MAG Typos and Corrections thread

[Skywalker]

That's correct outside Conflicts, but not inside Conflicts. Inside a Conflict you can't form a pool with more than 10 dice at all, so that Nudge conversion simply wouldn't happen - unless you're a Feruchemist or someone else who can buy or acquire Nudges in some fashion.

Then that needs to be made clear and an addition in the Conflict section should be made.

Almost correct. When you catch a Beat you can take a new, previously undeclared action using any remaining dice. Those might be Action Dice or they might be Defense Dice.

Sure, but that's why I said normally. You catch a beat by rolling some of your Action Dice, so presumably all your Action Dice would have been rolled or ready for conversion into Defence Dice, right? I can't see many people rolling their Action Dice and leaving more than they want to defend with in case they catch a beat.

[Skywalker]

Well, that's how it works, and with that in mind we'd love to hear what you think - specifically - needs to be adjusted.

Specifically for Action Dice, alter paragraph on page 177:
1. TAKE THE DECLARED ACTION
In this case the player forms a pool for the declared action from his or her available Action Dice. Like any other pool, this one must fall between 2 and 10 dice (see page 138). The player may not form a pool exceeding 10 dice to gain extra Nudges (page 142) from Action Dice alone.

Specifically for Defence Dice, page 178 after the two bullet points:
In both cases, the player may not form a pool exceeding 10 dice to gain extra Nudges (page 142) from Defence Dice alone.

This is repetitive but I would change the paragraph on page 174 as the introduction of the idea to:
As each action is described, the Narrator makes the choices necessary to form a dice pool, just as with any other roll. On taking an action or a defence, the player may not form a pool exceeding 10 dice to gain extra Nudges (page 142) from Action Dice or Defence Dice alone. Working with the player, the  Narrator decides which Attribute, Standing, or Power is most pivotal and deter-mines whether any Traits, Tools, Circumstances, and other rules apply (see page 138 ­and ­the­ Conflict­ sections­ on­ pages­ 193–230). Remember that catching a Beat does not grant any additional dice (see the sidebar on page 142).

Also a new bullet point on page 179 which summarises the rules:
*The player may not form a pool exceeding 10 dice to gain extra Nudges (page 142) from Action Dice or Defence Dice alone.

It might also pay to use Thorrow's first Action to demonstrate this in that he has 12 Action Dice. For example:

Though Thorrow's has 12 Action Dice, he may only devote 10 dice maximum to his attack. However, this would leave him exposed in defence, so he chooses 8 dice only.

I might be belabouring the point, but this was on point of confusion that was important IMO. You be able to find a more efficient way to say the above but I think it is important to stress the point with this one.

[Skywalker]

Page 136 says:

Occasionally your character may “catch a Beat” (meaning he or she can take an extra action in the next Beat), or “lose a Beat” (meaning he or she has to sit the next Beat out, doing nothing at all). These phrases will make more sense as you see them in context elsewhere in the rules.

Everywhere else, Catching a Beat seems to give an extra action immediately before anyone else gets to act, not the next Beat).

[Akerbos]

Heh. Have you been playing tabletop RPGs for very long? Most regulars care nearly as much about looks as contents. We took a pretty big chance with this one, forgoing the purdy to line up with Brandon's novels, but most of our releases tend to be a lot more graphically involved.

We use our industry's standard, InDesign, for page layout, and while it has indexing features they're... not great. So yeah, if you want the work done right, it has to be done by hand.

I can not in good consciousness claim that tools like LaTeX make it easy to create something visually appealing, but they do make all other kinds of stuff lots, lots easier. I am pretty sure you can get beautiful things done, though. At least in the case of the Mistborn RPG, most visual elements seem to be (relatively easily) possible in LaTeX. Bottomline, other tools cause other issues. Personally, I'd rather spent some time once for getting the visual elements right (once because you define macros, not design every single box individually) than having to spend hours and hours whenever I make any restructuring decision on references, links, table of contents, index, ....

Well, I'm afraid going through and listing everything point by point isn't in the card either - at least not if you want your printed books in any reasonable time frame, or the Fantasy Craft folks want me on Spellbound anytime soon. We do what we can...

Of course, no worries. Just wanted to point out in a friendly way that we could not possibly decide wether you got everything.
(Maybe you want to use a bugtracker? Or that proofreading tool I have yet to write...)

We included a sidebar explaining all this. It's on page 179. Go read that and let me know if you have any questions on that first. Then we'll talk about catching a Beat.

I see, thanks. So I don't actually split the dice. The misunderstanding was that after the initial action, the dice pile seems to be called "Defense Dice". It was not obvious to me that in case of catching the Beat you could rename it "Action Dice" for the additional action.
Then again:

Almost correct. When you catch a Beat you can take a new, previously undeclared action using any remaining dice. Those might be Action Dice or they might be Defense Dice.

So I don't have to rename the pile once more but can still use the dice. Doesn't make a difference, or does it?

You can't have Action and Defense Dice at the same time. Very important note.

If I can arbitrarily move around dice until spent (virtually, at least) where is the problem? 

Incidentally, there is a typo in that same sidebar: "the rest become Defense Dice become Defense Dice" -- remove the duplication.

as each beat you would have to use at least 2 dice from your base pool.

That would mean that charges could not substitute any dice, but only dice three, four, ... in any pool. Is that clear from the rules as they are now?

If you are looking at beat length in conjunction with power durations, you may be able to just limit the charge tapping amount by beat.

Would this not break the mechanic as seen in the books? It seems to me that Feruchemists can Tap without skill-related restrictions, creating incredible effects (cf Wax in AoL). There seems to be no risk for them (internally) as Feruchemy never directly harms its user. For game balance, such a limit would probably make sense, though.

[ChimeraJack]

page 96    WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS YOUR ULTIMATE PURPOSE?   one of the options is "Murdered your best friend" wich is also in the Tragedy section. There was many a call of "Not It" for Best Friend status at character creation last game.

[Crafty_Pat]

We included a sidebar explaining all this. It's on page 179. Go read that and let me know if you have any questions on that first. Then we'll talk about catching a Beat.

I see, thanks. So I don't actually split the dice. The misunderstanding was that after the initial action, the dice pile seems to be called "Defense Dice". It was not obvious to me that in case of catching the Beat you could rename it "Action Dice" for the additional action.
Then again:

Almost correct. When you catch a Beat you can take a new, previously undeclared action using any remaining dice. Those might be Action Dice or they might be Defense Dice.

So I don't have to rename the pile once more but can still use the dice. Doesn't make a difference, or does it?

It largely doesn't, but it's important to constantly reinforce the all-important rule that you only have one pool on the table, ever. 

You can't have Action and Defense Dice at the same time. Very important note.

If I can arbitrarily move around dice until spent (virtually, at least) where is the problem? 

There are a variety of reasons it's important that you can't move dice around at will, but the most important by far is that once Action Dice are converted into Defense Dice you can no longer act in that Beat. You can react, and defend, but not act.

Incidentally, there is a typo in that same sidebar: "the rest become Defense Dice become Defense Dice" -- remove the duplication.

Added to the list.

[Crafty_Pat]

Page 136 says:

Occasionally your character may “catch a Beat” (meaning he or she can take an extra action in the next Beat), or “lose a Beat” (meaning he or she has to sit the next Beat out, doing nothing at all). These phrases will make more sense as you see them in context elsewhere in the rules.

Everywhere else, Catching a Beat seems to give an extra action immediately before anyone else gets to act, not the next Beat).

I expect we'll revise thie page 136 text to allow the caught Beat immediately. Still have to chat with Alex.

[Crafty_Pat]

page 96    WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS YOUR ULTIMATE PURPOSE?   one of the options is "Murdered your best friend" wich is also in the Tragedy section. There was many a call of "Not It" for Best Friend status at character creation last game.

Yeah, that was a rather funny flub. It's on the list.

[Crafty_Pat]

As a specific example of things we don't like to do...

Specifically for Action Dice, alter paragraph on page 177:
1. TAKE THE DECLARED ACTION
In this case the player forms a pool for the declared action from his or her available Action Dice. Like any other pool, this one must fall between 2 and 10 dice (see page 138). The player may not form a pool exceeding 10 dice to gain extra Nudges (page 142) from Action Dice alone.

Your suggested addition here is redundant. It's pretty clear from the second sentence that you can't form pools over 10 dice, so we don't have to say it again. In fact, saying it again potentially leads to questions about why it was said again, further muddying the waters.

Changes must be organic, simple, and clean.

It might also pay to use Thorrow's first Action to demonstrate this in that he has 12 Action Dice. For example:

Though Thorrow's has 12 Action Dice, he may only devote 10 dice maximum to his attack. However, this would leave him exposed in defence, so he chooses 8 dice only.

I might be belabouring the point, but this was on point of confusion that was important IMO. You be able to find a more efficient way to say the above but I think it is important to stress the point with this one.

Examples are a more likely place for this kind of revision. We're considering.

[Skywalker]

Cool.

The only difficulty I have is that the references to page 138 is about forming Pools generally and this process ends with saying on page 142 that if you end up with a pool greater than 10 dice then those dice become free Nudges. IMHO if you apply this to Conflicts, then the natural reading is that if Thorrow's had 12 Action Dice he could validly decide to use all 12 for his attack, using the first 10 dice for the pool (being the comment about forming pool with no more than 10 dice) and also use the extra 2 dice for free Nudges. If this can't be done then I think you need to explicitly say it can't be done when referring to the process starting on page 138.

On saying that, I agree that there are many ways of expressing it and some may be more efficient. You might move the additional line i made to page 142 and the sidebar on page 179 (I personally thinks it pays iterating on page 174 too).

My point is that I don't think the matter as clear as you suggest, so extra caution may be wise.

[Aminar]

Cool.

The only difficulty I have is that the references to page 138 is about forming Pools generally and this process ends with saying on page 142 that if you end up with a pool greater than 10 dice then those dice become free Nudges. IMHO if you apply this to Conflicts, then the natural reading is that if Thorrow's had 12 Action Dice he could validly decide to use all 12 for his attack, using the first 10 dice for the pool (being the comment about forming pool with no more than 10 dice) and also use the extra 2 dice for free Nudges. If this can't be done then I think you need to explicitly say it can't be done when referring to the process starting on page 138.

On saying that, I agree that there are many ways of expressing it and some may be more efficient. You might move the additional line i made to page 142 and the sidebar on page 179 (I personally thinks it pays iterating on page 174 too).

My point is that I don't think the matter as clear as you suggest, so extra caution may be wise.

Yeah, I had it confused as well, just a quick clarification stating the differences between conflicts, challenges, and the lot might help.

[Skywalker]

Yeah, I had it confused as well, just a quick clarification stating the differences between conflicts, challenges, and the lot might help.

In Crafty's defence, I can see on rereading those sections that they do seem similar. But there is a subtle difference which is quite large in effect.

In Challenges and Contests, the base pool is formed from a stat and then modifications added like circumstances and traits. It's the later two which may knock you over the 10 dice mark.

In Conflicts, the same process is instead partially applied in forming Action Dice, with modifications added at this stage effectively bypassing the normal free Nudges over 10 dice, and partially when the player forms the dice pools, with the 10 dice limit applying at this subsequent stage. It's almost in reverse.

This is why I think there needs to be something explicit to say the player forming dice pools in a Conflict can't voluntarily take advantage of the normal free Nudges for over 10 dice part of the process. I quite like the language of simply saying that on forming dice pools a player can't take advantage of the free Nudges for over 10 dice from Action or Defence Dice alone.

[Agent 333]

On Page 56, in Koel's backstory we get this line:
"Then your mother discovered your father’s true lineage and sent house assassins to kill you both."
Which I suppose is fine in itself, but the rest of the backstory (and Koel's Tragedy and Destiny), suggest it should be:
"Then your father discovered your mother’s true lineage and sent house assassins to kill you both."


EDIT:
Not sure if this has been brought up, but:
Page 287, there is a pronoun antecedent problem with this sentence near the bottom:
"Blessings are the only exception to this rule — they don’t suffer this penalty because the spikes actually create them, and are responsible for their sentience." (Emphasis mine)
Nowhere in the preceding paragraph does it mention koloss or kandra, so the "them" is ambiguous. It seems like the spikes create the spikes, which is obviously silly. Perhaps it refers to "Charm, Wits, and Spirit", in that it creates sentience where there was none?

[Akerbos]

It largely doesn't, but it's important to constantly reinforce the all-important rule that you only have one pool on the table, ever.  

I think what got me on the wrong track from the very beginning where the Extras' and Villain's records sheets (at which I looked before reading the rules). They have two areas, one for Action and one for Defense dice, suggesting that I can/should put dice onto both. Of course, the areas make perfect sense given the actual rules, just so you can keep track which Extra/Villain already acted.

once Action Dice are converted into Defense Dice you can no longer act in that Beat. You can react, and defend, but not act.

Agreed. Of course, catching the Beat would be the exception from the rule?

Regarding the discussion about pools in Conflicts: This may sound dumb, but what is the reason for not being able to use extra dice to generate Nudges on your action? As it is, it creates different rules for rolls, confuses readers (at least the current presentation does). Also, would it not be cool to have Nudges in combat (for characters besides Feruchemists)? In the Challenges section, you have examples of Nudges improving the atmosphere; why not have that in combat? Nudges could have a character end up in a better position after his attack, break their opponents weapons or other equipment, just look very good doing their attack, etc pp. The advantage I gain is balanced by lesser defense ability in this Beat.

[Skywalker]

Regarding the discussion about pools in Conflicts: This may sound dumb, but what is the reason for not being able to use extra dice to generate Nudges on your action? As it is, it creates different rules for rolls, confuses readers (at least the current presentation does). Also, would it not be cool to have Nudges in combat (for characters besides Feruchemists)? In the Challenges section, you have examples of Nudges improving the atmosphere; why not have that in combat? Nudges could have a character end up in a better position after his attack, break their opponents weapons or other equipment, just look very good doing their attack, etc pp. The advantage I gain is balanced by lesser defense ability in this Beat.

Extra dice still form Nudges, you just can't form more than 10 dice from Action Dice, which folds in Circumstances and Traits.

I think that Crafty made the point earlier that additional dice generated by Feruchemists are generally applied on top of that for each roll so can exceed that limit (kind of like how Circumstances and Traits do normally, and how Feruchemist charges do normally too).

I am guessing the above also applies for Pewterarms. It also seems to make a big difference for Feruchemists tapping Steel rather than Pewter, as Steel provides Action Dice not additional dice on a specific roll. I think

I personally would have preferred to have the process starting on page 138 applying in full on forming dice pools for actions from Action Dice. It just groks easier in my mind. But it pays to remember that the times where someone will have more than 10 Action Dice are pretty rare.