play a favourite set and stick with it, then an expensive rulebook is justified. So say those who bought Fire and Fury all those many years ago must be well pleased with that investment of a lovely rulebook, because for many people that system is still their ‘go to’ rule set.

So bottom line, I would say expensive rules are fine, but with that comes responsibility from the designer and publisher that the rules are very good and problem free and that a loyal fan base should not be forced down a Codex route or at least not to any great degree.

Obvious filler in a rule set is annoying and unnecessary.