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Game jargon causing unwanted consequences
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6152200" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>I think that 5e has less game jargon than 3e, but IMHO it is creeping up a little bit more and more in every playtest packet.</p><p></p><p>IMO designers should be double careful when introducing more jargon, labels and technical definition, and exploiting them to create features of the game, one reason is that jargon simply makes the game less appealing to casual gamers and harder for beginners, the other reason is that it's hard to check all the consequences of those labels...</p><p></p><p>Here's something I caught in the latest packet:</p><p></p><p>- they changed the mechanics of "Ready an Action" so that instead of changing your initiative, your triggered action uses your reaction</p><p></p><p>Sounds good, however, you only have one 1 reaction per round, so if you have already used your reaction, you cannot ready an action. It's not a big deal, but is this a wanted feature, or did it just happen?</p><p></p><p>Similarly, the Barbarian cannot take reactions while raging. Therefore now a raging Barbarian cannot ready actions. Is this really a wanted feature again? I'm not saying it shouldn't be, perhaps it makes a lot of sense that during a rage, you cannot stop and wait for a trigger, I'm just highly doubtful that the designers who changed the mechanics of Ready properly remembered that Rage was linked to the jargon term "reactions".</p><p></p><p>Another problem is that jargon terms occasionally are also used as non-jargon, i.e. they are just occasionally used as part of the normal language.</p><p></p><p>The example here is describing Saving Throws (in the DM Guidelines only) as "quick reactions", only that in this sentence "reaction" is not the jargon term but just a casual word, in fact you obviously aren't restricted to only 1 Saving Throw per turn!</p><p></p><p>I'm hoping overall for 5e to be jargon-lite, or at least lighter than 3e, for these reasons.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6152200, member: 1465"] I think that 5e has less game jargon than 3e, but IMHO it is creeping up a little bit more and more in every playtest packet. IMO designers should be double careful when introducing more jargon, labels and technical definition, and exploiting them to create features of the game, one reason is that jargon simply makes the game less appealing to casual gamers and harder for beginners, the other reason is that it's hard to check all the consequences of those labels... Here's something I caught in the latest packet: - they changed the mechanics of "Ready an Action" so that instead of changing your initiative, your triggered action uses your reaction Sounds good, however, you only have one 1 reaction per round, so if you have already used your reaction, you cannot ready an action. It's not a big deal, but is this a wanted feature, or did it just happen? Similarly, the Barbarian cannot take reactions while raging. Therefore now a raging Barbarian cannot ready actions. Is this really a wanted feature again? I'm not saying it shouldn't be, perhaps it makes a lot of sense that during a rage, you cannot stop and wait for a trigger, I'm just highly doubtful that the designers who changed the mechanics of Ready properly remembered that Rage was linked to the jargon term "reactions". Another problem is that jargon terms occasionally are also used as non-jargon, i.e. they are just occasionally used as part of the normal language. The example here is describing Saving Throws (in the DM Guidelines only) as "quick reactions", only that in this sentence "reaction" is not the jargon term but just a casual word, in fact you obviously aren't restricted to only 1 Saving Throw per turn! I'm hoping overall for 5e to be jargon-lite, or at least lighter than 3e, for these reasons. [/QUOTE]
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