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

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Absolutely. All of those factors are true of my hobby time.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Absolutely. All of those factors are true of my hobby time.

A question for you, then:

Would your needs not be better-served by books about setting, and tone, and possible directions?

If the point is to have a pleasurable read of a book regarding RPG-related topics, why should that be the primary focus of those books specifically made--and marketed!--as teaching tools, reference manuals, and gameplay guides?

Again, this is NOT saying that such books should not inspire. I agree that it is quite important to fire the imagination, to (paraphrasing Gandalf and Bilbo) "feel the love of beautiful things...to [want to] go and see the great mountains, to hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls...to wear a sword instead of a walking-stick...just, once!"

But should that goal be the primary goal of books that describe themselves as "handbook", "guide", and "manual"? Books whose clear purpose in marketing, design, and explicit intent, is to introduce players to a new set of rules?

It seems to me quite clear that, although it is a very important goal that we ignore at our peril, it is not and cannot be the primary goal of the design, even if a great many people enjoy the books in that way.

Unless, as stated before, we create a fourth book whose purpose is to be almost exclusively a reference manual, with firing-the-imagination mostly a "when we can pencil it in" kind of thing. (You'll note that even back when I called for a "Rules Cyclopedia" earlier in this thread, I specifically said that art is really nice to have and shouldn't be jettisoned without need.) Under that design plan, the other books, and most likely specifically the PHB, can be reduced to only needing to serve two roles: being a pleasurable read, and being a useful introduction. Two goals, even ones somewhat at odds, are much more easily harmonized than three.

 

[Composer99]

The SRD is there for those that want a stripped down version of the ruleset.

This is simply false. The SRD is a tool for developers who are creating third-party content.

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 mean, you do you, but I find having to navigate through pictures, blog posts, and other content to get to a recipe to be infuriating. I thus cannot find the words to express my disagreement with the idea that "there has to be something" (emphasis mine) to make me "excited about the end product". By the time I'm going to the effort to looking for a recipe, I already want to make whatever the recipe is for. I neither need nor want to dig through other content to get to it.

In a game, sure, I want more flavour text to get a feel for what the game is about and what kinds of game world are typical or ideal. But once I'm already sold on the game, when it comes time to get to the rules, I want the flavour text to get out of the way.

I should add that I have had no problem over-filling my shelves and DriveThruRPG library, so I'm not a fan of seeming "how else..." presumption that it's folks who think as you do who are the only ones buying loads of content.

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As a general remark - and I rather suspect I've shared these rules before in discussions on this site - some of the best rules I've recently had the pleasure (and it is a pleasure!) to read are the rules for Axis Empires, a WW2-era hex-and-counter boardgame.

Obviously, the game has a very different mandate than D&D or other TTRPGs, not least because it has to be a completely bounded ruleset. All the same, though, I think there are valuable lessons for TTRPG rules writing to be found here. Another good example might be the rules for Twilight Imperium, which (as you might expect) includes a lot more flavour text than the rules for Axis Empires.

 

[Belen]

A friend has been running 5.5 and I see no improvement from 5e to 5.5 in terms of language or rules understanding. We are using DDB as well and we have not seen any improvement.

The tightening of the language has not improved the understanding of the rules at the table and the organization is worse on DDB to find the correct information. We have even found that not all rules are on DDB that are in the book.

I do not mind tightening of language but I think I prefer the older style after using 5.5 in practice.

 

[Clint_L]

Does capitalizing important words make books less entertaining to read? Does it make it less easy to read or look at?

Yes! 100%! Capitalizing a non-Proper noun, let Alone a verb or Adjective, makes It Read completely Differently.

It's very jarring. And jargon-y.

I don't think it does. I've read several novels that capitalized important parts of the story and worldbuilding ("One Ring"). Is Lord of the Rings less enjoyable or less easy to read or look at because Tolkien capitalized "One Ring" when referring to it?

Well, no, because the One Ring is correctly capitalized as a proper noun, so the capitalization gives it the correct weight.

How would this help for D&D Beyond? And how does it ruin the experience of reading the books?

It makes them read more like manuals, and turns some words into jargon. For me, it is less enjoyable to read a manual that is full of jargon. YVMV.

D&D 5e has always had key words. It just used to have them be lower case and had slightly different phrasing, which sometimes made it difficult to tell if a condition was being applied. Now, it's easier. Rule clarity, to me, is much more important than the fact that some people think it looks weird.

To the contrary, I find it distracting and it makes me feel like I'm supposed to be looking up a rule to make sure that I have it exactly right, whereas natural language doesn't make me feel like I have to have every term memorized in order to make sense of it.

 

[Clint_L]

Using so-called "natural English" was one of the greatest failings of the 5.14 rules that they still have not quite recovered from. It lead to very ambiguous and hard to adjudicate in a consistent manner rules, and not just obscure corner cases and 'bag of rats' issues. They tried to launch with a 'rulings not rules' mantra, but that did not last long at all. I suppose it is the difference between reading the rules as one might a novel and actually playing the rules.

That must be why 5e struggled so much...

 

[Micah Sweet]

A question for you, then:

Would your needs not be better-served by books about setting, and tone, and possible directions?

If the point is to have a pleasurable read of a book regarding RPG-related topics, why should that be the primary focus of those books specifically made--and marketed!--as teaching tools, reference manuals, and gameplay guides?

Again, this is NOT saying that such books should not inspire. I agree that it is quite important to fire the imagination, to (paraphrasing Gandalf and Bilbo) "feel the love of beautiful things...to [want to] go and see the great mountains, to hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls...to wear a sword instead of a walking-stick...just, once!"

But should that goal be the primary goal of books that describe themselves as "handbook", "guide", and "manual"? Books whose clear purpose in marketing, design, and explicit intent, is to introduce players to a new set of rules?

It seems to me quite clear that, although it is a very important goal that we ignore at our peril, it is not and cannot be the primary goal of the design, even if a great many people enjoy the books in that way.

Unless, as stated before, we create a fourth book whose purpose is to be almost exclusively a reference manual, with firing-the-imagination mostly a "when we can pencil it in" kind of thing. (You'll note that even back when I called for a "Rules Cyclopedia" earlier in this thread, I specifically said that art is really nice to have and shouldn't be jettisoned without need.) Under that design plan, the other books, and most likely specifically the PHB, can be reduced to only needing to serve two roles: being a pleasurable read, and being a useful introduction. Two goals, even ones somewhat at odds, are much more easily harmonized than three.

I believe the needle can be threaded. Both mechanics and flavor are important, but IMO mechanics are not more important, even in an RPG rulebook.

 

[jayoungr]

I'd say this isn't really true, given that if people have been playing 5e, they're obviously fine with natural-language rules writing. It's clearly not a deal-breaker for them.

I was thinking more "edition to edition"--4E was big on keywords, which some people loved and others hated. Then 5E (2014) largely ditched keywords, which some people loved and others hated. Now 5.5E (2024) has brought back keywords to at least some extent, which some people love and others hate.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

"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.

There's a balance between being so abstract that it becomes nonsensical and trying to blend the whole thing smooth like some Gygaxian hell cocktail.

I think Lancer handles this very well. In the cases where it might not be clear, the rules text tends to incorporate flavour elements to make certain things explicitly clear. For example there is an illusion ability that allows an NPC to teleport their allies, but the rules text makes clear that what actually happens is that an enemy was in fact not even there in the first place, the illusion only made it look like that way.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I have many rpgs. Some are written very sparsely, like a manual and use keywords. This is fine. Others are written with richer, more conversational language. There are advantages to both styles.

My problem with D&D 2024 is it's attempting to be clear and manual like, but is not very successful, in my opinion. The over use of the words action and condition is unnecessary. The frequent use of the passive voice weakens the direct style it's aiming for. Some explanations are shorter and clearer than 2014, but there are too many convoluted sentences that actually muddy the waters. Look at the weird writing and confusion surrounding stealth, hide and the invisible condition. The OP's example of rope is painful to read.

There is a definite shift toward nailing down the rules. I assume this is to help with clarity. I have a suspicion, we are going to have just as many arguments over rules as ever, as D&D is still a sprawling ruleset with many edge cases and oddities. The writing style of 2024 is not actually helping. On top of all this, the keywords are not capitalized consistently. This book needed another editing pass.

Hear, hear. There aren't two sides to this argument - there are more.

Keywords aren't really the problem that's being put forth in many of the seemingly anti-keyword posts, and you don't have to create rules ambiguity by writing in a "natural language" style.

It is perfectly possible to do both well, even if it is impossible to please everyone no matter what you do.

2024 takes a slightly different approach to it than did 2014. I would argue that it works in some parts of the rules, and not in others. A mixed bag of successes and failures, which is pretty much par for the course with D&D Rules. You win some, you lose some.