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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 3334133" data-attributes="member: 7240">How do you personally evaluate flavor text?My main criteria for flavour text will be how well it meshes with the mechanical aspects of the game and is directly relevant to the game. I am not interested in reading flavour text if it is simply a digression so that the writer can sharpen up his prose style in anticipation of a future novel. I'm not looking for the short stories and vignettes of frustrated writers. I am looking for text that tells me about things in the world. The worst thing flavour text can do, in my opinion, is to describe situations that the rules are incapable of mechanically representing. If I'm reading something with a D20 or True20 damage mechanic, I do not want to hear about people losing limbs, for instance.What I really want to see in flavour text is text that deepends my understanding of the setting by detailing things like customs, cultures, history, theology or ecosystems.How do you plan to evalute writing when applied to game mechanics?My first priority here is, overwhelmingly, ease of comprehension. Any language that gets in the way of understanding through lack of clarity, wordiness, etc. is language I do not want to see. Good writing is writing that tells you both the mechanics and the underlying priniciples on which they are premised so that you can understand the overarching system into which the rules fit. For bonus points for scratching a particular itch I have, I would love to see some game rules that explain how the rule is understood by people in the game world as part of the physics of their world and how this is the same or differs from the physics of our world.When evaluating writing, how will you approach products with a very high percentage of mechanics compared to products with a very small percentage of game mechanics?Well, those that have a high percentage of game mechanics are going to be judged, for the most part, by the standards I have for how to judge mechanics: clarity and focus; those that have a low percentage are going to be evaluated primarily on quality of prose style.When evaluating writing, how will word count factor in?  How will you compare a 20 page PDF to a 400+ hardcover book?The only question for me will be what percentage of the writing is good and what percentage of it is necessary. If a book is 400+ pages but doesn't need to be, that will hurt it; if a PDF is 12 pages but needs to be 20, that will hurt it. If the writing is necessary, then I will evaluate it based on the standards I outlined in previous answers.</blockquote>

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