Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
I think you are just making assumptions now...also I didn't say I preferred 1 over 2. I said 1 has more information, and there are definitely more analytically minded players who don't care about the flavorful description as much as they care about the info. And I don't think they are a small minority in our hobby.
That said, you are right, these two descriptions are both pretty conversational, not literary. So the example is a bit puzzling anyways. Example two is just a bit vague.
Again, I don't think this argument makes a whole lot of sense. We are talking about a conversational medium. Literary doesn't really seem like it would apply. you can try to run a game in a literary style. but I don't think it is necessary. Nor do I think it is particularly advisable.
Literary only doesn't apply if you incorrectly believe that only high quality literary works are literary. If you believe that all things written are literary(the definition), then any time you are choosing these more evocative words to use over those words, you are moving up the literary scale. Using the named wood and describing briefly the carving, was more evocative than #1.
Even though both of my examples fell into the conversational category, #2 chose words that were more evocative than #1, which made it fall farther up the literary scale than #1.