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

[Desdichado]

it's a rule manual not an essay, language needs to be as mechanical and precise as possible.

Arguably, that's exactly what the real problem actually is, isn't it? Starting somewhere around 1977 and the AD&D rules, the game got too complex to actually describe without a style guide that read more like a textbook than anything else. And an overly long, tedious textbook at that. Gygax tried to make AD&D as evocatively written as possible, but arguably, his writing wasn't helpful in terms of making things clear.

I dislike the mechanical lawyer speak, and think it’s particularly overdone in 5.5. I’d much prefer something more enjoyable to read.

I do too, but that just means that I've decided that the paradigm that has dominated in D&D rules since AD&D is not for me. I don't want exhaustive rules compendiums that take three gigantic textbooks worth of small font text to describe the rules of the game to me. Arguably, I think the way 5.5 did it is probably superior to the attempts to do it in natural (or even purple, as in AD&D) prose, but that's only true if extremely complex rules-heavy games is what you want. Since I don't, and it runs against the grain of my playstyle, it's a moot point. Suggesting that I don't like something even though it's clearly better at something that is important, but not what I want the game to do in the first place, puts me in a weird position.

Well, it would, I guess. I played 3e/3.5 for many, many years, in spite of its running against the grain for me, because my group was such that we could just ignore most of the rules that we didn't like and do it handwavey anyway. I play 5e now because I've relocated and my group now has only played 4e and 5e (which I find odd; as they're my age, and I didn't think a lot of gen-xers would have completely missed the D&D pulse of the early 80s and yet be interested in becoming D&D players decades later. But I guess that's what I get for assuming.) But if I hadn't joined groups that already had ongoing campaigns going on, I wouldn't have any interest in any version of D&D anymore. I'm just over that overly complex, overly rulesy paradigm.

And I think that's the tension that's really being described here. If you want all those rules for all of those situations, but don't want them described mechanicistically, I'm not quite sure what to tell you—in my experience, it's better than the situation like in the 80s with AD&D where the rules were so poorly organized and poorly described that nobody really knew exactly what they all were, even, and they just filled in the gaps of what they didn't know, didn't remember or didn't understand with rules from B/X or something instead that they did remember and did understand.

 

[orangefruitbat]

So, WotC should design game books that are tailored more to being more enjoyable reads for a tiny minority of players than actually being useful rule books?

Read a novel if you want entertainment. Getting upset that the rulebooks aren’t riveting enough is a you problem. This is like complaining that a cook book spends too much time on recipes and needs more memoirs about eating food.

When you read a recipe, there has to be something (a description, a picture) that makes you excited about the end product. Otherwise it's just a list of ingredients and steps that you probably won't choose to make. I suspect that there are many DMs and players who read (and buy!) gaming books far more than they play - how else to explain those of us with shelves groaning with different games, expansions, adventures, campaign settings, etc.? I run a weekly game, but I spend more time with my books than I do at the table. When I read a game book, I'm imaging a possible future game that uses that rules set/adventure. It needs to inspire me to make we want to bring it to the table (and convince my gaming group that this choice is the one we should be playing and not something else). Clear, clean, and organized rules are definitely desirable, but that is secondary to an inspiring/imaginative read that makes me want to play it.

For example, our group bounced off hard from PF2, despite it being much better balanced and organized than PF1. Reading through the class powers, feats and spells didn't make us want to play that game (even if plenty of people find that it runs well at the table). We had a similar lack of success with DnD 4E - perhaps the most clearly written and balanced version of DnD ever produced. I wouldn't put 5.5E in the same boat as those two, but it is significantly less inspiring/pleasant than 5.0 (other than some parts of the new DMG which are pretty fun). When we finish our current 5.5 game, the general consensus for our group to revert back to 5.0 the next time we play DnD (we will back port a few things like the shapeshifting rules). But we probably won't go back to DnD in the immediate future as there are so many great games that we are more excited to play - Shadowdark, Dolmenwood, Mothership, most of the Free League catalogue, etc.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And I think that's the tension that's really being described here. If you want all those rules for all of those situations, but don't want them described mechanicistically, I'm not quite sure what to tell you—in my experience, it's better than the situation like in the 80s with AD&D where the rules were so poorly organized and poorly described that nobody really knew exactly what they all were, even, and they just filled in the gaps of what they didn't know, didn't remember or didn't understand with rules from B/X or something instead that they did remember and did understand.

Completely agreed. It's one of several things where I believe a lot of people were, and still are, deeply enchanted by the promises that the rules-design-structure of 3rd Edition made, but never delivered on--in part because some of those promises were completely at odds with one another.

Such folks want a game that:
is completely naturalistic, but also extremely comprehensive so nothing relevant gets left out
reads like a fantasy-world gazette, but plays like a physics-engine
never uses abstraction (outside of numerous grandfathered exceptions), but never gets bogged down in needless detail
applies 100% identical rules to both PCs and their opposition, but delivers satisfying results from those PCs repeatedly facing such equal opposition

And several more things besides. It would be a massive triumph of game design to solve even one of these contradictions. To solve all of them? In a single system? Functionally, if not outright logically, impossible.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Integration is fine.

If that doesn't damage the rules in the integrating.

That's the problem here. I understand that you'd prefer to have things about as maximally naturalistic as is physically possible. I don't personally think that that desire is wise or prudent. I think it directly leads to several significant game design issues that have been known about for ages and which we keep circling round and round and round, because the folks who demand exactly that hyperfixation on maximal naturalism above all else don't realize that that fixation is part of the problem.

Thank you for taking my opinion on the matter seriously.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Completely agreed. It's one of several things where I believe a lot of people were, and still are, deeply enchanted by the promises that the rules-design-structure of 3rd Edition made, but never delivered on--in part because some of those promises were completely at odds with one another.

Such folks want a game that:
is completely naturalistic, but also extremely comprehensive so nothing relevant gets left out
reads like a fantasy-world gazette, but plays like a physics-engine
never uses abstraction (outside of numerous grandfathered exceptions), but never gets bogged down in needless detail
applies 100% identical rules to both PCs and their opposition, but delivers satisfying results from those PCs repeatedly facing such equal opposition

And several more things besides. It would be a massive triumph of game design to solve even one of these contradictions. To solve all of them? In a single system? Functionally, if not outright logically, impossible.

The games I like seem to manage this reasonably well, if of course not perfectly and in different ways (because I like more than one thing).

 

[MothMayI]

A properly written manual is easy to read. That means no fluff text mixed into rules text, and clear rules with concise terminology.

This benefits everyone. People who don't want rules text get less of it, and it is separated from the other text and thus easier to avoid, and people who like rules text can focus on that and ignoring the fluff text.

"Fluff" can make the rules easier to understand.

For instance, the rules for opportunity attacks describe how combatants wait for others to allow an opening for attacks. That helps players to understand the context and function of an opportunity attack, as well as contextualizing the Disengage action to avoid opportunity attacks.

 

[TiQuinn]

And I think that's the tension that's really being described here. If you want all those rules for all of those situations, but don't want them described mechanicistically, I'm not quite sure what to tell you—in my experience, it's better than the situation like in the 80s with AD&D where the rules were so poorly organized and poorly described that nobody really knew exactly what they all were, even, and they just filled in the gaps of what they didn't know, didn't remember or didn't understand with rules from B/X or something instead that they did remember and did understand.

I actually prefer the writing in 5e much more to the 5.5 rules - I felt it had a better blend of natural language and rules-speak.

 

[Desdichado]

When you read a recipe, there has to be something (a description, a picture) that makes you excited about the end product. Otherwise it's just a list of ingredients and steps that you probably won't choose to make. I suspect that there are many DMs and players who read (and buy!) gaming books far more than they play - how else to explain those of us with shelves groaning with different games, expansions, adventures, campaign settings, etc.? I run a weekly game, but I spend more time with my books than I do at the table. When I read a game book, I'm imaging a possible future game that uses that rules set/adventure. It needs to inspire me to make we want to bring it to the table (and convince my gaming group that this choice is the one we should be playing and not something else). Clear, clean, and organized rules are definitely desirable, but that is secondary to an inspiring/imaginative read that makes me want to play it.

I agree; privately, I think more people engage with the hobby by reading books more than anything else. Even people who are actively playing in at least one campaign probably spend more time reading books than they do playing. And many people aren't actively playing, or their games are sporadic, or their sessions are far apart. I'm in three campaigns, at least in theory, but I spend an order of magnitude more time reading game books than I do using them at the table.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Fluff" can make the rules easier to understand.

For instance, the rules for opportunity attacks describe how combatants wait for others to allow an opening for attacks. That helps players to understand the context and function of an opportunity attack, as well as contextualizing the Disengage action to avoid opportunity attacks.

Agreed. Separating the "what" from the "why" IMO damages the reason we play the game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Thank you for taking my opinion on the matter seriously.

I find it extremely important to take seriously the opinions of people I disagree with (only so long as there is no moral component in the disagreement--and there is no such thing here, thank goodness!) It's often the only way to realize one is or has been barking up the wrong tree all along. Even if I end up sticking to my guns, to temper one's position in the fire of sincere rebuttal is perhaps the single best way to free it of flaws. No method is perfect, but adversarial methods have quite a bit of value that is easily forgotten in the naturally conciliatory bent of society-at-large.

Vaguely reminds me of a project I did while I was a tutor at a local community college. Did a whole presentation on how competitive methods could be used to augment study group efforts. Wasn't easy to find literature on the subject (the vast majority of scholarship on study skills and tutoring focuses on the collaborative, as one might expect), but what I found proved fascinating. The TL;DR is that, if used very judiciously, competitive methods can actually be extremely effective--but that's a bit like saying "if fire is used extremely judiciously, it can be extremely effective". Use it right, you get cooked food and suddenly nutritional needs are WAY easier to meet; use it wrong and you've just become a free cooked lunch for whatever predator and/or carrion-eater wanders by.