Time to bring back the prose?

Bedrockgames · May 3, 2012

Umbran said:
I

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.

one can easily put the relevant pieces of data into the state block. The issue is how much elaboration is there in the text. For me, the elaboration is worth any look up time with spells or monsters. But then I tend to make a point of being familiar with monsters or spells before using them in a session. The 4e approach leaves me genuinely unresponsive as a reader, player and GM. It may well work for some and have a convenience factor. For me it loses too much. That doesn't mean things have to be gygaxian. 2e and 3e did a fine job explaining things without trying to sound like Gary. I would rather the writers have a clear style of their own than mimic his prose.

Morrus · May 3, 2012

I've changed my mind. I think D&D Next should be published as an Excel spreadsheet.

Dausuul · May 3, 2012

Morrus said:
I've changed my mind. I think D&D Next should be published as an Excel spreadsheet.

Pfft. Excel may be fine for little indie games, but it's no solution for the industry flagship. D&DN should be an SQL database.

Player: IF (SELECT FLOOR(RAND()*20) + AttackBonus + 1 FROM Players WHERE Name = 'Thog') >= (SELECT ArmorClass FROM Monsters WHERE MonsterName = 'Goblin #5') THEN UPDATE Monsters SET HitPoints = HitPoints - (FLOOR(RAND()*12) + 1) WHERE Name = 'Goblin #5'

DM: EXEC procMonsterDies @Name = 'Goblin #5'

Player: EXEC procWoot

See? It's as precise and technical as you could possibly ask for. Future edition wars will be about whether the fourth normal form is ruining the game.

AntiStateQuixote · May 3, 2012

Dausuul said:
See? It's as precise and technical as you could possibly ask for. Future edition wars will be about whether the fourth normal form is ruining the game.

4th normal form? Weak. If there's anything but the key, the whole key, and nothing but the key in a stat line then WotC has fired me as a customer. 6NF rules definitions is the only true D&D for me.

Scribble · May 3, 2012

Why not just make it a book of artwork depicting the rules, interspersed with the occasional haiku?

Halivar · May 3, 2012

Scribble said:
Why not just make it a book of artwork depicting the rules, interspersed with the occasional haiku?

Hey now. Umm... being the sort of person who loves ergodic literature, this would have novelty appeal to me.

skotothalamos · May 3, 2012

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 thought the OP was about Gygaxian prose style. We need to edit that to be more like:

Noble Reader, know you that the venerable piece of dweomerlore known colloquially as the "sleep spell" is an enchantment whose very presence inflicts upon all the various forms of life within its affected casting area a condition not unlike drowsiness, unless said creatures (who do not have membership in that vile class of things known as the living dead) make a saving throw against their Will defenses using a twenty-sided die (q.v.). If, after having failed to save, the creature tries to move in any direction, using any of its capacities, it will find its movements sluggish and it will in fact only be able to propel itself a distance of approximately 1". A full round following this phenomenon, the creature must again attempt to make a saving roll as previously laid out above, but in this instance the consequences are far more dire, for a failure to save now will lead to a magical slumber, from which the being can only be roused if a friendly creature spends a round waking him instead of attacking. An amount of damage may also wake the creature. Your referee will decide on a case-by-case basis whether a given injury is grievous enough to awake the ensorcelled creature.

Halivar · May 3, 2012

roadtoad said:
I thought the OP was about Gygaxian prose style. We need to edit that to be more like:

I know you're joking, but this is not completely unlike what I would prefer to see. Obviously your example is a parody, but if you file off the most egregious verbiage and redundancy and I just might be fine with it. Certainly a step up from VCR instructions.

Stoat · May 3, 2012

[MENTION=83398]roadtoad[/MENTION]

It isn't GYGAXIAN WRITING unless it contains random italics, use of bold type for no reason and inexplicable capitalization.

Crazy Jerome · May 3, 2012

Brent_Nall said:
4th normal form? Weak. If there's anything but the key, the whole key, and nothing but the key in a stat line then WotC has fired me as a customer. 6NF rules definitions is the only true D&D for me.

Yeah, D&D mucking around with poor denormalization is traditional by this point. If they wanted to drag it kicking and screaming into the last decade, we'd see GUIDs as a means to solve identity issues. Don't hold your breathe.