D&D General "Effect as per the spell"

[Composer99]

Apropos of overlong spell descriptions, teleport starts at the bottom quarter of the left-side column on page 281, takes up the entire right-side column on the next page, and then leaves two orphan lines of text atop page 282! Surely there could have been an editing pass to get the spell's entire text on a single page if the designers did not want to mess around with the layout or text of other spells on page 281.

At any rate, I agree that for short spell descriptions, duplicating the effects in a special ability or magic item (especially when printing in an adventure or other not-core-rulebook-text) is sensible, whereas for spells such as teleport, referring the reader to the spell description seems more appropriate.

 

[Reynard]

Which is great! That's the way it should be. Rather than just complaining for the sake of complaining... complaining about an issue and then solving it (general) yourself is the attitude everyone should have. And my only recommendation was that if (general) you are doing that work... you might as well make it available for others by putting it up on DMs Guild (as it seems like you yourself are doing.) And while some things made might not have the foundation to warrant charging cash (other than perhaps Pay What You Want)... if those things made actually result in some hits, then they will potentially end up making the person a little bit of cash by redirecting them to other products they have made.

I'm still not sure there would be much use or benefit in a Bog Book of Conscise Spell Descriptions, but it is definitely worth doing as a matter of practice when producing things for wider distribution (paid or free).

RPGs and D&D in particular have a RTFM problem, and one solution is to stop writing giant walls of (generally middling, at best) prose and instead creating useful reference books for prep and running. The indie and OSR scene are doing a great job in this regard generally, and I think it makes for better products. Shadowdark is just one example of a book that does a lot of work in relatively few words.

 

[Reynard]

Apropos of overlong spell descriptions, teleport starts at the bottom quarter of the left-side column on page 281, takes up the entire right-side column on the next page, and then leaves two orphan lines of text atop page 282! Surely there could have been an editing pass to get the spell's entire text on a single page if the designers did not want to mess around with the layout or text of other spells on page 281.

At any rate, I agree that for short spell descriptions, duplicating the effects in a special ability or magic item (especially when printing in an adventure or other not-core-rulebook-text) is sensible, whereas for spells such as teleport, referring the reader to the spell description seems more appropriate.

"The caster and X willing targets within XX feet disappear and reappear at a location designated by the caster that is on the same plane. They appear in the nearest unoccupied spaces to the arrival point. The probability of success is based on familiarity. See the following table. Failure results in the caster and targets appearing 10d100 feet away in a random direction (see the accompanying chart). Roll for each traveler individually."

Do you need much more?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Okay. Fine. Your bed is made and thus you are lying in it.

Which just means the following... you can continue to just complain about D&D here on the boards under no pretense of expecting things to be different... and other people will continue to rebut your complaints just because they can. If that works for you, then it works for us.

I mean, I'm literally telling you I did try to fix things in the past. It didn't work. What more am I supposed to do? Start up a rival TTRPG publishing company and topple Wizards of the Coast?

Your "rebuttal" takes the form of ignoring the possibility of discussion and writing off any and all issues as "well you just didn't try hard enough."

 

[Composer99]

At any rate, I agree that for short spell descriptions, duplicating the effects in a special ability or magic item (especially when printing in an adventure or other not-core-rulebook-text) is sensible, whereas for spells such as teleport, referring the reader to the spell description seems more appropriate.

"The caster and X willing targets within XX feet disappear and reappear at a location designated by the caster that is on the same plane. They appear in the nearest unoccupied spaces to the arrival point. The probability of success is based on familiarity. See the following table. Failure results in the caster and targets appearing 10d100 feet away in a random direction (see the accompanying chart). Roll for each traveler individually."

Do you need much more?

@Reynard Unquestionably yes you do, if you want the spell to preserve the broader scope of effects of the 5e spell.

It's all well and good if "Reynard's teleport" doesn't affect objects, doesn't require the destination be known to the caster, or has a binary pass/fail "you get where you want/you arrive a bit off course" outcome, but you have to want the truncated effects for your teleport spell for "Reynard's teleport" to actually be better in the end user's opinion.

 

[Reynard]

@Reynard Unquestionably yes you do, if you want the spell to preserve the broader scope of effects of the 5e spell.

It's all well and good if "Reynard's teleport" doesn't affect objects, doesn't require the destination be known to the caster, or has a binary pass/fail "you get where you want/you arrive a bit off course" outcome, but you have to want the truncated effects for your teleport spell for "Reynard's teleport" to actually be better in the end user's opinion.

Fair enough, but that's what, another short paragraph?

I am merely saying that the bloated, convoluted spell descriptions can be paired down considerably and you lose nothing of practical value in play. The tendency to get overly wordy in 3.x was at least partly an attempt to move adjudication from the GM to the books. 5E wisely reversed course with that. As such, it can dispense with the methodology and trust the GM.

 

[MarkB]

Long spell descriptions is at least better than 3.5e's "This spell functions exactly like [SPELL X] except for...". Looking at you, alter self, polymorph and polymorph any object.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I actually prefer when abilities say "per the spell [whatever]" specifically so that things don't get interpreted differently. Consistency is very important to me. And it really does make the game go much smoother. Small changes to wording, even minor omissions, can have much larger effects that editors wouldn't notice until players try to exploit them.

Honestly, I think every spell needs an official "Short Version" that can go on PC character sheets, monster statblocks (and magic items), and a "Long Version" to explain exactly what they mean by anything that could be wrongly interpreted by exploit-minded players.

Does that sound like it would take up a lot of space? It sounds that way, but it doesn't have to do.

 

[aco175]

Honestly, I think every spell needs an official "Short Version" that can go on PC character sheets, monster statblocks (and magic items), and a "Long Version" to explain exactly what they mean by anything that could be wrongly interpreted by exploit-minded players.

Does that sound like it would take up a lot of space? It sounds that way, but it doesn't have to do.

Sounds like another idea for a DMsGuild product. Who wants to make it? It would be cool to have as part of the SRD and just be able to cut/paste.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I'm still not sure there would be much use or benefit in a Bog Book of Conscise Spell Descriptions, but it is definitely worth doing as a matter of practice when producing things for wider distribution (paid or free).

RPGs and D&D in particular have a RTFM problem, and one solution is to stop writing giant walls of (generally middling, at best) prose and instead creating useful reference books for prep and running. The indie and OSR scene are doing a great job in this regard generally, and I think it makes for better products. Shadowdark is just one example of a book that does a lot of work in relatively few words.

Long live Gygaxian Prose!

Or

May the duration in which the highly descriptive and invocative style of wordsmithing long labeled Gygaxian by the players of the world's greatest roleplaying game be ever continuing from the days where dungeons were first fictionally delved into a uncertain but ever evolving future.