Is Ravenloft in trouble?

[Walden]

The mishandling of the Masque of the Red Death editing implies that we may have a serious problem now. This now marks the second major Ravenloft book to be completely botched primarily due to bad editing. (The first, of course, was the Ravenloft Players' Handbook). Swords & Sorcery and ArtHaus (including Cassada and Rea as head developers and Bates as S&S head editor) have a responsibility to their readers to ensure that the books they put out are of a quality that renders them usable, and I am becoming seriously concerned about their ability to deliver. If this becomes a pattern as I fear, the entire Ravenloft line could be put in Jeopardy.

And, yes, as Jester mentioned in a thread on the Gothic Earth board, Swords & Sorcery has never released an errata for a Ravenloft product after the first book in 2001. This in of itself should serve as a warning.

So what do you think?

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

Web Enhancements (and erratas form what I gather) are the responsibility of the authors to produce rather than the publishers. So we may or may not see one for Ravenloft products after Secrets of the Dread Realms. It all depends on the time availiable to the authors.

[Walden]

Thank you for telling us that, Wiccy, but it still doesn't change my larger concern that the Ravenloft line may be being mismanaged. [Can someone develop an emoticon for "worried?"]

[Snake]

The line could be in trouble, but I like to think optimistically about it, and hope that the two botches are just due to the managers having other issues in their life. I don't really think that is an excuse, but it is better to think that, than to think they just don't care, or that they aren't putting their best efforts forward.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Haven't gotten the new Masque yet, and I passed on RLPH. What was the editting problem?

[ScS of the Fraternity]

The editing problems are many:

Firstly, the organization of the information is poor. Some game information is spread out and hidden - if not completly absent

Second, there are many clerical errors such as unnecessary paragraph breaks, inconsistant headings, and poor font choices.

Third, the writing is preachy in the wrong places

Now, I don't want to seem too down on the book - because the appendixes are really very well done - but I would recomend not buying the book. At least not yet.

[Mortavius]

Here's what I base my worries about the line on: All we know about is Legacy of Blood. All the other years, we've known about a few books ahead, regardless of whether it was next year or not. How long has it been since Legacy of Blood was announced, and we know nothing beyond that?

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

A couple of books due to come out after Legacies of Blood have been announced, just not specifically what they are about. I'm sure we will see more books though.

[JinnTolser]

The editing problems are many:

Firstly, the organization of the information is poor. Some game information is spread out and hidden - if not completly absent

Second, there are many clerical errors such as unnecessary paragraph breaks, inconsistant headings, and poor font choices.

Third, the writing is preachy in the wrong places

Now, I don't want to seem too down on the book - because the appendixes are really very well done - but I would recomend not buying the book. At least not yet.

Is it worth it for someone who wants to try out MotRD for the first time? I've been interested in it for months now, and I haven't seen the new book (wasn't even aware it was out until you said something about it). I've been looking forward to its release so I could give it a look, but now I'm a little worried.

Is it worth it for those of us who don't have access to the original MotRD?

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

I'm going to get MotRD despite its problems, it is something I have been looking forward to seeing in print again and some (maybe alot) of editorial issues with it arent going to stop me

[Mangrum]

Web Enhancements (and erratas form what I gather) are the responsibility of the authors to produce rather than the publishers.

That's true only in so far in that all of the 3E Ravenloft web extras that did come out (barring previews) were done on the authors' time and the authors' dime without Arthaus input of any kind.

[LicheHazel]

I would concur, as a reader getting in touch, or even a reply from arthaus is nigh on an impossibility. Editing, erm Was there an editor or was it a hired monkey (no offense ment) that selected the paragraphing? I admit I am dyslexic, but appologise for my mistakes, surely Arthaus, should have someone check it

I am afraid that from what I have seen the Lights on but nobodys at home!!
Talking to authors for RL seems to shed some light though.. Huge sections cut from books......

[Ryan Naylor]

Bit of a misapprehension here.

Although we write the stuff, ArtHaus owns it, so technically, ArtHaus is the only one who can make and release web enhancements (at least, using cut material). This probably isn't going to happen due to a lack of time on behalf of those in charge.

In the past, the Kargatane compiled web enhancements and errata, but we still had to apply to ArtHaus to release them. As the Kargatane no longer exist, our website is dead so we've nowhere we can put them, and no one else seems interested (or legally able) to do web enhancements, I think you can give up hope of seeing them in the near future.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

We would probably host them if we could, but I am not sure where we would stand in that area. We have had some contact with WW/ArtHaus in the past, but I am not sure if that topic ever came up.

My thanks to Ryan and John for their input on this subject

[Mangrum]

In the past, the Kargatane compiled web enhancements and errata, but we still had to apply to ArtHaus to release them. As the Kargatane no longer exist, our website is dead so we've nowhere we can put them, and no one else seems interested (or legally able) to do web enhancements, I think you can give up hope of seeing them in the near future.

If Arthaus wanted to, they could easily put web enhancements on the Sword & Sorcery website, as just about all of the other S&SS product lines have done.

Arthaus has the technical and legal ability; the folks in charge of Ravenloft just don't have the interest. I think that's also apparent in the developers' utter silence in the online fan community.

But Ryan is correct in that we always needed Arthaus permission to post enhancements -- we would have released the cut Gazetteer material ourselves if we'd been legally able. Getting permission was the last step in our process; we'd present them with a completed web enhancement and say, "We need your approval on this so we can upload it." Giving the extra a rubber stamp after its completion was their sole contribution to the process. This is why, as point of trivia, the web enhancements never used the background graphics (the "parchment" & border art) from the published line, whereas the previews (pdfs grabbed from the final print files) did. We didn't use them simply because we didn't have them to use.

The folks in charge of Ravenloft were never particularly friendly to the concept of releasing material for free. This was to the extent that, as part of our initial meet-and-greet process, they instructed us to stop producing any kind of netbooks other than adventures. (Since Arthaus wouldn't be publishing adventures for Ravenloft, any we put out wouldn't be seen as competition.)

As a note, we didn't end the Book of S___ line because of that edict; it merely confirmed where our mindset was already headed at the time.