Torment: Tides of Numenera has hit $2.5 million in Kickstarter funding and that means it’s time for writer Colin McComb to say he’s sorry for The Complete Book of Elves.
Colin McComb is the creative lead on inXile’s RPG-in-Kickstarter-progress Torment: Tides of Numenera. He’s also the man who, many years ago, wrote the AD&D Second Edition sourcebook The Complete Book of Elves. It is not the most universally-well-regarded sourcebook of all time, as noted on the Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter page, which states, “You AD&D players may remember how dreadful this work was, making elves so incredibly powerful and unbalanced that all of our AD&D games were henceforth ruined until 3rd Edition D&D came to save us. (This is a slight overstatement. We could just pretend the book never existed, after all. That’s what I did.)”
Despite having to put up with that kind of abuse from his employer, McComb is a pretty good sport about it all and actually offered to apologize for the book as part of the Torment Kickstarter’s $2.5 million stretch goal. That figure was hit with ease, and now McComb has stepped up to the plate.
It’s not the smoothest apology I’ve ever heard, but I get the feeling that his heart isn’t entirely in it and suspect that perhaps there’s a bit of the theatrical at work here, too. After all, the best apologies are the ones you have to work for, and while I find it hard to have too much sympathy for his suffering – let’s face it, the guy was writing D&D supplementals while I was still trying to justify my failure to finish high school – I certainly give him props for taking one for the team. We forgive you, Colin – but don’t screw up Torment. Our magnanimity only goes so far.
