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Time to bring back the prose?
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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 5898889" data-attributes="member: 177"><p>I don't dispute that.</p><p></p><p>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!</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 5898889, member: 177"] 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! 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. [/QUOTE]
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Time to bring back the prose?
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