[WellsIDidIt]

If you aren't using context, then your proposed "or" would not work either.
Every character has a Condition Monitor that tells the player how much Physical or Stun damage they can take before falling unconscious.

That does not say there are two monitors. That says that each character has "a monitor" (singular) that racks physical or stun damage (one type) for the purpose of falling unconscious. They may have another condition monitor, but it wouldn't have any relation to being unconscious. Only the Physical or Stun would make them unconscious, not both.

The bolded section would need to be made multiple (Each character has condition monitors that tell) to make your option viable. That could still be misinterpreted without context though. It could be taken to mean that the monitors (both) only tell how much stun or physical damage you can take before going unconscious. If they told you how much stun damage you could take, they wouldn't tell you how much physical damage, and vice versa. With and in there (after being made multiple), it would tell you that the monitors tell you how much of each type (physical and stun) you can take before going unconscious.

With context though, we already know that characters have a physical monitor and a stun monitor. The actual sentence doesn't say both have to be filled to go unconscious. It tells us that the monitor tells how much damage (in both tracks) we can take before falling unconscious. It tells us the cap for A&B make us unconscious. Not A&B caps must both be filled to go unconscious. My guess is that the writer views it like most SR veterans and still sees both track as a single monitor (like SR 3 did), but that doesn't really matter. You seem to be focused on the end of the sentence, which isn't where the problem with it actually lies. The last part isn't a grammar error, it's just ambiguous wording, which is exactly when we are supposed to use context to interpret.

Each character has Physical and Stun condition monitors that tell the player how much damage they can take before falling unconscious.

That would be the best sentence in my opinion. It's much harder to misinterpret.

[jim1701]

Not really. If you read the sentence with no reference to the other rules, it would tell you that each character has a single condition monitor that contains physical and stun on it, and they fall unconscious when it's full.

That said, with context, we know that:

Player characters have two Condition Monitors; one tracks Physical damage, the other tracks Stun damage.

Since the earlier quote refers to a single track, we still know that only one has to be filled to fall unconscious. Strict reading of a single sentence does not override context. Rules should always be viewed as a whole.

That's not accurate--the rules of grammar rarely, if ever, change by context.  By correctly using or, the writer makes the fact that you have two condition monitors clear and the rule applies to either of them.  By using and, the writer infers something of a cumulative nature; that is, both A + B must be true for the rule to take effect.

The grammar of a statement may not change with context but the MEANING of a statement nearly always changes to a greater or lesser extent when put in context of other statements.  That's why context is so important.

[Xenon]

Guys... As I said a few pages back by now...
It is spelled out very clear at page 3 of the quick start (which all new to Shadowrun are highly encouraged to read)

SR5 Quick-Start Rules p. 3 CONDITION MONITORS
The Condition Monitor consists of two tracks. The Physical Damage Track displays wound damage and indicates when the character dies. The Stun Damage Track shows fatigue and stun damage and indicates when a character falls unconscious. (See Resolving Damage, p. 10, for more information.)

[Kincaid]

Guys... As I said a few pages back by now...
It is spelled out very clear at page 3 of the quick start (which all new to Shadowrun are highly encouraged to read)

SR5 Quick-Start Rules p. 3 CONDITION MONITORS
The Condition Monitor consists of two tracks. The Physical Damage Track displays wound damage and indicates when the character dies. The Stun Damage Track shows fatigue and stun damage and indicates when a character falls unconscious. (See Resolving Damage, p. 10, for more information.)

I don't want to get too far off from my actual point--having a logic diagram of material equivalence is nifty, but not something really worth parsing in a RPG forum.

Here's the main point: a reader shouldn't also require the Quick Start Rules to figure this stuff out, nor should he need experience with previous editions to properly infer authorial intent, nor should he need to think about the differences between A ∧ B and A ∨ B.  It's a manual--it should have a technical writer review it before it goes to print.  I like Catalyst and God knows the Shadowrun IP has had a rocky history, so it's nice to see a company with some enthusiasm for it.  But look at the length of the basic Q&A thread and consider how much shorter than could have been if there was a standardized approach to language throughout the book.

[Reaver]

Interesting note:


Prior to 2002. All instruction books were written to be understood by someone with a grade 6 reading comprehension skill....

Multiple surveys done from 1990 to 2000, across North America and Europe noted that many people stated that understanding instruction manuals was "too hard"....


After 2002, all instruction manuals are now printed so that a read with a reading comprehension ability equal to a grade 4 student can understand...









In 2013 a survey done noted that 63% of respondents said that the language of instruction manuals was too difficult to read.























Sometimes, it isn't how something is written, it's in the comprehension level of the reader.... and Reading comprehension is in the toilet.

[Namikaze]

Ironic use of excessive whitespace and incorrect capitalization. 

[Reaver]

Electrician, not an English professor



And yet, I work with the CEC (a poorly written legal document), the AEC (even more poorly written), the CMC (better written), the AMC (the writers should go back to school!).

Heck, even in SR I can figure out most of what they are trying to say with a couple read throughs..... and yet we get 15 pages arguing the merits of where the comma is placed... or 6 pages of whining why some little tiny word in one sentence wasn't changed in the errata update thread.

Face it boys and girls, writing is hard work. The freelancers who made SR 5 come together, the staff at Catalyst who made the book and organized all the freelancers should be thanked (After all, if it wasn't for Catalyst and the dedicated staff who write and work for them, we probably wouldn't even have an SR 4 or SR 5! It would have died with FASA.

So really, be thankful that they had the heart and love for SR and wanted to see it continue.


and for all you babies out there. I got a bag of soothers here for your teething, please use one.

[WellsIDidIt]

Writing is not hard work.

Rewriting and editing is hard work. I write for a living. I love writing. Rewriting and editing makes me want to pull my teeth out. That said, people don't pay me to write. When I write, it's full of errors. People pay me to write, rewrite, and edit, then give them a polished work. Of course, I always prefer editing my own work to seeing other editors butcher it. I am a firm believer that 90% of the published errors in most books come from a different person editing the work.

[Mithlas]

Interesting note:

Prior to 2002. All instruction books were written to be understood by someone with a grade 6 reading comprehension skill....

Multiple surveys done from 1990 to 2000, across North America and Europe noted that many people stated that understanding instruction manuals was "too hard".

You're making an assumption that the reading comprehension is why some people claimed reading manuals was too difficult. Here's another one grounded in psychological and linguistic research:

Vygotsky's theory of the Zone of Proximal Development states that if you challenge somebody with something faintly above their current mastery, they will rise to the challenge (though they may require a little assistance). If they are challenged with something that is significantly above their current mastery level they will disengage because they find themselves unable to keep pace. Something that I see mentioned in all of my linguistics textbooks but rarely stated in general articles (and is also missing from the wikipedia article) is that if you confront somebody with something significantly below their current mastery level they will disengage because they find themselves bored and insulted by the work.

Rewriting and editing is hard work. I write for a living. I love writing. Rewriting and editing makes me want to pull my teeth out... I am a firm believer that 90% of the published errors in most books come from a different person editing the work.

Most writers I know meatspace would disagree with you. "A writer reads what he intended, not what he wrote." In any case, cooperation between writers and editors is important to help filter out mistakes. If editors are thrown out we'll have Palladium Crapworks Books.

Are things like the price of Technomancer immersion things we can't figure out without errata? No, but it would be nice if we could get some that and some other things like drone targeting so the particular players who latch onto this or that mistake don't cause a spiral of chaos.

[WellsIDidIt]

While there is some credit to that, reading comprehension is falling in the U.S. rapidly. We have to look no further than newspapers to see that. When I was little (90's), newspapers were written to an 8th grade standard. Now, newspapers are written to a 6th grade standard, and many large cities are considering, or have already gone to, a 4th grade standard.

As for writing, I can see that with new writers and part time writers, but most professional writers I know that work on technical matters (manuals, rules, etc.) are able to fix 90% of their issues on their own. It's just something you teach yourself to do as you go through rewrites. Most editors don't have enough background in an area (I work primarily on software manuals for example) to understand issues caused when they change certain words.

Fiction is, of course, the easiest thing to edit.

[Namikaze]

Wow this topic has gone waaaaay off course. 

[Faust]

Electrician, not an English professor



And yet, I work with the CEC (a poorly written legal document), the AEC (even more poorly written), the CMC (better written), the AMC (the writers should go back to school!).

Heck, even in SR I can figure out most of what they are trying to say with a couple read throughs..... and yet we get 15 pages arguing the merits of where the comma is placed... or 6 pages of whining why some little tiny word in one sentence wasn't changed in the errata update thread.

Face it boys and girls, writing is hard work. The freelancers who made SR 5 come together, the staff at Catalyst who made the book and organized all the freelancers should be thanked (After all, if it wasn't for Catalyst and the dedicated staff who write and work for them, we probably wouldn't even have an SR 4 or SR 5! It would have died with FASA.

So really, be thankful that they had the heart and love for SR and wanted to see it continue.


and for all you babies out there. I got a bag of soothers here for your teething, please use one.

Best post, 100% agree

[NoxMortem]

I will do what I can to at least post something here on a more regular basis, which I admittedly have been bad at.

Jason H.

Not to be mean but, you have failed that even worse. I am aware no one has posted in this topic for over 120 days but this fits what i want to say so good i simply had to post it: The fact that the last updated date of the official errata document is "2014-02-09 12:30:22" simply is horribly sad and not worth the license. It is not like there is not a huge list of stuff to fix since over a year ago... Shadowrun deserves way better quality control and erratas. We all know erratas do not pay but 5$ .pdf's do - still sad.

[AJCarrington]

Not to be mean but, you have failed that even worse. I am aware no one has posted in this topic for over 120 days but this fits what i want to say so good i simply had to post it: The fact that the last updated date of the official errata document is "2014-02-09 12:30:22" simply is horribly sad and not worth the license. It is not like there is not a huge list of stuff to fix since over a year ago... Shadowrun deserves way better quality control and erratas. We all know erratas do not pay but 5$ .pdf's do - still sad.

You are aware of the Errata forums on this board? Might be worth your time to check them out, though not sure how often JH has posted over there. There are lots of ways to contribute to the community, some more productive than others...

[NoxMortem]

I am aware of that and follow those threads and individual user posts as well but there are a few HUGE problems with the current way CGL works with the shadowrun trademark:

• The errata document is not updated for over a year, this should be the highest quality control priority. I get that we won't ever get a monthly update or something like that, but a year is damn long and so many products made their way since then.
• The .pdf's are not updated... ok if we would at least get an official errata document this would be a minor thing but as there is nothing official for over a year this adds up to the stuff not helping to get official clarifications
• The errata forum is nothing official as anyone can post there, the postings there have no more value than being a gathering of user suggestions. This is why official errata documents are important and not just a minor thing.
• The release cycle is extremly slow which means huge problems remain unsolved for a long time as the core rulebooks on hot question topics remain unpublished and no one knows how to solve this or how to solve that. This is also something I can absolutely understand as it takes time and money to produce things and shadowrun is a line where many freelancers work on. It is just one more thing adding up on the non-existance of Errata-Updates and FAQ's. The fact that there are indeed many small publications coming out all the time just shows no one is responsible for this at CGL and it is not valued at all, which is a very bad practice. I do not mean to "not publish those stuff because it brings money" but I mean: We really need this official erratas and FAQ documents!
• There is no good working exchange between CGL and other license holders. The erratas and publications of the different language editions vary and for print books I can get that because of different publication dates. Still, the german fanbase is way smaller and still working hard and delivering better quality rules clarifications where it can - and this field is very small - and most of those changes seem to rarely make it back to the CGL products. There are still clarifications and fixes in the german products which never made it back to the english products.
• Freelancers, Mission FAQ and therelike seem to work more and more as an instrument of rule-clarifications in this and other forums and this is an absolute no-go looking at the quality of those answers. Yeah I get it, quality control is an expensive, boring task not directly bringing in any money. The answers and posts of some of those individuals quite often do not reflect all the rules, very often their knowledge of the rules is quite bad and they pile up more problems instead of solving existing ones. I am not going to tell any names or nicknames as I very much value every persons private time spent into trying to help and I am very sure they did a lot of high quality work writing but the quality of some of those clarifications can at best be taken as those of a private person and not as something (semi-)official. Hotfix clarifications are okay as long as somewhere along the timeline there is something validating or invaldiating it. People take those answers with high value and one would expect them to have high value when someone has worked on a specific product but sadly this quality does not add up.

If you ask why I am ranting over this so much: I am one of those over at the german fanbase investing a lot of private time researching rules, working through german/english editions, working through the old SR4 documents as comparison, trying to fix broken things and get clarifications for stuff which is simply not solveable at the moment - and most of this since the release. The german publisher is sadly the wrong one to rant at as those just can't give out most of the clarifications we need as all they can do is refer to CGL releases.

I really hope to not set up anyone with this, I just really hope CGL gives us a little bit of a helping hand trying to solve the existing rule problems.