Time to bring back the prose?

pemerton said:

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.

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I disbelieve illusion (smirk), but suspect rather that the cause is free riding on better spells. The sleep spell is a pretty lousy support of the "write it out" position. I only typed it above to constrast with the later versions. Consider this one:

(BECMI) Hallucinatory Terrain
Range: 240'
Duration: Special
Effect: Changes or hides terrain in 240' radius (or less)

This spell creates the illusion of a terrain feature, either indoors (such as a pit, stairs, etc.) or outdoors (hills, swamp, grove of trees, etc.), possibly hiding a real feature. The caster could create the illusion of solid ground over a series of pits or quicksand pools, or he could create the image of dense forest over his army's camp, etc.

The caster may choose to place his hallucinatory terrain over a comparatively small area (for instance, a throne room) or over a much larger one (for example, a hill). If he chooses to cast the spell on a larger terrain feature, the entire feature to be affected must be within range of the spell. (A hill with greater than a 480' diameter would not be affected.)

The spell lasts until the illusion is touched by an intelligent creature, or until dispelled.


A lot more to that one! If you are reading through a list of spells, a head of steam from that kind of listing can take you right through the sleeps of the list (and clothform and stoneform and ironform ).

Despite my earlier sarcasm, I do think there is a place for both formats. You can't put all the details of that spell in a stat block, without either compromising the spell or making your stat blocks unwieldly.

If I were Mr. Spell Format Dictator for a day, what I'd do is cut out all the redundant text that is already handled in stat blocks, but keep the blocks simple as above. Then I'd insist that some spells have enough idiosyncratic features and flavor to deserve some longer text. In particular, I'd look for some that had some ambiguity built in, and thus required DM judgment. Then I'd shoot for a good mix of both. The straight-forward spells don't take much space. So you might go with a 60/40 split. The longer, ambiguous spells make up in character and flexibility what they lack in numbers. Then if individual groups want to gravitate towards one or the other, mostly or even exclusively, that is their call.

Bedrockgames said:

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.

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I said "needlessly inflating flavor with rules text". EX: denoting range, size, potency, if the spell is volumetric or not, if it affects enemies, allies, or all creatures, what damage types it is, fire, arcane, shadow, necrotic, ect... if the opponenet needs to make a saving throw or if it's vs touch, regular AC or NADs.

Flavor text should add to the flavor of the spell. If a sentence is spent on flavor and then 3 more make verbose attempts at flavorizing rules text, I think that just ends up creating convoluded and confusing spells.

I would rather see:
Fireball
*rules*
You wiggle your fingers and say funny words and shoot a blazing ball of fire from your fingertips that ignites flamable objects and does 5d6 damage.

Thats flavorful, while including the basic rules.

Adding in "This spell only affects enemies in a 30' blast centered within 50' of the caster. In addition Fireball does Ongoing 1d4 to all enemies that failed their reflex save. A successful reflex save ends this ongoing damage. Targets taking ongoing damage are considered aflame and take a -2 to their AC and reflex."

That's not flavorful, that's just rules.

Morrus said:

For me personally, the way the books were presented actually affected how I interacted with the game.

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I don't dispute that.

But, I also remember the way the books were presented having both positive and negative effects on how I interacted with the game. I agree that the older game's prose style was far more evocative and engaging to read. I also think that, before you'd played so much that you'd largely memorizing the book, actually finding details that you needed to know at a particular moment was, frankly, a pain in the behind!

Bedrockgames said:

i want to be informed and excited by the text. Good writers can do both.

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A good writer can inform and excite at the same time, yes. But there's more to a good *reference* text than that. The formatting and style that make for good quick reference is diametrically opposed to fitting that same information into several sentences of evocative descriptive text.

Every time I need to weed through several sentences to get one highly relevant fact, that slows down my combats, contributes to breaking of immersion as the GM or player mumbles, "waitaminnit, it was right here somewhere..." and all that.

There's a balance to be struck, between making the text engaging, and making it useful at game runtime. It is by no means an easy balance to strike.

Crazy Jerome said:

Hallucinatory Terrain

<snip>

If you are reading through a list of spells, a head of steam from that kind of listing can take you right through the sleeps of the list

<snip>

I do think there is a place for both formats. You can't put all the details of that spell in a stat block, without either compromising the spell or making your stat blocks unwieldly.

If I were Mr. Spell Format Dictator for a day, what I'd do is cut out all the redundant text that is already handled in stat blocks, but keep the blocks simple as above. Then I'd insist that some spells have enough idiosyncratic features and flavor to deserve some longer text. In particular, I'd look for some that had some ambiguity built in, and thus required DM judgment.

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In 4e, that element of GM judgement is located in page 42, and in a couple of opaque suggestions (mostly but not entirely around skill challenges):



There is the idea here that powers can be used in skill challenges, and to deal with traps, in ways that aren't contemplated in the technical rules description. And there is also the idea that, both in description ("eyes bulging wide from fear") and adjudication (being hit over a pit by a giant) fictional positioning matters. And presumably these ideas are meant to be combined, so that the way you use a power in a skill challenge or to deal with a trap in a way that goes beyond the technical rules description is by drawing on the fictional positioning that use of the power establishes.

In my own game, a recent example of that was when the PCs needed a password and didn't have it. The wizard had just recently learned a 15th level daily from Heroes of the Feywild, Charm of the Dark Dream, which (i) dominates the target and (ii) removes the caster from play. Obviously, in the fiction this is full-on possession as the caster literally inhabits the mind and body of the target. And so the PC used this to possess an NPC and try to extract the password from his mind. (I required an Arcana check, which failed - so no password was extracted, but I was able to introduce some other interesting information.)

I've certainly got no objection to a game which does a better job of talking about how this stuff is to be done than 4e. But I don't just want to go back to descriptions that are open-ended and encourage players to build up a head of steam, and then give no advice to the GM except to keep a lid on things without being too adversarial. One thing that I think 4e did well was to set up a somewhat systematic mechanic for this: skill checks at set DCs, plus the success/fail format of a skill challenge to put an overall framing constraint on how much can be achieved, or how much go wrong, from a single creative casting choice.

pemerton said:

I've certainly got no objection to a game which does a better job of talking about how this stuff is to be done than 4e. But I don't just want to go back to descriptions that are open-ended and encourage players to build up a head of steam, and then give no advice to the GM except to keep a lid on things without being too adversarial. One thing that I think 4e did well was to set up a somewhat systematic mechanic for this: skill checks at set DCs, plus the success/fail format of a skill challenge to put an overall framing constraint on how much can be achieved, or how much go wrong, from a single creative casting choice.

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Fair enough. Then perhaps the longer, more involved spell description should be providing hints and inspiration on how to do those stunts on page 42. If we rewrote halucinatory terrain as a 4E spell, and kept the spirit of it, that wouldn't be a bad way to do it. Part of the problem with page 42 is a lack of examples. "Hey, if someone wants to stunt with this spell, check out these ideas ..."

pemerton said:

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.

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Discourse relates to a concept represented and constructed through language use, the acts accompanied by such usage, and their interpretation. So, the language used in describing a spell in D&D is part of the discourse of D&D, but so are the ways in which the language is formatted, the intention of the author in using that language, as well as the language used in interpreting the author's words, the language associated with playing the game, and other aspects.

Your wondering why some people feel like they are poring over a spellbook when reading a 1e player's handbook is because the discourse of that edition "rings true" for them in some way. If we were to adopt a discursive approach to understanding RPGs, we could argue that the various elements of the discourse of a particular edition of D&D represent something to some players that very strongly orients them to the concept of D&D - thus, they see that edition as being "true" or "essential" etc.

If we were to analyze the discourse of the various editions, we would find that technically, the information given for certain spells is fairly static, but the discursive elements that accompany each edition contribute to the ways in which the spell descriptions are interpreted, not only in function, but also in feeling. My theory is that's why players cling to editions with such ideological tenacity - there is something about a particular discourse of a certain edition that "rings true" to them and the that representation of the game becomes the assumptive default or norm to which they reference other editions.

I bid you, fair readers of the tomes of old, to disentangle yourselves from your campaign to prosaify the key texts to the grand game of imagination! I, MichaelSomething, herald of the great game's step child, implore you to reconsider; lest you bring folly to the game! While the Gygaxian writings of old were sweet honeypots of inspiration to you, to many others they were a labyrinth of twisted words that had to fought through like the Caves of Choas themselves! I wish not to sent them back into a dark age of incomprehensible typings that had to be dug through in order to find the rules for their game. To them the books are not matches of imagination or meatloafs of prose to be digested, but a pit stop of rules and advice designed to quickly repair their games so that they may keep moving on their tabletop journeys! To me the essence of the game is not formed by solidarity readings of books but in the sharing of ideas done on the wooden platforms of dice and papers!

I'd love to see evocative prose throughout. And if they could find someone who could actually do Gary's style that would be even better. The AD&D books were fun to read, but but each edition was decreasingly enjoyable.

I never really had any trouble quickly parsing out the relevant rules from AD&D either, so I don't agree with that complaint.

One nice feature of making the rules books enjoyable to read was that I knew the rules really well because I'd read the books a bunch of times.

michaelsomething said:

to me the essence of the game is not formed by solidarity readings of books but in the sharing of ideas done on the wooden platforms of dice and papers!

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qft!

MichaelSomething said:

I bid you, fair readers of the tomes of old, to disentangle yourselves from your campaign

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I got this far before I wanted this to be in a book so I could slam it shut and look for the receipt.