Ease the vernacular.

[n00bdragon]

If there's something in the game that's going to come up again and again I would much rather they give that thing a name. Keywords are almost always a good thing. Otherwise you end up with a million things that work almost the same except for this one here and that one there which are different in some tiny but critical way.

This is why Magic: the Gathering cards are mostly clean and easy to read and understand and Yugioh cards are dense and difficult to understand.

 

[Wiseblood]

Kzatch I thought the other thread was about prose wich IMO is a style of writing not necesarily use of specific words that are nonsense elsewhere. I do not mind succinctness but made up words rub me the wrong way. I don't think me using the phrase made up words is helpful here. Perhaps it is classifications that bother me.


I was looking through my 4e PHB the other day to find out what an extended rest gets you. Only I didn't know it was called an extended rest. So I looked in the index. That was a useless endeavor. It is not under rest or recovery or healing. The jargon actually made it more difficult to find the information I was looking for. This is something that I would guess is not exclusive to 4e but it is something that would be nice to avoid

 

[MoonSong]

If there's something in the game that's going to come up again and again I would much rather they give that thing a name. Keywords are almost always a good thing. Otherwise you end up with a million things that work almost the same except for this one here and that one there which are different in some tiny but critical way.

This is why Magic: the Gathering cards are mostly clean and easy to read and understand and Yugioh cards are dense and difficult to understand.

I beg to differ, MTG cards can be very easy to understand, if you can just keep up with hundreds of keywords and thousands of erratas. A Yugioh card on the other hand may use more words and prone to disagreements and rules lawyering, but anybody with a basic understanding of the rules (a 20 pages booklet with lots of pictures) will be able to know what it does and how to play it without having to go online and check what "bushido" means.

Having less jargon lessens the entry barrier to any game, the first ten or so characters I created in 3.5 I did them by flipping back and forth from the phb, reading it as it was needed, not much complexity was involved in them because I started with simple classes and slowly got to handle more and more complexity. In contrast I had to fully read and understand the 4e PHB before being able to create a character because I was confronted with the full complexity from the beginning, half that complexity were keywords.

 

[Tovec]

If the game is simple enough to play and understand then it can benefit from both a lack or an incoporation of keywords.
If the system is intuitive enough that a "fire" keyword isn't needed then why put it in.
If the system has something like "sneak attack" then there better be a place for me to cross-reference (assuming I'm not already in the rogue description).

As far as the swift, move, free, full-round and standard actions described by the OP.
A. Our group has never had an issue understanding which action takes more time after using them once in game.
B. 5e seems to be using a Standard and Move action system only, which should cut down on the bloat used by both 4e and 3e.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't mind jargon if it makes sense and it's kept within reason. Adding keywords for everything a la Magic is fine for the cards where there's a very limited space to put the required information, but isn't nearly as necessary (and in fact may be more limiting*) in a book with lots of space.

* - by this I mean that the presence of keywords in a design inevitably leads designers to try to shoehorn things into fitting those keywords where in fact the better design would be to leave the keyword out and just describe what best suited the design they were after. (example: 4e by design measures everything in squares, thus "radius" areas of effect were shoehorned into squares to fit this design, leading to silliness like cubic balls of fire)

Lanefan

 

[Wiseblood]

If the game is simple enough to play and understand then it can benefit from both a lack or an incoporation of keywords.
If the system is intuitive enough that a "fire" keyword isn't needed then why put it in.
If the system has something like "sneak attack" then there better be a place for me to cross-reference (assuming I'm not already in the rogue description).

As far as the swift, move, free, full-round and standard actions described by the OP.
A. Our group has never had an issue understanding which action takes more time after using them once in game.
B. 5e seems to be using a Standard and Move action system only, which should cut down on the bloat used by both 4e and 3e.

Woops I forgot Immediate Actions.

A. you have a good group.

B. Did they excise the actions or the jargon?

 

[Tovec]

A. you have a good group.

It varies. But I JUST started with a group that doesn't do RPGs and barely does videogames and I have had a total of 2 questions about how certain actions work since we started.

B. Did they excise the actions or the jargon?

Right now, your guess is as good as mine.

My point remains even if they end up making a standard action long enough to encompass most actions that used to be full round and they keep move action to be moving or drawing an item then it shouldn't be too difficult to learn. If people can pick up the many facets of how to create a character, in any game, then they can figure out what move action, swift or full round action means. Put another way; even if new people don't know they have a full-round (action) which can be split into standard action and a move action with X number of free actions and 1 swift action, with immediate actions during someone else's turn... they can still play the game and enjoy it. If they figure out how to use all of their actions to the fullest every turn that is great. If they don't then they aren't missing out on much.

 

[Dice4Hire]

People like Jargon because on the positive side it can make communication faster.

On the negative side it is a way of making the us and them divide stronger.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I get particularly bothered by player attempts to ADD jargon to the game.

Like when players talk about "Tier 1" classes or use the verboten term "gish". Or answer a perfectly legitimate question with "Appendix N".

You can expect D&D players to know the rules - but this isn't in the rules.

I understand what your point, terms like "gish" is not in any D&D, yet crept in to the game. AT a resent game local con someone was calling teleporting "BAMPHing (sp?), I had no clue. Odd jargon is unstoppable from filtering in to D&D, or any RPG. It might be good thing If 5eNext has few new terms/jargon.

 

[MythMage]

Jargon is useful only insofar as it doesn't impede learning. The more intuitive the terms are, the quicker they can be learned. Therefore, as long as the goal is to attract players (which the D&D brand needs right now), it is smart for the designers to cut back on jargon. Precisely defining terms is good, but let's minimize the obvious gaming abstractions where we can do so without hurting the coherency (and functioning) of the rules.