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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4481064" data-attributes="member: 42582">Ah. I'm one of those who thing that sometimes they've used one style, sometimes another.Ah. I'm one of those who thinks that this isn't a problem.When I look at the D&D rules, I compare them to legislation. Legislation is far more important than the D&D rules - rights and liabilities amounting to millions or billions of dollars, or to years or decades in prison, turn on the meaning of statutes. Legislation is drafted by people far more experienced and highly trained than the typical RPG designer in the use of a natural language (like English) to express rules.And yet legislation is full of examples of what you are calling "problems" eg the same grammatical construction used for different purposes on different occasions, or different words used on different occasions with no intention to mean different things on those occasions.If these sorts of complexities can't be eliminated from legislation, with all that is at stake in respect of it and all the resources devoted to the drafting and interpretation of it, then it is unrealistic to expect them to be eliminated from the D&D rules.Knowing that, I then think that it is unrealistic to read the D&D rules as if such complexities were not present. I prefer to read them as a lawyer would a piece of legislation or other technical document: keeping in mind the understood purpose of the text, and looking at the language used and how it appears to relate to language used elsewhere in the text, what does it seem that the author was intending to say?</blockquote>

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