D&D 5E Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[Micah Sweet]

Must each new edition of a game carry with it an essay explaining their philosophy for every change from the previous edition? Or just D&D?

If the editions are as different as they are in D&D (where many, including all the WotC editions, are actually separate games), then yes, absolutely.

 

[Parmandur]

Yea and referencing the layout on the map takes 3 seconds, and is immediately easy to reference always, with less time wasted

Honestly don't see any difference for the single room non-Dungeon exploration battle maps he is complaining about. If nobody else has by then, I'll share the relevant text from the book tonight for further analysis.

Again, why are you defending worse in a 30-70$ product, like arguing its a minor issue fair, but it is just kinda worse, and it doesnt happen once it happens quite a few times, so its obviously a trend of just worse organizational references for no good reason, other then...idek laziness? Incompetence?

I paid $54 at my FLGS. Thst equals two trips to a food truck for me. These are cheap entertainment, keep in mind, particularly when leveraged by the hour compared to my Super Burritos.

The clear consistency of not keying tiny non-explorstion areas suggests that this is a rational style book choice dictated by their editorial team, not laziness nor incompetence. Not sharing the eccentric values of some rando clickbait blog does not make the writers lazy or incompetent.

 

[Gradine]

If the editions are as different as they are in D&D (where many, including all the WotC editions, are actually separate games), then yes, absolutely.

Really? For every game? For every decision? A little sidebar with an explanation for every reason for every change they make? That doesn't seem like an unreasonable demand to you?

 

[mamba]

That's, like, the entirety of WotC's ownership of D&D, right?

they could also mean the 70s and 80s

 

[Charlaquin]

It’s areas in the same room. And he wants it keyed to three. 3.

It’s in the same physical space, sure, but they are distinct areas within that space - enough so that they’re labeled under different headers. Justin would just rather those headers be numbered instead of described.

I’d say he’s overreacting, likely because he is concerned about what he perceives as a shift in design priorities away from his preferences. But I certainly don’t think it’s absurd to think that this map’s description should be divided into 3 parts, and evidently neither does WotC, given the separate headers.

 

[ersatzphil]

If the editions are as different as they are in D&D (where many, including all the WotC editions, are actually separate games), then yes, absolutely.

I was going to say: I’m not aware of another game where it would be warranted, but other games usually don’t rewrite themselves from the ground up every couple of years*. Call of Cthulhu is still (essentially) the same game it was in the ‘80s.

*NB: I’ve never played Traveller. I’m aware it had a ton of editions and moved publishers; I have no idea how much the game has changed over the years.

 

[mamba]

Doesn't bother me personally either way in terms of being in the book... but I do know when grabbing maps online I always prefer non-keyed versions (both without room numbers or creature placement) to have them be clean for virtual use or 1-inch scale printing.

in the digital version you frequently find both, not an excuse to not have a keyed version, even though in this case it is not as important as in others

 

[Clint_L]

Again, why are you defending worse in a 30-70$ product, like arguing its a minor issue fair, but it is just kinda worse, and it doesnt happen once it happens quite a few times, so its obviously a trend of just worse organizational references for no good reason, other then...idek laziness? Incompetence?

I don't interpret it in either of those ways. To me it seems like an intentional design decision...and one I think I agree with, though it's not a big deal to me either way. I find it odd that the review makes such a big deal over it, but the reviewer clearly has much stronger opinions about how maps should be keyed than I do. That's fine; a review is ultimately just one person's opinion, and I'd rather they were honest about how the product made them feel than try to cater to what they think their audience wants to read.

As I look ahead into where PaB is going, I have to confess that I'm not loving the story direction. I hate psionics, for that reason am not a big fan of mind flayers (I know, boooo!), and given that the original was a very traditional intro to fantasy role playing would have preferred they stuck with that. But that's just my early opinion.

 

[FallenRX]

Honestly don't see any difference for the single room non-Dungeon exploration battle maps he is complaining about. If nobody else has by then, I'll share the relevant text from the book tonight for further analysis.

I paid $54 at my FLGS. Thst equals two trips to a food truck for me. These are cheap entertainment, keep in mind, particularly when leveraged by the hour compared to my Super Burritos.

The clear consistency of not keying tiny non-explorstion areas suggests that this is a rational style book choice dictated by their editorial team, not laziness nor incompetence. Not sharing the eccentric values of some rando clickbait blog does not make the writers lazy or incompetent.

Im not saying you have to agree with justin or disagree with him, im not even makign the same point as him, im saying that i feel this is just worse then doing what they did before even for small areas, and its just makes it harder to run for no good reason, and i think that is worth criticizing. And i think it shows a lack of care in a 30 to 50 dollar product, im happy your well off enough that this is nothing for you, but their is probably more entertaining things and better RPG books you can get for the same price, then a book that barely cares about the organization of the simplest things, what hope do they have for the care of larger things, which reading that adventure, i dont think they cared much about that stuff either.
Like if you think them making worse for the same price is okay, more power to you, i want better or at least the standard we had not worse. But at that point i dont think anyone should care much about what you have to say since you clearly dont care much at all here, why are you even here if your happy with everything, and dont have anything meaningful to add.

 

[Quickleaf]

My problem is, is this not just worse then normal keying, or doing something much simpler then just writing down the label on the map? Because it is, the fact you need to read through 2 paragraphs to even understand the basic map thing, when you didnt really need to do that before in the entire book, is just kinda worse then just labelling it, keying it as normal, or doing anything else.

Do you think we should encourage them organizing their books worse? Is what your saying?

Two paragraphs takes what, 10 seconds to read and process?

I don't see any reason to be concerned that they describe a single room in a couple of brief paragraphs rather than keying it, no. I have trouble sympathizing that one could theoretically have a problem with that.

For me, the key principle for area description (and mapping) is "don't bury the lead."

On the area description, whether it's bullet points or paragraphs, the essential information needs to come first. Essential does not mean room size/area, excessively purple prose, etc. It does mean the immediate character of the room in terms of the senses (esp. anything foreshadowing threat/clues/secrets) & obvious monsters. Not all areas need to prioritize the same info either – eg. hard-coding area descriptions like Adventurer's League does with a section for Lighting is not always necessary if it's a market where you're more interested in evoking a feeling, or if the entire castle has the same lighting throughout.

On maps, if the map uses 1-99 or A-Z room labeling, I consider best practice to either have a key on the same page as the map listing (1 = Temple Sanctum, 2 = Mimic Holy Font, etc) or to just have the room descriptions right there on the map if there's space. Only if the map is very artistic and detailed (some isometric maps achieve this) would I consider it acceptable to forgo a key or "room description right there on the map."