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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Grammatical mood in D&D adventure writing.
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<blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 8864138" data-attributes="member: 63"><p>Who wants to ponder some language geekery for a moment?</p><p></p><p>[URL unfurl="true"]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood[/URL]</p><p></p><p>When you write an adventure, unless you're railroading the players, you don't write in the indicative mood of "X happens." Rather we use a mix of <strong>indicative</strong> descriptions of the past ("X has happened") and <strong>potential</strong> statements of the future ("Y is primed to happen barring PC involvement"), with a bit of predictive <strong>conditional</strong> statements ("if the PCs do Q, then Z happens").</p><p></p><p>Especially in more complex plots like the murder mystery I wrote <em>Death of the Author</em>, the heavy use of conditional statements can make the plot a bit confusing at first read, because I want the GM to have a clear sense of how various NPCs would act, but everyone's hiding secrets, and different revelations will elicit different reactions. Oh, and then there are the parent moods of <strong>deontic</strong> ("the party could go investigate the beach, or could stay in the manor for safety") and <strong>epistemic</strong> ("the party probably will inspect the murder victim").</p><p></p><p>I suppose one could write adventures in the <strong>jussive</strong> mood ("the PCs ought to do A"), or perhaps <strong>optative</strong> if you're trying to steer players to a particular choice ("upon discovering the villain's plan, may they make the heroic choice and oppose him, rather than flee").</p><p></p><p>I have no real point to this post, other than to revel in realis and irrealis storytelling techniques. Heck, if you were speaking in Hindi, you might use the <strong>presumptive</strong> mood when introducing a story, to lend it an air of "I know this is fiction, but it's <em>possible</em> that it really is happening."</p><p></p><p>Language is neat.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RangerWickett, post: 8864138, member: 63"] Who wants to ponder some language geekery for a moment? [URL unfurl="true"]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood[/URL] When you write an adventure, unless you're railroading the players, you don't write in the indicative mood of "X happens." Rather we use a mix of [B]indicative[/B] descriptions of the past ("X has happened") and [B]potential[/B] statements of the future ("Y is primed to happen barring PC involvement"), with a bit of predictive [B]conditional[/B] statements ("if the PCs do Q, then Z happens"). Especially in more complex plots like the murder mystery I wrote [I]Death of the Author[/I], the heavy use of conditional statements can make the plot a bit confusing at first read, because I want the GM to have a clear sense of how various NPCs would act, but everyone's hiding secrets, and different revelations will elicit different reactions. Oh, and then there are the parent moods of [B]deontic[/B] ("the party could go investigate the beach, or could stay in the manor for safety") and [B]epistemic[/B] ("the party probably will inspect the murder victim"). I suppose one could write adventures in the [B]jussive[/B] mood ("the PCs ought to do A"), or perhaps [B]optative[/B] if you're trying to steer players to a particular choice ("upon discovering the villain's plan, may they make the heroic choice and oppose him, rather than flee"). I have no real point to this post, other than to revel in realis and irrealis storytelling techniques. Heck, if you were speaking in Hindi, you might use the [B]presumptive[/B] mood when introducing a story, to lend it an air of "I know this is fiction, but it's [I]possible[/I] that it really is happening." Language is neat. [/QUOTE]
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