D&D (2024) Anyone else dislike the "keyword" style language of 5.24?

[payn]

I don't understand why they felt the need to add those words. If you are blinded, you are blinded. How hard is this? SO MANY EXTRA WORDS. Strong dislike. Very strong. Don't get me started on the stat blocks and all the extra stuff in there....

Sounds like you have the verbose overload condition.

 

[MothMayI]

This logic is weak because as far as we know, 2024 has sold better than 2014. Ofc it hasn't been 10 years so who can say, but ???

And to pretend like 2014 wasn't written sloppily from the jump with melee attack, melee weapon attack, attack with a melee weapon all exist in 2014 and all mean slightly different things.

What WotC has said is that 2024 is the "fastest-selling" edition. They haven't provided any direct comparison of overall sales figures.

It's very unlikely that 2024 5e has already outsold 2014 5e, a product that's been out for ten years. And more so, 2014 5e is the edition that significantly expanded D&D's popularity and presence. More people play D&D now than ten years ago. So being the fastest-selling edition, at a time when the playerbase is larger than it's ever been for such releases, isn't that much a boast.

If we're being perfectly blunt, being the "fastest-selling" books aren't even an indicator of success; it's the bare minimum 2024 5e needed to not be a colossal failure.

 

[Shardstone]

What WotC has said is that 2024 is the "fastest-selling" edition. They haven't provided any direct comparison of overall sales figures.

It's very unlikely that 2024 5e has already outsold 2014 5e, a product that's been out for ten years. And more so, 2014 5e is the edition that significantly expanded D&D's popularity and presence. More people play D&D now than ten years ago. So being the fastest-selling edition, at a time when the playerbase is larger than it's ever been for such releases, isn't that much a boast.

If we're being perfectly blunt, being the "fastest-selling" books aren't even an indicator of success; it's the bare minimum 2024 5e needed to not be a colossal failure.

I agree with your logic, but how you frame your perspective leaves me thinking that you really don't like 2024 edition and that your bias might be a bit too heavy to reliably judge whether keyword language is good or bad.

 

[Stormonu]

I will say that the way some sections/rules are written in 2024 come across very bizarre and stilted - even to the point they seem to dance around the subject instead of just blurting out what needs to be said*. In most cases, I find myself preferring the 2014 wording which is often more straightforward, if a bit more permissive**. There has to be a good compromise between the two styles.

* It's worse than some of 2E's monster combat or racial entries where you have to hunt through a wordy paragraph just to find out what the creature's attacks are and how much damage/what effect they have.

** I think RPGs benefit from a certain level of permissiveness to allow the DM to account for special circumstances or styles - so long as the section isn't outright confusing. We're not playing a video game or board game with a 100% neutral arbitrator that can be manipulated by exploiting the game text. The DM can use "good judgement" to sort out rule problems and corner cases if the base rules are fairly clear in intent.

 

[Shardstone]

I will say that the way some sections/rules are written in 2024 come across very bizarre and stilted - even to the point they seem to dance around the subject instead of just blurting out what needs to be said*. In most cases, I find myself preferring the 2014 wording which is often more straightforward, if a bit more permissive**. There has to be a good compromise between the two styles.

* It's worse than some of 2E's monster combat or racial entries where you have to hunt through a wordy paragraph just to find out what the creature's attacks are and how much damage/what effect they have.

** I think RPGs benefit from a certain level of permissiveness to allow the DM to account for special circumstances or styles - so long as the section isn't outright confusing. We're not playing a video game or board game with a 100% neutral arbitrator that can be manipulated by exploiting the game text. The DM can use "good judgement" to sort out rule problems and corner cases if the base rules are fairly clear in intent.

I believe you but would love an example or two.

 

[Burnside]

Sentences like this are pretty dire:

"When you make the extra attack of the Light property, you can make it as part of the Attack action instead of as a Bonus Action. You can make this extra attack only once per turn."

So romantic.

 

[Lazybones]

I can't stand the writing in 5.24. It's one of the reasons I'm not switching. It is that grating. The writing style is not making the game any clearer by forcing the reader through a whole book of passive language, as well as innumerable uses of the words conditions and actions. I don't see how "you have the Blinded Condition" is any more legible than "you are Blinded."

What is this trying to solve? I don't recall any players complaining that they were confused in 5e over conditions and actions. If the writers wanted to make sure, they could have just let us know that formal keywords are capitalized, rather than the constant stream of passive language, like "you may make a Utilize Object Action to tie a knot in a String." How about, "It takes an Action to tie a knot."

I wouldn't adopt WotC's style in your writing @Puddles. I'm seeing You Tubers use this language when discussing 5.24 and I wish they'd stop.

It's all about the edge cases. If it said, "It takes an Action to tie a knot," what happens when the party rogue asks if they can do it with their Fast Hands trait? Now the game has to stop while the DM adjudicates the situation.

My 5e 2024 game is still too new for me to make a definitive answer as to whether I think it's "better," but I can say that so far I've been able to make more firm rulings based on what the language of the rules say and rely less on, "well... I guess it could mean 'x'..." I've spent enough time on Stack Exchange to know that interpretation of language in rules is a slippery slope that people can invest an immense amount of time sliding down.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Romance is a thing for cattle and love-play. Rules need to be written in a formal specification language and algorithmically proven to be consistent.

(Yes, this means they must not be capable of supporting arithmetic.)

 

[MothMayI]

I agree with your logic, but how you frame your perspective leaves me thinking that you really don't like 2024 edition and that your bias might be a bit too heavy to reliably judge whether keyword language is good or bad.

I dislike the 2024 edition, yes, and no small part of that is down to the writing approach versus 2014 5e's.

To say that 2014 didn't use keywords is inaccurate. It used keywords, and defined terms as necessary, but didn't feel the need to define terms that didn't need to be defined. There isn't any meaningful difference between "melee weapon" in 2014 5e and "Melee weapon" in 2024 5e. (Or at least shouldn't be, but editing issues ahoy.)

I believe you but would love an example or two.

I'll give a perfect example of my own because it was really glaring when the late 2014-era books started using it: going from "is blinded/knocked prone/etc." to "has the Blinded/Prone/etc. condition". The former makes clear that the condition is the result of the triggering effect, whereas the latter sounds passive and uncorrelated. Even if it used "receives the condition", that would sound better.

Sentences like this are pretty dire:

"When you make the extra attack of the Light property, you can make it as part of the Attack action instead of as a Bonus Action. You can make this extra attack only once per turn."

So romantic.

Nick (and literally everything related to two-weapon fighting) might just be one of the worst-written things in the 2024 rules.

Doubly so when you consider that the wording of the rule doesn't actually prohibit you from making another attack with a Light weapon as a bonus action, because the "You can make this extra attack only once per turn" line applies only to an attack made with Nick and no such limitation exists on an attack made via the Light property without such.

 

[Composer99]

I'd prefer text formatting, such as bolding or underlining, over all the First Letter Caps, such as blinded instead of "the Blinded Condition", but as someone who writes and revises rules as part of their job, I'm overall pleased with the change.

Maybe the PHB at least could have had fewer spells or art to make room in the page count for some flavourful text, mind you.