RPG Writing and Design Needs a Paradigm Shift

[kenada]

everywhere? Compare the 4e spell description to a 5e one. I picked this one at random from this thread

https://www.enworld.org/attachments/4e-magic-missile-png.348011/

it absolutely does not, it has zero flavor, all it does is say what the spell does from
a technical perspective. It is absolutely sterile.

I am fine with adding a line that specifies something like ‘Range 150 feet, Radius 20 feet, 8d6 damage, Dex save halves’ before the text, but not as a replacement for it (if you have such a line, you can make that text more concise however)

The evocative part is at the top, followed by the mechanics. One can complain that the magic missile fluff is poor, but it is there.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

everywhere? Compare the 4e spell description to a 5e one. I picked this one at random from this thread

https://www.enworld.org/attachments/4e-magic-missile-png.348011/

it absolutely does not, it has zero flavor, all it does is say what the spell does from
a technical perspective. It is absolutely sterile.

I am fine with adding a line that specifies something like ‘Range 150 feet, Radius 20 feet, 8d6 damage, Dex save halves’ before the text, but not as a replacement for it (if you have such a line, you can make that text more concise however)

4e objectively has more flavor text than 3.5. Don’t know how it compares to 5e, but the idea that it’s lacking flavor is absurd. Every single power in the game has flavor text. The books are so full of worldbuilding sprinkled throughout that you can build a whole campaign setting and run many campaigns based on it.

4e is overflowing with flavor.

 

[Reynard]

I don't want to overstate the brevity in spell description element. I think it is important, but it isn't the only way the prose needs to change. The worst offenders in mainstream RPGs are adventures. Both Paizo and WotC, and most other companies, frankly, bury all the important information in walls of text in adventures. Shadowdark has shown that you don't need all of that and you can use a combination of layout design, concise text, standardized rules and annotated maps to fit what would otherwise be a 32 page adventure on a single sheet of paper.

 

[TheSword]

The evocative part is at the top, followed by the mechanics. One can complain that the magic missile fluff is poor, but it is there.

Now I can see why 4e didn’t work. They tried to turn magic missile into a single missile. Madness.

But nobody ever did that. It's a straw man. I mean it is a fine point in the abstract, I agree, but I feel like the more realistic question is whether or not to commingle mechanics and flavor or not, and then how exactly to present them effectively.

Fireball was literally selected as an example of a 5e spell that had unnecessary fluff.

I feel quite strongly that a visual description of what the spell does is not fluff - it’s essential to the spell. It may not have a mechanical impact but it is required to place the spell into the scenario for both the players and the DM. The fireball mechanics mentions nothing about sound or light but the description allows me to infer these things.

 

[mamba]

The evocative part is at the top, followed by the mechanics. One can complain that the magic missile fluff is poor, but it is there.

the ‘you launch a silvery bolt of force at the enemy’ part?

We know the caster launches it at the enemy and that it uses force from the stat block already, so the only ‘flavor’ is ‘silvery’… Sorry, that too is sterile, it adds no flavor whatsoever, to me that is not just poor, it is nonexistent

 

[mamba]

4e objectively has more flavor text than 3.5. Don’t know how it compares to 5e, but the idea that it’s lacking flavor is absurd. Every single power in the game has flavor text.

compare the 4e and 5e spell descriptions posted in this thread and let me know which one has more flavor. 4e is positively sterile based on these.

I am not saying all of 4e is, but the examples in here do not make a good case for it containing any, and I definitely prefer the 5e description over the 4e one.

As far as I am concerned they could have saved themselves the 4e line, it added no flavor and was redundant.

 

[TheSword]

WFRP has generic spells that are purely mechanical can be taken by anyone that look like this…

And lore spells that take the basic mechanics and turn them into actual spells.

I know which one makes me want to play a wizard more.

 

[TheSword]

I don't want to overstate the brevity in spell description element. I think it is important, but it isn't the only way the prose needs to change. The worst offenders in mainstream RPGs are adventures. Both Paizo and WotC, and most other companies, frankly, bury all the important information in walls of text in adventures. Shadowdark has shown that you don't need all of that and you can use a combination of layout design, concise text, standardized rules and annotated maps to fit what would otherwise be a 32 page adventure on a single sheet of paper.

Do you have an example of one of these single sheet briefs? It’s hard to visualize.

 

[kenada]

the ‘you launch a silvery bolt of force at the enemy’ part?

We know the caster launches it at the enemy and that it uses force from the stat block already, so the only ‘flavor’ is ‘silvery’… Sorry, that too is sterile, it adds no flavor whatsoever, to me that is not just poor, it is nonexistent

All 5e says for magic missile is, “You create three glowing darts of magical force. Each dart hits a creature of your choice that you can see within range.” Is that also sterile? Is the description of eyes of the vestige in post #75 sterile?

Being bland doesn’t make the descriptive element non-existent. You claimed in post #85 that all 4e does is say what a spell does technically, but the descriptions are clearly there even if some may not be up to your standards.

 

[kenada]

As far as I am concerned they could have saved themselves the 4e line, it added no flavor and was redundant.

It seems like no matter what they do, it’s going to be wrong. 4e just triggers that kind of response in people.