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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5966734" data-attributes="member: 54877">I think there has to be a split between what is in the listing and what is elsewhere, in a modular game, and it has to be a thoughtful, considered split every time.  My reply in the ability damage topic yesterday on modular monster poisons is one example: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizons-upcoming-edition-d-d/326162-ability-damage-should-game-3.html#post5966428" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizons-upcoming-edition-d-d/326162-ability-damage-should-game-3.html#post5966428</a> I'd generalize the point as this: Pointers to things outside the listing should contain some information, but break off at the point where the option starts. Furthermore, the more consolidated the outside stuff can be by module, the more you can so point. That is, what we don't want is a giant list of spells, that anyone can use, and then in the monster listing we reference a few spells. That's "modular" in the sense of swapping one spell for another, but not "optional" in the sense that there are 8 versions of fireball to pick from (at least not heretofore). When you follow that link from "fireball," you have to go check a huge list, regardless of which playstyle and options you have chosen. OTOH, weapons you generally can do that way (ignoring magic items for the moment). If the listing says "morningstar" here and "dagger" over there, it's the exact same kind of pointer, but the list of things pointed to is managable enough that it doesn't matter. You can reference it easily. Of course, there are other considerations, such as how often you use it, how easy it is to memorize, where it happens in play (e.g. combat stuff needs to be somewhat fast to reference, if possible). This is where carefully considering the break between pointer and reference material comes in. There may need to be, for example, some judicious redundancy, such as with including the damage expression on a weapon line, even though you could follow the pointer to find the same thing. In general, though, if you want to make such a scheme work in printed material, the target of the pointers needs to be labeled, catergorized, etc. such that the pointer can contain a lot of information in a short, clear format. Spell listings as pointers did work fairly well in BECMI/RC, because it was easy to memorize that "fireball" was a third level spell that did level/d6 damage--and there weren't that many 3rd level wizard spells, with all of them grouped together if you needed to go look. A new system, with maybe 30 or 40 spells per level, might need to break those up into a few categories, and then reference spell name along with key facts, level, and category too--e.g. "fireball (L3 elemental, 20' explosion, level/d6)".</blockquote>

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