RPG Writing and Design Needs a Paradigm Shift

[Lanefan]

True, but magic players don't read the rules for the sake of reading.

Some do (or at least try to!); there's two such groups I can quickly think of:

Casual or casual-ish players who really want to see how the game works beyond their own cards and-or experiences
Hard-core players doing research around possible exploits or loopholes.

I was once in the former group, when the full rules were about 1/3 the length they are today, and I still couldn't get through 'em all.

 

[mamba]

I think the desired changes for the 5e block were to replace the mechanical stuff with this format, which has space for the description at the top (“A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame”). But maybe I misunderstood @AbdulAlhazred’s intent.

I said some posts back that I am ok with adding a mechanical line like 'Range: 150 ft, Radius: 20 ft, Effect: 8d6 fire, Save: Dex, halves' and removing that from the description, so it is not redundant. I am not ok with that being the entirety of the description, the flavor text should remain.

"A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw. A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried."

is more flavorful to me, 4e seems to go for the bare minimum possible

 

[mamba]

You are incorrect. Objectively. Like…observably. It isn’t a matter of opinion whether it exists or not.

I am not saying that the description does not exist, I am saying it adds no flavor. It is redundant because everything in the description we already get from the stat block itself, and it has no flavor because it adds nothing on top of that (just the word 'silvery', which adds no flavor either)

The 5e Magic missile is the same amount of flavor text as the 4e power.

no, it has more than one word, for one it says that you need line of sight

 

[kenada]

I said some posts back that I am ok with adding a mechanical line like 'Range: 150ft, Radius: 20ft, Effect: 8d6 fire, Save: Dex, halves' and removing that from the description, so it is not redundant. I am not ok with that being the entirety of the description, thew flavor text should remain.

"A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw. A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried."

is more flavorful to me, 4e seems to go for the bare minimum possible

I think where we differ is I see everything after that as mechanics mixed in with the flavor text. It think it would be redundant to include both the abbreviated notation and the plain language restatement.

One possible compromise is integrating the annotations into the plain language like Goblin Slayer TRPG does (see post #44 for an example), but I don’t have experience with it in play, and some of the other spells read kind of weirdly. Its original language is Japanese, so maybe the notation works better in its original language. (I otherwise like the GS TRPG blocks more than the 4e ones.)

 

[mamba]

I think where we differ is I see everything after that as mechanics mixed in with the flavor text. It think it would be redundant to include both the abbreviated notation and the plain language restatement

I agree, which is why I said the description should be reworked if such a line is added, so it does not keep that then redundant information.

I only said that this line does not mean that the description can now be removed completely, as I still want it for its flavor

If you think that whatever description is left is then pointless and should be removed, then we disagree on that…

 

[kenada]

I agree, which is why I said the description should be reworked if such a line is added, so it does not keep that then redundant information.

I only said that this line does not mean that the description can now be removed completely, as I still want it for its flavor

I guess my point of confusion is you said you wanted the flavor text to remain and then cited the whole description with the mechanics. It seems like if one resolves the redundancy by removing the mechanics from the description, that compromises the flavor.

Hmm, let me give this a try.

A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature caught in the explosion takes damage from the fire, and it spreads around corners. The fire ignites flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried.​

I removed references to mechanics. Is enough flavor still there?

 

[mamba]

I guess my point of confusion is you said you wanted the flavor text to remain and then cited the whole description with the mechanics. It seems like if one resolves the redundancy by removing the mechanics from the description, that compromises the flavor.

yes, I quoted it to show what flavor it contains, I did not attempt to rework it...

When simply removing the mechanical lines that are now covered elsewhere, I arrive at

"A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. [mechanics removed]

The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried."

Hmm, let me give this a try.

A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature caught in the explosion takes damage from the fire, and it spreads around corners. The fire ignites flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried.​

I removed references to mechanics. Is enough flavor still there?

yes, you did not remove any flavor, you just separated the mechanics out and arrived at the same text as me above...

Compare it to 4e's (not harping on 4e...) "A globe of orange flame coalesces in your hand. You hurl it at your enemies, and it explodes on impact." it again provides a bare minimum flavorless description. I mean if you asked me to describe a D&D Fireball spell in the blandest way possible, I'd pretty much arrive at 4e's description (we can argue about whether I would use different terms for coalesce and hurl, but that is about it)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That standardization comes at cost of being interesting, though, at least IMO.

For example, if every AoE spell has a different-sized or different-shaped area of effect (e.g. some spherical, some square, some odd-shaped, some shaped by the surroundings, etc.), that's far more interesting than shoehorning them all into "blast 3" or similar. Ditto for duration, casting time, and range: standardization comes at a cost.

In contrast I find that nothing valuable is lost this way. Play is simply streamlined etc. I just can't see anything interesting to me that would ride on specifically having an AOE be a cone with an angle of exactly 20 degrees, for example. Chances are extremely high that the granularity of positioning is insufficient to make the difference matter, it's going to just fall to GM fiat at that point, so what was gained?

 

[SteveC]

I think that the flavor text and mechanics both have a place, but I really like them separated. The flavor ignites (see what I did there!) my imagination and helps me visualize the fiction. The mechanics tell me what I need to do to resolve it. Parsing those together is just some ick stuff to me.

 

[Reynard]

This is really just your opinion. You can't say objectively that the traditional design model is no longer acceptable. Just no longer acceptable to you. You can make suggestions on how the industry might serve you better, but you can't say they're doing it wrong now in any scope larger than you personally.

I mean, obviously? Of course it's opinion and preference.

Responding with just a statement like that feels like a non answer. You aren't engaging the topic even to refute it. I'm not sure what you expect in response.