Time to bring back the prose?

kevtar · May 3, 2012

pemerton said:
Sleep:

A sleep spell causes a magical slumber to come upon 4 Hit Dice of creatures. Creatures with the fewest HD are affected first. Among creatures with equal HD, those who are closest to the spell’s point of origin are affected first. Hit Dice that are not sufficient to affect a creature are wasted.

Sleeping creatures are helpless. Slapping or wounding awakens an affected creature, but normal noise does not. Awakening a creature is a standard action (an application of the aid another action).

Sleep does not target unconscious creatures, constructs, or undead creatures.

Vs

You exert your will against your foes, seeking to overwhelm them
with a tide of magical weariness.

[Sleep keyword]

Target: Each creature in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Will
Hit: The target is slowed (save ends). If the target fails its first saving throw against this power, the target becomes unconscious (save ends).

I just don't feel this amazing contrast.

The 3E version tells me about HD affected and wasted HD. The 4e version tells met that I attack all targets in the AoE.

The 3E version tells me that it's a magical slumber which can be broken by slapping or wounding (as a standard action - doesn't get more immersive than that!) but not noise, and that it doesn't affect the unconscious or the unliving.

The 4e version tells me that it's a sleep effect (via the keyword) that slows the target and might render them unconscious. Some other things - like the effect or non-effect on unliving targets, and the possibility of waking someone as a standard action - are shunted to other parts of the rulebook (MM glossary, and PHB Heal skill rules, respectively).

I don't feel any contrast. The Rolemaster sleep spell is even more spartan in its description than 4e, but Rolemaster is nevertheless (in my experience) a very immersive game, because of the intricacy of the interaction between ficiton and mechanics.

In each case, reading the sleep spell isn't about being immersed by reading. It's about envisaging about how an episode might play out in the game.

That's why I believe it is a matter of discourse and not simply language. The immersiveness of Rolemaster, I would argue, is a product of the correspondence between the discourse of the game and the orientation of the player - which of course, like so many things in RPGs, is subjective.

kevtar · May 3, 2012

Morrus said:
Move effect into flavour, mixing them, and I'm with you. That's then a 1E/2E/3E spell.

For me personally, mixing them means that the moat between "fluff" and "crunch" gets filled. The spell then becomes more than just a group of numbers. You can't ignore the flavour if it's mixed with the effect.

Separating out the fluff means it gets ignored and the spell is just a numerical spreadsheet entry. Hardly magical.

If the goal of 5e, or D&Dnext, is to capture the "essence" of D&D (which for me, doesn't exist in the game, but rather in its representation), then I believe this is the approach they are going to have to take with spells. I'm not arguing that 4e is wrong, it is just different, different enough to not fit within a particular representation of a game element that (at the time 4e was released) enjoyed a 30+ year history. This history has shaped the way people perceive the game, and if 5e is going to minimize dissonance between the representation of D&D and player's perceptions, they are going to need to adopt traditional approaches to presenting the elements of the game.

Sunseeker · May 3, 2012

Bedrockgames said:
I dont see why we should be forced to have them seperate just because some people might ignore flavor. And the issue is more than keeping the two apart itis also a volume issue. In my opinion one sentence isn't enough flavor.

The amount of flavor should be subjective to the ability. If a sentence is enough, cool, if a paragraph is more fitting, cool. But I don't think artifically inflating the vile of flavor text by merging it with rules text is the proper way to do that. There should be some reasonable limit on flavor though. Flavor is nice, but we shouldn't squeeze out more content in favor of more verbosity.

Minigiant · May 3, 2012

Having the prose and crunch weaved together is a lot more magical.

But when you need the info for how many hit points your wall is and there a paragraph on each side of the part that says it is 15 HP an inch and your eyes are tired from a long day of work... Or you see "Will partial" and you have to read eight sentences to figure out what "partial" is again..." you might go "Screw it... Alman casts fireball.. somewhere... on the closet guard.. they were guard right?"

There are pros and cons on both sides.

Bedrockgames · May 3, 2012

shidaku said:
The amount of flavor should be subjective to the ability. If a sentence is enough, cool, if a paragraph is more fitting, cool. But I don't think artifically inflating the vile of flavor text by merging it with rules text is the proper way to do that. There should be some reasonable limit on flavor though. Flavor is nice, but we shouldn't squeeze out more content in favor of more verbosity.

I don't think more than one sentence is "artificially inflating" flavor text. IMO 4e was needlessly sparse in this regard. Previous editions were about right in my opinion (though I have a soft spot for 2E). Blending mechnics and flavor together seems an elegant approach to me. Sepeating them actually strikes me as a bit clunky.

Morrus · May 3, 2012

shidaku said:
Fluff is going to be ignored by people who are going to ignore the fluff. It doesn't matter if the two are combined or not.

Some people are going to read: "You wiggle your fingers and shoot a ball of fire that explodes in a 30' radius within 50' of you."

Like this:
"You wiggle your fingers and shoot a ball of fire that explodes in a 30' radius within 50' of you."

And some people aren't. Forcing people to read flavor only means it takes them more time to understand the spells because they're trying to interpret the rules from the fluff. I enjoy the fluff in both 3.x spells and 4e spells, but I can comprehend 4e spells much easier because I don't need to attempt to translate the roleish into rollese.

Yes, I'd gathered that some people prefer flavour and crunch separated by an iron wall. You don't need to repeat that to me.

I don't. Dunno what else to say, really. If they're separated out again, I expect to be playing Pathfinder, where they're mixed like I prefer. You say mixing it will bother some people; I say not mixing it will bother me.

I guess one of us will get our way. I hope it's me.

Crazy Jerome · May 3, 2012

(BECMI) Sleep
Range: 240'
Duration: 4d4 (4-16) turns
Effect: 2-16 Hit Dice of living creatures within a 40' square area

This spell will put creatures to sleep for up to 16 turns. It will only affect creatures with 4+1 Hit Dice or less -- generally, small or man-sized creatures. The spell will not affect creatures outside the 40' x 40' area which the player chooses as the spell's target area. The spell will not work against undead or very large creatures, such as dragons.

When a character is first hit with a sleep spell, falling or sagging to the ground will not wake him up. However, characters affected by a sleep spell are not in a deep sleep. Any sleeping character or creature will awaken if slapped, kicked, or shaken.

Characters can kill a sleeping victim with a single blow of any edged weapon, regardless of the creature's hit points.

Your Dungeon Master will roll 2d8 to find the total Hit Dice or experience levels of monsters affected by the spell.

The victim gets no saving throw against this spell.

Contrast with the next spell in the RC:

(BECMI) Ventriloquism
Range: 60'
Duration: 2 turns
Effect: One item or location

This spell will allow the spellcaster to make the sound of his or her voice come from somewhere else, such as a statute, animal, a dark corner, and so forth. The "somewhere else" must be within range of the spell.

Crazy Jerome · May 3, 2012

My ultra-radical, compromise solution:

If something is truly standard in a spell listing, write it in a standard format, in a simple spell block. This includes effects, durations, ranges, applicable saving throws, keywords, etc. But don't go nuts. If there are some useful exceptions, use "see text" or "varies" in the stat block, which means, "Read the darn text, guy!" A faithful adapation of the confusion spell would be a good example of this last part.

Then in the flavor text, repeat all or most of this information, written out, perhaps embedding plain English summaries of applicable rules, where possible. (For the inevitable errors that ensue, establish up front that such rules text is only an aid to play, and is not considered canon in the face of contradictory text in the main rules section. The "unconscious" condition rules trumps any summary of "unconcious" in the sleep spell.

Perhaps, somwhere in the process, we could also have some real flavor embedded in this text? :uhoh:

pemerton · May 3, 2012

kevtar said:
That's why I believe it is a matter of discourse and not simply language.

I don't quite get the distinction you are drawing here.

A bit more on the sleep spell.

There is no difference of content (other than slightly different attack and save mechanics) between

A sleep spell causes drowsiness to all the creatures within the area of effect who fail a Will saving throw, slowing them. After a round of drowsiness, each target must make a second saving throw; if they fail, they fall into a magical slumber.

and

[Sleep keyword]

Area burst 2 within 20 squares
Target: Each creature in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Will
Hit: The target is slowed (save ends). If the target fails its first saving throw against this power, the target becomes unconscious (save ends).

The difference is one of syntax and style.

I am wondering whether some players have a self-generated illusion that reading the old PHB spell descriptions is like paging through a wizard's spell book. If so, it's just an illusion, and a pretty obvious one at that. The wizard's spellbook is not going to talk about saving throws, hit points, rounds and turns of time, etc; and hopefully not about levels either.

Is the problem with the 4e syntax and style that it makes it obvious that the rulebook is a game tool, and not itself an element of the fiction? At least for my part, I've never played under any illusion to the contrary.

pemerton · May 3, 2012

Crazy Jerome said:
Perhaps, somwhere in the process, we could also have some real flavor embedded in this text?

For flavour, I'm happy enough with the 4e or BW approach of a sentence or two at the head of the spell.

But I agree with you that rules information doesn't suddenly become flavour just because it's written out with the style and punctuation of a narrative rather than a list!