Presentaion of Spells: To Prose or Not To Prose?

[YRUSirius]

I find prose text is much easier to read than the 4E mechanic blocks. I hate reading clumsy 4E excel sheets...

So I chose B. So much info from 4E mechanic blocks can be formulated way easier in prose text.

-YRUSirius

 

[Wiseblood]

I chose C. I would actually prefer a blend of B and C or B and A. Allow me to show you.

Sleep
Daily ✦ Arcane, Implement, Sleep
Casting Time: Standard Action
Area: burst 2 within 20 squares
Target: Each creature in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Will

With a wave of your hand, you cause a burst of magical sand to explode in a nearby area. Creatures within the sand cloud are overcome with weariness, falling asleep if they fail to shake off the initial effect. The spell can only keep creatures asleep for so long before they wake up, and an ally can try and shake a sleeping creature awake (through use of the Grant Saving Throw action).

Even creatures that don't normally sleep, such as elves, are subject to this spell's effects.

Sleep
You exert your will against your foes, seeking to overwhelm them
with a tide of magical sleep.
Daily ✦ Arcane, Implement, Sleep
Casting Time: Standard Action
Area: burst 2 within 20 squares
Target: Each creature in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Will
Duration: Save ends

I never read the spell lists for flavor text. I read them for effect.

The second one I like the most as it is less fiddly. Sleeping and unconsiousness are something we face daily if we are lucky. A description of it is not needed. Something entirely new like transmogrification could use a bit more flavor text. I guess put the prose and the flavor where it belongs not because some formula says it goes there.
Sleep

 

[Daztur]

If the prose doesn't DO anything it's pointless.


However, I generally like spells that those effects can't be summed up in a simple bloc of mechanical description but if the spell does something simple and straightforward then there's no reason to lard up the spell entry with a lot of prose. For example take this description:

With a wave of your hand, you cause a burst of magical sand to explode in a nearby area. Creatures within the sand cloud are overcome with weariness...

Does this spell not work if you can't wave your hand?
Does this spell not work if there's stuff that would logically impede the movement of sand within the burst?
Does this spell not work is the conditions of the area would make it difficult for the sand to form into a cloud (for example very strong winds or heavy rainfall)?

Is no, then what's the freaking point of the description? If the fluff you put in is just pointless flavor text that can never have an effect on what happens in the game then just get rid of it.

Let's look at the 1ed version of sleep: "Slapping or wounding will awaken affected creatures, but noise will not do so. Awakening requires 1 complete melee round."

Now that sort of thing is a prose description that's actually useful and that can't be summed up with a block of stats.

Compare also the description of how Command (one of my favorite spells) works in 3.0 and earlier and 3.5 and later.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Do you prefer your spell to read:


"Targets hit by the spell fall asleep."

This all the way.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ah, yes, well, the essentials books already do C. I don't really see what B does for you over A. How about put the description at the bottom instead of the top and if someone wants to make more complex spells and spend paragraphs describing them, go for it. 99% of the spells that were in past editions that required more than a few lines are likely ritual type magic anyway.

 

[ren1999]

Cause Sleep
spell enchantment power
requires caster level 3
ranged 1-6 squares, 2 square burst
long ranged 7-12 squares, situation modifier-2
targets each foe in the burst who must roll to avoid falling asleep
roll wisdom versus will
Sleeping foes wake and end the effect from an ally slap or 1 enemy's automatic maximum damage hit
add +1 square to range and burst at 11th and 21st level

 

[Libramarian]

I would like them to try writing spells entirely in prose, even if just as an experiment to really interrogate the utility of statblock formatting.

Prose can often read faster, even when it's longer. Probably because it reads more like the way spoken language sounds.

 

[Daztur]

To expand this discussion a bit, what I'd like to see would be for the crunch and fluff to be as tightly integrated as possible. For example in a FATE campaign I played, one of the most important things on my character sheet was "My father told me to duel often" which was both vital crunch and central fluff to my character. Although I really don't want to port aspects into D&D I'd like to have D&D have the goal of combining crunch and fluff together as much as possible for example:
-If the fluff of X class is that it gives me quick and easy power at heavy cost, then the mechanics could give me quick and easy power at heavy cost.
-If a bit of fluff doesn't have any crunch to back up what it says it does then kill it with fire.
-Make crunch that takes into account the implications of the fluff. For example if there's a charm effect think about what the fluff says about how it works. Does it require a shared language? Can it be blocked by plugging my ears? That sort of thing.
-Does the crunch do something that's hard to visualize in fluff terms? Then kill it with fire.

 

[pemerton]

It's interesting to compare the OD&D version.

Yes.

Much the same thing happens when you look at OD&D or B/X Fireball - just like 4e, it only talks about damage to creatures, leaving the effect on other objects (eg books, barns etc) of the 20 FOOT RADIUS BALL OF FIRE to the imagination and adjudication of the GM and players.

This is why I don't think that 4e stat blocks/formatting play any role per se in what is at least alleged to be a conteporary decline in player creativity.

 

[Daztur]

Yes.

Much the same thing happens when you look at OD&D or B/X Fireball - just like 4e, it only talks about damage to creatures, leaving the effect on other objects (eg books, barns etc) of the 20 FOOT RADIUS BALL OF FIRE to the imagination and adjudication of the GM and players.

This is why I don't think that 4e stat blocks/formatting play any role per se in what is at least alleged to be a conteporary decline in player creativity.

Forgive me if I misinterpret anything about 4ed, my 4ed-fu is weak but from what I've seen they're not as similar as you're saying. But my impression is thus:

0ed:
A. The rules provide you with a specific effect.
B. For figuring out what effects that effect has on the environment the DM makes up. For example does getting hit by a fireball light you on fire and cause ongoing damage? Does casting shocking grasp and then sticking your hands in some water zap all of the nearby fish with electricity? Up to the DM.

4ed:
A. The rules provide you with a specific result that you can get by using a specific power.
B. If the crunch of what the power does and the fluff of what the power does contradict, you refluff the fluff.

For example let's look at Crack the Shell "you break through your enemy’s armor and deal a painful bleeding wound." What happens if you're fighting an enemy (say a golem) that has no blood. Can there still be a bleeding wound? What happens if you're fighting an enemy with no discernable armor like a gelatinous cube? How can you break through the armor? In 4ed the DM uses some creativity and changes the fluff a bit and says that instead of breaking through the gelatinous cube's armor (since it has none) the fighter drives his sword extra deep or whatever.

Looking at 0ed on the other hand: "Polymorph Self: A spell allowing the user to take the shape of anything he desires, but he will not thereby acquire the combat abilities of the thing he has polymorphed himself to resemble. That is, while the user may turn himself into a dragon of some type, he will not gain the ability to fight and breathe, but he will be able to fly. Duration: 6 turns + the level of the Magic-User employing it."
That gives you a pretty vague effect that can be used for all kinds of things and requires DM adjudication to say what kinds of mechanical effects it has.

Basically while 0ed and 4ed both are pretty scant on the prose, 0ed effects are far more situational than 4ed ones. In my experience more situational effects are harder to balance (since the situation matters so much it could be very weak one day and very powerful the next) but encourage more creativity.