Doug McCrae
Legend
It's not D&D if it doesn't embiggen my vocabulary!
Write this game for adults
hemera
Explorer
I wouldn't mind a mature tone to the books, but most of all I would like a more..evocative tone. The modern books tend to be a bit boring really. Though some of 4e's later books did ok (like feywild). But I'm not looking for the Dostoyevsky does D&D version, (though you know...) there are plenty of PG-13 movies, comics, books aimed at teens that handle mature situations without going full monty on things. I don't need rules for drug addiction or if you should really think about casting remove disease after visiting that brothel.
Doug McCrae
Legend
Gunning Fog index of 13.51. I guess it's 'trepidation' and 'arbiter' that do it.
This latter part of the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS project I approached with no small amount of trepidation. After all, the game's major appeal is to those persons with unusually active imagination and superior, active intellect -- a very demanding audience indeed. Furthermore, a great majority of readers master their own dungeons and are necessarily creative -- the most critical audience of all! Authoring these works means that, in a way, I have set myself up as final arbiter of fantasy role playing in the minds of the majority of D&D adventurers. Well, so be it, I rationalized.
There were some books for the 'other kids', who wanted to 'wallow in just being a kid' for a couple more years(say until they were thirty). But most of us stopped reading anything 'written just for kids' by the time we were close to teenaged.
The point is not really the 'grade level', as everything is written at 6-8 grade level as that is the 'average that normal people can read'. The point is intelligent adult topics and not endless rated G crap.
Most classic books are full of 'politically incorrect' and 'morally incorrect' stuff, by today's standards. The stories are full of death, violence, hatred, passion, love, sex and even worse things. So while a modern hero will shoot a ''Zapamundo'' and knock a bad guy out, the classic hero would ''decapitate his foe with a swipe of his sword and clean the blood of his blade on his shirt''.
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Crazy Jerome
First Post
Even worse things, perhaps being "expelled"? Sorry, was channeling there for a moment ...
OnlineDM
Adventurer
I love 4e, and I agree with those who have said that some of the books (especially the earlier ones) are boring to read; rather dry and clinical. I disagree that they're talking down to the reader, though. I didn't feel patronized when I read the PHB, DMG and MM. I didn't find them to be great works of literature, but I didn't feel like I was being treated as a kid (I'm in my mid 30s, by the way).
I wanted to echo [MENTION=78503]hemera[/MENTION]'s comment about Heroes of the Feywild being much, much better as an entertaining read. It's a great book, and I absolutely devoured it. The clarity of language is still there, as is the clarity of rules. But the writing is much more evocative - more flavor, more wonder, more engagement of the reader. And while I'm certainly no expert on this, I don't believe it's written at any higher grade level than other 4e books.
RPG books absolutely need to be accessible. I know that some folks would prefer to only read books that are challenging, but I don't think that's the right approach for a game book that's intended to appeal to adults but also to mature children and teenagers. Saying that the books should be evocative - I agree. Saying that the books should be a challenge for the reader - I disagree. Make them enthralling AND accessible. It can be done, and it HAS been done!
I wanted to echo [MENTION=78503]hemera[/MENTION]'s comment about Heroes of the Feywild being much, much better as an entertaining read. It's a great book, and I absolutely devoured it. The clarity of language is still there, as is the clarity of rules. But the writing is much more evocative - more flavor, more wonder, more engagement of the reader. And while I'm certainly no expert on this, I don't believe it's written at any higher grade level than other 4e books.
RPG books absolutely need to be accessible. I know that some folks would prefer to only read books that are challenging, but I don't think that's the right approach for a game book that's intended to appeal to adults but also to mature children and teenagers. Saying that the books should be evocative - I agree. Saying that the books should be a challenge for the reader - I disagree. Make them enthralling AND accessible. It can be done, and it HAS been done!
gweinel
Explorer
Damn, I would prefer every day such writing than the one of 3e/4e!
You mean like all the award-winning books I listed? Which won an award given out by the American Library Association -- I hear they know a thing or two about books.
Who is us?
Mattachine
Adventurer
Outside of the hobby, many folks I know and talk to would say everything about D&D games is written just for kids.
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