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<blockquote data-quote="Fallstorm" data-source="post: 5901713" data-attributes="member: 55683"><p>I think the confusion came in because you mentioned 1E/2E Gygaxian DnD and how evocative it was (paraphrasing) and then showed an example of a spell description from prior editions, so I simply pulled out one my older edition PHBs (in this case 2E) and flipped to a random page in the spell section (which takes up more than half the book by the way) and started noticing how long the spell descriptions were. DnD 3.5 spells read the same way. </p><p> </p><p>At any rate, I guess it is a matter of each persons opinion but I do see this being problematic for DnD Next because they will have to decide how to present their text. To me 4E is fine, because it does have a flavor text at the top along with a very concise data block stating how the power works. If they had no flavor blurp at all I could kind of see your point more. I think the only thing DnD Next needs to do to capture some that imagination that existed in older editions (keeping in mind that I was much younger as I suspect you were when you played some of these games so there might be a bit of romanticization involved regarding this editions....at least on my part) is to include more full color, non-cartoonish pictures, that captures the feel of the game..again like the picture on page 7 of the 2E PHB, to help draw the reader into the world.</p><p> </p><p>I remember reading from WOTC somewhere, they tried to include more pictures in 4E supposedly because they had gotten feedback that that lack of pictures included in the 3rd/3.5 core book (PHB and DMG) were somewhat sparse and they wanted the 4E books to be more reader friendly rather than reading like a textbook, and I have to say that while I do remembered being encaptured by the 1E and 2E PHB, the 3rd/3.5 books did feel and read very dry and text book like to me, especially since it was the first time in DnD history the core books didn't have any real art even on the covers to capture the imagination, but instead were presented in faux tome style covers.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fallstorm, post: 5901713, member: 55683"] I think the confusion came in because you mentioned 1E/2E Gygaxian DnD and how evocative it was (paraphrasing) and then showed an example of a spell description from prior editions, so I simply pulled out one my older edition PHBs (in this case 2E) and flipped to a random page in the spell section (which takes up more than half the book by the way) and started noticing how long the spell descriptions were. DnD 3.5 spells read the same way. At any rate, I guess it is a matter of each persons opinion but I do see this being problematic for DnD Next because they will have to decide how to present their text. To me 4E is fine, because it does have a flavor text at the top along with a very concise data block stating how the power works. If they had no flavor blurp at all I could kind of see your point more. I think the only thing DnD Next needs to do to capture some that imagination that existed in older editions (keeping in mind that I was much younger as I suspect you were when you played some of these games so there might be a bit of romanticization involved regarding this editions....at least on my part) is to include more full color, non-cartoonish pictures, that captures the feel of the game..again like the picture on page 7 of the 2E PHB, to help draw the reader into the world. I remember reading from WOTC somewhere, they tried to include more pictures in 4E supposedly because they had gotten feedback that that lack of pictures included in the 3rd/3.5 core book (PHB and DMG) were somewhat sparse and they wanted the 4E books to be more reader friendly rather than reading like a textbook, and I have to say that while I do remembered being encaptured by the 1E and 2E PHB, the 3rd/3.5 books did feel and read very dry and text book like to me, especially since it was the first time in DnD history the core books didn't have any real art even on the covers to capture the imagination, but instead were presented in faux tome style covers. [/QUOTE]
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