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Batman: Gotham City Chronicles - Rulebook (Coreboxes)


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Just a couple of things I’ve noticed on initial reading

 

pg. 7 par G - promontory, this really isn’t a used word or even the word you want. It refers to “a point of high land that juts out into the sea or a large lake”.

 

It’s definitely cleaned up so much visually! I wonder if we could get a reference page similar to the back of the Gloomhaven rulebook for things like traits?

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areBelow are issues I have found with the rules. Obviously any changes I list below are only my recommendations which others may disagree with (or I may simply be wrong).

 

General Note on Flowcharts: Some flowchart boxes indicate when the detailed description of the box is on another page and some do not (sometimes even within the same flowchart). Personally I do not think the reference to the page is necessary but recommend that if you are doing it for some you should do it for all of them.

 

Page 6, Game Boards: In the introductory text it has “in addition to special rules described in the game boards rules”. I assume that the “game boards rules” are found in the mission description but it would be nice if this text found were to find the game boards rules.

Page 6, Game Boards: In the introductory text it has “in addition to special rules described in the game boards rules”. I see that the game board rules are in the Missions Booklet. Suggest adding text such as “See the Missions Booklet for the board game rules.”

 

Page 10, The Heroes: In the introductory paragraph has the following text: “Each mission stages 1 to 3 heroes that can be embodied by one or several players.” Maybe it is me but I think it would be more clear if the text was something like “Each mission has 1 to 3 heroes in play that can be controlled by one or several players.”

 

Page 17, Declare a Complex Manipulation: A reference to page 26 for more details on throwing equipment would be useful.

 

Page 17, Add the Tool Bonuses: I may be wrong about this but shouldn’t “(see page 25)” actually be “(see page 24)?

 

Page 21, Movement Flowchart: After the “Spend Energy Cubes” box the flowchart does not show the standard half boxes with the text “Exertion Limit Not Reached” and “Exertion Limit Already Reached” found in other flowcharts (even though movement has an exertion limit). (Or perhaps the half boxes should be put above the “Spend Energy Cubes” box, see my “Page 41, Reroll Flowchart” errata below).

 

Page 21, Spend Energy Cubes (lower-right): Change “movement space” to “movement action space” in three locations (since that is how other action spaces are referred to and the term used in the Elite Command skill).

 

Page 24: The text near the card images is in French in six locations.

 

Page 24, lower-left, skull icon: The text should probably indicate that the icon indicates it is a “Lethal Item” (since that term is used in the Moral Code skill).

 

Page 24, lower-left, trashcan icon: The Retaliation skill (page 54) in the third bullet indicates the weapon cannot “have the disposable restriction”. Presumably it means this trashcan icon. However the word “Disposable” is not used in the icon’s description but I assume it should be added.

 

Page 28, upper-right: For the “Fatigue Zone” description, change “Upkeep Villain” to “Upkeep Villain step”.

 

Page 29, lower-right: The header for item 16 is in French.

 

Page 35, Calculate the Number of Successes: In the first line, add a space between “successes.The”

 

Page 36, upper-left: At the end of the paragraph beginning with “Complex thought” change “(see page 35)” to “(see page 34)” since that is the page the description of character complex manipulation begins.

 

Page 38, Defense Flowchart: After the “Spend Energy Cubes” box the flowchart does not show the standard half boxes with the text “Exertion Limit Not Reached” and “Exertion Limit Already Reached” found in other flowcharts (even though defense has an exertion limit). (Or perhaps the half boxes should be put above the “Spend Energy Cubes” box, see my “Page 41, Reroll Flowchart” errata below).

 

Page 39, Determine the Number of Wounds: In the orange box, after “WOUNDS SUFFERED” add “(MINIMUM 0)”. While this text is not needed as it is already covered in the rules on page 43 under “Negative Value”, the text is on the Hindering headers on page 44 so think it should also be here.

 

Page 41, Reroll Flowchart: The half boxes “Exertion Limit Not Reached” and “Exertion Limit Already Reached” are above the “Spend Energy Cubes” box but in other flow charts they are below the “Spend Energy Cubes” box. This flow chart makes more sense to me with the half boxes above the “Spend Energy Cubes” box and think others should be changed (but that is not the stand format used in the rules by other flowcharts). The only drawback to putting the half boxes above the “Spend Energy Cubes” box is that the descriptive text for the half boxes appears in the Spend Energy Cubes section, not in the descriptive text of the box above it (in this case, the Declare Any Paid Rerolls section).

 

Pages 42-43: There is no “FIG._65”.

 

Page 44, Enemy and Ally Miniatures: The meaning of the text “The one is not taken into account when counting the number of ally miniatures” is not clear to me. However, I think I know what you were trying to indicate, and assuming I am right, I recommend changing the text to something like the following: “When counting the number of ally miniatures, the hero or character doing the counting does not include themselves.”

 

Page 44, bottom-left: Both the bottom-left box and the box to the right have the same text: “Total size index of allied miniatures”. In the box to the left, the text “allied” should be “enemy”.

 

Page 46, Attraction Skill: In the “Effect” section, third bullet, recommend changing “inferior or equal” to “lower or equal” to use the phase the rulebook usually uses.

 

Page 46, Blast Skill. In both the introductory text and the “Effect” section, the text “an adjacent area” is used. While it is clear to me that this means one adjacent area (not all adjacent areas), people seem to always get confused by this so to avoid confusion, recommend changing “an adjacent area” to “one adjacent area” in two locations.

 

Page 48, Cry Skill. In both the introductory text and the “Effect” section, the text “an adjacent area” is used. While it is clear to me that this means one adjacent area (not all adjacent areas), people seem to always get confused by this so to avoid confusion, recommend changing “an adjacent area” to “one adjacent area” in two locations.

 

Page 48, Cry Skill. In the last line of text, in the text “possessor]is” add a space after “]”.

 

Pages 48-49, Elite Command Skill: In the last line of the introduction paragraph, in the text “miniatures is move to”, change “move” to “moved”.

 

Pages 48-49, Elite Command Skill: In the “Effect” section, second paragraph, in the text “These start the mission in the same area as them”, change “them “ to “[the possessor]”.

 

Pages 48-49, Elite Command Skill: The “Effect” section, second paragraph, has the text “If the area would become over-occupied with the miniatures, they are placed in adjacent areas.” Recommend adding to the end in this text “(see page 43)” to reference what happens if the adjacent area would also be over-occupied (or perhaps for space savings just change the text to “If the area would become over-occupied, see page 43.”).

 

Page 49, Elusive Skill: I do not understand this skill. The effect of the skill does not match the introductory paragraph of the skill, I think the effect has the wrong text.

 

Page 50, Grenade Skill: In the “Effect” section, first paragraph, in the text “distance between them and the targeted area”, change “them” to “themselves” (or perhaps “[the possessor]”).

 

Page 50, Hacking Skill: The second bullet has the text “in the description of the performed thought, it is indicated that the skill is taken into account”. While I think understand the meaning, I find the wording is awkward. I suggest changing “that the skill is taken into account” to “that the skill can be used”. NOTE: If you do make this change, this change would also apply to the following skills (which I do not separately list): Investigation (page 51), Lock Picking (page 51), and Munitions Specialist (page 52).

I see that the phrase “the skill is taken into account” is used in the Missions Booklet so I withdraw this suggested change.

 

Page 50, Imaginary Friend Skill: The Requirement for this skill has “[the possessor] declares the use of the skill.” In The “Effect” section it has “As long as the imaginary friend is present on the board, [the possessor] gains an additional yellow die for each of their actions.” Since they always gain the yellow die, shouldn’t the Requirement be “None”?

 

Pages 51-52, Luck Skill: The “When” section has the text “during a reroll”. While not wrong, I suggest changing to a more formal text (which is used in most of the rules) by changing it to “during a Rerolls step”, or “at the start of the Free Rerolls step”, or something similar.

 

Page 52, Marksman Skill: In the “Requirements” section, first billet, in the text “[the possessor]  is”, remove the extra space before “is”.

 

Page 52, Misfortune Skill: In the “When” and “Effect” sections, change “Declare the Paid Rerolls step” to “Declare Any Paid Rerolls step” (in a total of two total locations) to match what is used in the rules on page 41.

 

Page 52, Munitions Specialist Skill: In the “Effect” section, in the text “[the possessor]adds” add a space before “adds”.

 

Page 53, Parkour Skill. In the “Effect” section, change the double period to a single period.

 

Page 53, Point Blank Skill: In the “Effect” section, in the text “[the possessor]is” add a space before “is”.

 

Pages 55-56, Sneak Attack Skill: In the second bullet, in the text “the defender is in the same area as them” change “them” to “[the possessor]”.

 

Pages 55-56, Sneak Attack Skill: The third bullet has “the total menace indexes of the allies is equal to or higher than the total menace indexes of the enemies in the area of the attack.” I think per the rules for Enemy and Ally Miniatures rules on page 44 that [the possessor] is not included in the menace index value of the allies (I have suggested errata above for that rule since I find it unclear). To make this rule clear, recommend changing the text “the total menace indexes of the allies” to something like “the total menace indexes of the non-[the possessor] allies”.

 

Page 56, Support Skill: The “When” section has the text “during a reroll”. While not wrong, I suggest changing to a more formal text (which is used in most of the rules) by changing it to “during a Rerolls step”, or “at the start of the Free Rerolls step”, or something similar.

 

Page 56, Support Skill: The first bullet has “the miniature performing the reroll is an allied to [the possessor].” Remove the word “an”.

 

Page 56, Tactician Skill: The introduction paragraph indicates that the skill can only be used on “an allied miniature that hasn't been the target of this effect this turn”. However, the “Effect” section does not indicate it must be an ally or that the effect can be used each turn (the effect section implies it can only be used just once per miniature).

 

Page 59, Fly Trait: The introduction paragraph has in part “Its possessor moves by flying. They then ignore hindering and difficult terrain when moving.” Suggest changing “They then” to “They”.

 

Page 59, Fly Trait: In the “Effect” section, first paragraph, in the text “[the possessor] must respect this exceptions”, change “this” to “these”.

 

Page 59, Fly Trait: In the “Effect” section, at the end of the second bullet, add a period.

 

Page 59, Gas Immunity Trait: Since the “Effect” section has the text “or a toxic gas token” recommend that text also be added to the end of the “When” section.

Edited by Aardvark
Corrected Mistakes
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Errors that MUST be addressed:

P 8: Promontory - The word is not in common use and does not align with what you are trying to define here. Common use term could be Catwalk. I suggest you find another term that will be less confusing.  Also the rules point to page 21 for an explanation and while elevation is gone over on 21 it says nothing about Promontory which is confusing.

 

P14 Tonfa: this should be changed to Baton, or nightstick.

P29 Elite Command on the bottom right is in French and need to be expanded and defined in English.



 

Errors that Should be addressed:

P6: Under Hero Boards: Bat-Tablets are not mentioned on page 10.

P7: Under Areas: Elevation level is not explained on page 43 and Occupation Limit has a different heading which is slightly confusing. I do not think it was intended to be in that section as it is described on page 7

P7 Area

P29 Suggest capitalizing Elite Command to make reference easy.

P30 Under Villain’s Turn: The last sentence should be rewritten for clarity, suggested: The Villain can activate 0, 1 or two tiles each turn.

P32: 6 Second Movement Step: Needs to say something about if the unit is able to move twice. Also the opening sentence could be simplified to say something like: The villain may declare a movement for a character that follows the same rules as a hero.

P44 Enemy and Ally: Should have a bit of leading description here to help players understand this is initially confusing. Something like, the terms of enemy and ally can be relative to determine if a miniature is an enemy or ally use the following:

 

P 46 possessor wording sounds odd in English. Please consider using a word such as owner.

 

Confusing wording that could be improved for clarity:

P6: Under miniatures. There are three different colors of miniatures:

P6: Under Energy. Change quantity to amount.

P6: Turn Tracker and Turn Marker: The turn marker is placed on the turn track which is numbered from 0 to 12. The turn track shows the number of turns played in a mission. At the start of each mission the turn marker will be placed at 0.

P6 Life Point markers: change the that to a which

P7: Under Difficult and Dangerous Terrain: remove the words “rugged and”

P8: Under Game Turn Structure: Remove playing from the first sentence.

Change (there is no notion of playing round-the-table) to (player turns do not pass around the table), Remove the but following the bracket it is unneeded and sounds strange.  

Suggested rewrite of the entire paragraph is as follows.

The heroes’ side and the villain’s side take turns. The side with the starting initiative is specified by the mission.

The heroes’ side does not act according to defined player order (player turns do not pass around the table, instead heroes’ have the freedom to coordinate their actions. For example a hero can carry out their chosen actions and then allow another hero to perform actions. This new hero can then carry out any number of actions they wish before allowing another hero to perform actions including the previous hero. The heroes’ turn continues until all heroes decide to they have finished their turn. This can happen because they no longer have energy cubes available or because they wish to save their energy for a future turn.  

Once the heroes declare they are finished, it becomes the villain’s turn. The villain may play 0, 1, or two tiles in the river(see explanation on page 28) to activate their characters or tigger events. Each character tile represents a miniature or group of miniatures that the villain controls when activating the tile. The villain’s turn ends when they have completed 0, 1 or two tile activations. Play then alternates from heroes to villains and back until a game-ending condition is met.

 

P19: Automatic Manipulations: Suggest changing “They can only” to Automatic Manipulations include:

 

P19 and others: When discussing the exertion limit the following sentence is often used. If the exertion limit has already been reached, the action ends immediately. Suggested change to: If the exertion limit has been reached the action may not be taken. Or is not allowed.

 

P20 and others: Falling. Falling is thought of as something that is accidental. You trip and fall or you were pushed and fall. Perhaps the idea of dropping down would be more in line with the theme.

 

P 25: Under Hero encumbrance total: Suggested rewrite.

A hero’s encumbrance total is the total of all encumbrance values of the equipment they are carrying.  

 

P28:Under the Command Post: Suggested rewrite: The Command post is used by the villain to control their troops and events.

P28: Under 3 Recovery Value: Suggested rewrite: Shows the amount of energy that is moved from the fatigue zone (3) to the recovery zone (2) during the Upkeep Villain step. The value is defined by the mission.  

P28: Under 7 Life Point Track: Suggested Rewrite: Indicates the remaining life points of characters who start with more than one life point.

 

P37 Dredging the River: Instead of At any moment, use At any time

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  • 2 weeks later...

I must say I'm disappointed in you, Monolith. You told us you had learned from your errors with Conan, yet it seems writing and editing rules for your games is still low priority. Many people, myself included, told you back in March that you need to hire a professional proofreader/editor with native-level English and knowledge of games and their rules. This version of your rules shows that you did not. It boggles the mind that a multi-million dollar business can't spare a couple of thousand to get the rules of their game written by a professional.

 

It's not too late yet. It's not good enough to let your players spot your spelling errors and point them out on the forums. The editing, language, terminology and general fluency still need work. Please hire someone who knows what they're doing and you may not need to make a second, revised printing after release like you did with Conan.

Edited by The Captain
Brainfart - wrote Batman when I meant Conan
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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Feedback is being taken very seriously indeed - Hold the Line. (please)  - Monolith is very aware of the situation and are endeavouring to instigate processes that improve the communication and game line editing and feedback loops - Silence in this case is because of focus on the issue - rather than ignoring it - 

 

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I think part of the problem is you're taking feedback from just about every social media site. Have it all feed into a single spot of your choice with clear instructions on expectations. So then involving crowd sourcing editing is all managed from a single site, and there's a single place to reply. All other announcements feed back to that central site. Next folks will post their feedback in the other places, and have the social media manager thank them and reiterate the instructions to post in the central place for management and tracking.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have read through the rule book. Most of the issues I have found have already been mentioned; but I wanted to stress a couple of points.

 

Firstly, having the 2 pages as a single page format in the document meant this was almost impossible to read on my device. I couldn't just put a page on the screen and just scan through it. Not reading it on a Landscape monitor was frustrating.
 

Secondly, I tried using a screen reader on this, and it was awful; partly because of the double page format where it would read the top of a page, then the top of the next page, then lower on the first page, then lower on the next page, then back a page... I had no idea what to do. This makes this much harder for anyone who uses a screen reader to assist with their vision impairment, which includes quite a few board gamers.

If you could fix the above issues, but also make this document a single page format rather than a double page format I think that would help more than me and my group.

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On 3/28/2019 at 11:15 AM, MaiBzh said:

The final version has just been uploaded!

...and it's as bad as the previous version. My gaming group has been looking forward to this game, and we wanted to believe that you had learned the mistakes you made with Conan, but no, you still haven't. The English is unacceptably bad. Despite my professional's opinion expressed over the course of the last year, and several other people pointing out your mistakes - you have done nothing to fix them. I find this disrespectful towards the English-speaking community.

Edited by The Captain
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Page 23.

Renee Montoya is performing a special move (level 2 climb) in order to enter the same area as Batman and Killer Croc. This special move has a cost of 2 energy points, adding the simple move cost of 1 - the cost to move into Batman and Killer Crocs area is 3 energy cubes - She therefore spends 2 energy cubes, adding them to her remaining 1 in her move point pool to meet the 3 energy cube requirement and enters her destination area. 

Screenshot 2019-04-02 at 13.34.41.png

Edited by chazelliott
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On 4/2/2019 at 2:36 PM, chazelliott said:

Page 23.

Renee Montoya is performing a special move (level 2 climb) in order to enter the same area as Batman and Killer Croc. This special move has a cost of 2 energy points, adding the simple move cost of 1 - the cost to move into Batman and Killer Crocs area is 3 energy cubes - She therefore spends 2 energy cubes, adding them to her remaining 1 in her move point pool to meet the 3 energy cube requirement and enters her destination area. 

Screenshot 2019-04-02 at 13.34.41.png

 

I think that's what I talk about my previous email:

 

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Subway game board - yep - that's the way the white arrow is pointing - fall- would be my read too.  Ah - just read the legend on the game board diagram on page 56 of the Misson Booklet - performing a special move "climb" action can be in either direction - so she is performing a climb action down 2 levels.

 

The latest iteration of the rulebook pdf states "level 2 climb"

 

 

Edited by chazelliott
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The climb action has nothing to do.

The rule book literally says: “Renee Montoya currently has 1 move point in her move point pool. She has to spent 2 cubes on her movement space to buy the additional 2 move points required.” 

This clearly contradicts the previous rule set in page 21:

“If the move cost is higher than the move point pool, the hero must spend energy cubes to the movement spa e to buy the missing points. Each spent cube gives the miniature as many move points as their movement characteristic.”

Renee’s movement characteristic is 2, so according with this rule she should spent only 1 cube to get 2 movement point.

In Monolith’s Conan game each movement point buyed costs 1 cube, no matters with is the characters movement characteristic. So It seems to be in the example with Renee too.

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2 hours ago, Shockbringer said:

...

This clearly contradicts the previous rule set in page 21:

“If the move cost is higher than the move point pool, the hero must spend energy cubes to the movement spa e to buy the missing points. Each spent cube gives the miniature as many move points as their movement characteristic.”

Renee’s movement characteristic is 2, so according with this rule she should spent only 1 cube to get 2 movement point.

In Monolith’s Conan game each movement point buyed costs 1 cube, no matters with is the characters movement characteristic. So It seems to be in the example with Renee too.

No you are wrong the movement characteristic of montoya is 1 you are mixing the move point bonus for the first movement of the hero and the charactéristic of movement.

The 1 in red is the the move point bonus for the first movement of the hero and the 2 in red is the movement characteristic.

 

BBB.thumb.jpg.22b5b6875e6135e2a7fcf8b29665e8d4.jpg

 

So in the example montoya has 1 for her movement charactéristic.

Edited by tony
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  • 4 weeks later...

I found some language mistakes in 11th April Rulebook:

Page 24: the face-up and card backs are in French language.

Page 29: Last paragraph is also in French.

 

And what about Page 44, Hindering index? If I subtract the ally sizeindex from also the ally sizeindex, this will be always 0.

Could it be: enemy - ally = X?

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