Revision concerns

[Thunder_God]

Forget typos and minor issues, do them.

When you add material, I say add it as you would online. You give us the changes online? Add them as an additional page or two to the end of the book.
Once you muck with the location of information and how much space it takes, you're doing a lot of damage to the community. If I discuss the game online and mention a rule that's on page 56 for me but page 59 for you, we have a hard time holding a discussion with references.

Also, I, as a customer, would feel more than a little displeased if I were to find out there'd be significant changes(any of them) to the Roach, considering I've purchased it a month ago. And while yes, you'd stay with your copy if I were to find out that a new version is under-production, I'd be much more displeased if I found out you kept it under wraps.

Some games get a new "Version" every year, after the third version, you can be sure I won't touch them again.

That's my opinion as a customer.

[tj333]

I would definitely update books to correct typos.
One thing I've heard done is provide corrections to the game text that can be printed out, cut to shape, then glued into the book over the corrected text.

An extreme version of this would be blank pages/tabs that could be used to add new page to the book. This seems impractical to me though.

[Jonathan Walton]

This is part of a larger issue that might need a seperate thread.  I'm just gonna dip my toes in here.  Don't let this derail the thread.

Play evolves dramatically over time.  You can't possibly play the same game for any extended period of time and expect that the way in which you play the game, the way you approach it, and the way you present it won't change in fundamental ways.  Jason, if you were to write The Roach in a year from now, knowing what you know now, I imagine it would be a very different game.  This is Paul's point, in 3-D.  It wouldn't necessarily be a better or worse game.  The text might be clearer or more accessible or whatever, and that would be cool.  But some things would definitely be different in a way that was not clearly better, just different, based on how your play preferences and abilities had changed in that time.  You can't step into the same river twice and play is certainly a super-fast flowing river, evolving faster than "game theory" even.

At some point, games either have to get re-released in a new, heavily altered edition (TSoY, Universalis, what Matt's doing to Dust Devils) that reflects the changes that have happened in the way you approach and play it... or, it becomes an artifact of a certain moment in your own history as a player and game designer (hello, Sorcerer! The Pool! Otherkind!) and you move on to new projects.  You can still go back and play in the old way, or drift it to meet modern expectations, but the game text itself doesn't change.

Some people (Shreyas!) have been working on a single game for so long that the way they think about playing and designing it has changed over and over again in the process of designing it, so they're not even sure what it's about anymore.  They've lost the original purpose and are unsure about adopting one of the new purposes that might provide new direction.  Should they keep going?  Should they explore a new purpose?  Should they just leave the game unpublished and move onto a new, fresh project with new energy?  I'm in this place with several designs and I'm unsure how to proceed on most of them.

So, what all of this is trying to say is: let the game live and evolve along with you for a bit.  Make adjustments as you learn more about it.  But then, at some point, know when to put it to bed and not let it become, say, Call of Cthulhu (Ron was too nice to point fingers).  Save your energy for Grey Ranks and whatever comes after that.  And I don't need to even tell you any of this, because I know you already know that, but maybe this'll help someone.

[Jason Morningstar]

Thanks again all, and Jonathan, it is interesting to look at games that have essentially become artifacts of a time and place.  I can already look at my own design history and see a distinct evolution, to the point where I mutter "what was I thinking?" at stuff that isn't so very old. 

And you are totally right that were I to write The Roach today it would be a little different, and that's cool.  I'm more focused on addressing the few things that seem to trip people up, or lead to unsatisfying play, and to offer some different options in terms of length and mode of play - there's nothing broken, really.  So look forward to some supplementary materials on the Website at some point.