D&D 5E D&D Lingua Franca, or 5e really, REALLY needs to create it's own new "space"

[underfoot007ct]

I want to be able to explain the rules to people who don't play D&D. Stripping away jargon is a good thing.

Moreover, I want the actual things the rules are describing to make sense to people who don't play D&D.

At Game Conventions, I have taught dozens, maybe hundreds to play 4E & create 4E chars with no problems. Most gamers are playing 4E in under 10 mins and understand enough to play. Jargon never seems to hinder anyone from learning quickly.

As to "(2W + your enemy has to dance the Macarena until save)" , is that a weak attempt at comedy or more useless & lame edition waring ?

 

[TwinBahamut]

The discussion of what jargon is good and what jargon is bad or could use improvement is certainly a relevant one, but turning this into a discussion about 4E's jargon was a big mistake. After all, 4E took a lot of steps to simplify and clarify a lot of the jargon compared to older editions (such as the cleaning up of the condition list or shortening AoO to OA). It took more steps than any previous edition to make the jargon more accessible. Also, if you are looking at this from a "embracing new players" perspective, a lot of the oldest jargon is the most problematic.

Let's compare the terms "hit point" and "armor class". The former is good jargon, and the latter is bad jargon. Absolutely every game ever made that use a concept that resembles hit points uses the term hit point (or just HP, maybe health point on occasion, but that uses the same abbreviation). That term is widely used and understood far outside the insular realm of D&D jargon. Armor Class is not. It is used pretty much exclusively in D&D and various other games that are emulating D&D as closely as possible, many of which are rather insular and old themselves. Everywhere else, AC is called either "Defense" or "Evasion" depending on the actual mechanics. You can tell anyone the term Defense or Evasion and they would understand quickly, but Armor Class is far less immediately clear. The term Armor Class isn't even consistent with the rules, since for many characters it is a number for the evasiveness granted by skill and a high Dexterity or Intelligence score.

Calling for an end to 4E's jargon in the name of attracting new players, but still wanting to keep a term like Armor Class around at the same time, is self-contradictory.

 

[DEFCON 1]

As a bonus, if a given mechanic is well done and initutive, chances are the evolved jargon will be quite acceptable to a lot of people, too.

Absolutely. For instance... in 3E they invented the "5 foot step", a short move that didn't trigger an Attack of Opportunity (or Opportunity Attack). This became a useful mechanic for the game and was then adopted into what they now called the "shift", thereby saving two extra words whenever it needed to be described. It also meant they could now describe extended squares of movement that did not trigger OAs as "shifts"... thereby eliminating the silliness and incomprehensibility of what otherwise would have had to be described as a (for example) "5 foot shift of 20 feet". And I have thus far seen very few people here on the boards who don't like the concept and the name of the "shift".

So jargon itself is not inherently bad. It mostly comes down to how much you like the underlying rule and/or game that the jargon is describing.

 

[Storminator]

Absolutely. For instance... in 3E they invented the "5 foot step", a short move that didn't trigger an Attack of Opportunity (or Opportunity Attack). This became a useful mechanic for the game and was then adopted into what they now called the "shift", thereby saving two extra words whenever it needed to be described. It also meant they could now describe extended squares of movement that did not trigger OAs as "shifts"... thereby eliminating the silliness and incomprehensibility of what otherwise would have had to be described as a (for example) "5 foot shift of 20 feet". And I have thus far seen very few people here on the boards who don't like the concept and the name of the "shift".

So jargon itself is not inherently bad. It mostly comes down to how much you like the underlying rule and/or game that the jargon is describing.

I have a player that consistently confuses the editions and is always asking for "shift 5."

It would be great if 5e could develop precise language to define the game aspects, but did it using terms we could imagine our PCs shouting to each other on the battlefield. Shift and Flanking do that. Lots of 4e (my favorite edition, FWIW) doesn't.

But I wonder how much effort should be put into this. Is it worth not working on 2 classes? 10 spells? How much time and money should be sacrificed to "perfect" the jargon?

PS

 

[Ahnehnois]

At Game Conventions, I have taught dozens, maybe hundreds to play 4E & create 4E chars with no problems. Most gamers are playing 4E in under 10 mins and understand enough to play. Jargon never seems to hinder anyone from learning quickly.

Highlighted parts to indicate that you're talking about people who are already fairly hardcore rpg players of some sort, and you simply taught them a new set of rules well enough for them to get by at a convention game. This is completely different from trying to teach a beginner who's never played any type of rpg and work them into playing a regular game regularly with experienced players and eventually maybe DMing. I've done that several times (not hundreds, which frankly would be almost impossible). D&D (any edition, though 4e is a particularly bad offender) is way too complicated and technical for true beginners, which is part of why the hobby is where it is. Convention gaming isn't really a barometer of where the hobby as a whole is at, nor is it a vehicle to take it forward, it's just sort of a sidetrack for a small subset of gamers (already a small subset of people in general) to meet other gamers.

It's also important that language isn't going to be as much of a barrier when someone is present who knows the system inside and out. The real problem is when that kind of teacher is not present. Can someone pick up a book in a store and say "yeah, that sounds like fun; I'll try that"? Can some kid pick up a rulebook having never gamed in his life and run a fun (if not transcendently artful) session with his friends? That's the question to me.

I will say as a sidebar, though, that teaching beginners is a great way to learn. They'll ask why something is a certain why, and you'll either have a great answer to give them or some food for thought yourself.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

But I wonder how much effort should be put into this. Is it worth not working on 2 classes? 10 spells? How much time and money should be sacrificed to "perfect" the jargon?

They could always out source it to the open playtesters. Once a few options emerge from the chaos, have a few polls to nail down the final version. Bonus--people that spend a lot of time fighting over that stuff will have less time to fight about other stuff.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Highlighted parts to indicate that you're talking about people who are already fairly hardcore rpg players of some sort, and you simply taught them a new set of rules well enough for them to get by at a convention game. This is completely different from trying to teach a beginner who's never played any type of rpg and work them into playing a regular game regularly with experienced players and eventually maybe DMing. I've done that several times (not hundreds, which frankly would be almost impossible). D&D (any edition, though 4e is a particularly bad offender) is way too complicated and technical for true beginners, which is part of why the hobby is where it is. Convention gaming isn't really a barometer of where the hobby as a whole is at, nor is it a vehicle to take it forward, it's just sort of a sidetrack for a small subset of gamers (already a small subset of people in general) to meet other gamers.

<snip>

At conventions like GenCon ,PaxEast & many local cons, I have run "learn to play D&D", which draws both old gamers & total noobs. The on-going campaigns might be another issue. Both GenCon & PaxEast draw all types of gamer hardcore & noob alike, who want to try the newest D&D edition without either buying the books or have a home group. The on-going campaigns might be another issue. If that is not a good cross section then I am unsure what you would consider one ?

 

[avin]

I find some 4E jargon bad, like "Healing Surges" (granted, maybe more the concept than the word), Powers (8th level spell seems more evocative of a "real thing") or "Slot" that is too videogamey for my (videogamey enthusiast, playing since Atari) taste...

But, for sure, Shift is vastly better than 5 ft step and OA better than AoO. Wotc should keep them.

 

[Janaxstrus]

I find some 4E jargon bad, like "Healing Surges" (granted, maybe more the concept than the word), Powers (8th level spell seems more evocative of a "real thing") or "Slot" that is too videogamey for my (videogamey enthusiast, playing since Atari) taste...

But, for sure, Shift is vastly better than 5 ft step and OA better than AoO. Wotc should keep them.

Shift is good, OA or AoO is a wash for me.

 

[Mengu]

Every edition of D&D has introduced some jargon. It's unavoidable. We want to know what we're talking about, without having to repeat a 20 word phrase over and over. So we make up a word, stick it in the glossary, and keep on trucking. How much of it we need is debatable.

I love how concise 4e rules can be. For me it's a beautiful thing. For many of my friends, it's a load of bullocks. For instance a rule that says:

"If you crit, make another attack,"

would be perfectly clear and playable for many of the players I play with. But in 4e words, this rule reads like:

"Once per round, when you score a critical hit with a barbarian attack power, you can immediately make a melee basic attack as a free action. You do not have to attack the same target that you scored a critical hit against."

It sounds like a lawyer doing the verbal tap dance in a court room. The amount of jargon in the first version is 2 words (crit and attack), the amount of jargon in the second version is 7-8 phrases depending on how you break it up (round, critical hit, barbarian, attack power, melee, basic attack, free action, target). I can see why many people hate this.

There is probably some middle ground that can be found to reduce jargon, but still keep it concise, perhaps by making some of the rules simpler, and making some basic common sense assumptions (that lawyers never make). These assumptions are the part that would feel most awkward for those of us going from 4e to D&DN, but I think it's probably a compromise we will have to make, and get used to.