aramis erak
Legend
It's not the added length that's the problem, it's that keeping them all in sync with each other that has been the issue. That takes time.
RPG Writing and Design Needs a Paradigm Shift
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
TheSword
Legend
I think I see what you’re getting at. I think as important as it is that spell descriptions being technically clear, I think they also need to be evocative (no pun intended).
We make lots of assumptions about pre-existing knowledge. I believe it’s important to a new player of D&D that they can picture what a fire ball is like. I don’t think reducing it to a dry mechanical description and saving 2 lines of text is worth giving that up.
Magic should feel magical not mundane.
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Bedrockgames
I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
I tend to agree. I think this is just a fundamental divide in taste. One thing I don't want games to resemble are tech manuals. One of the reasons I like the 1E DMG, chaotic though it is, is, for me at least, it is highly readable because it sounds like it was written by a person with a distinct personality that is visible on the page. I tend to prefer books like that in gaming. The more neutral and technical they become, the more they lean on tech manual style presentation, the less I find I enjoy the process of learning the contents. That is just me. I am not saying this is the way things have to be done. But I think you are always going to have a split around how people like the material being written and presented
Swanosaurus
Adventurer
While for vertain values, brevity and clarity and author's voice might be mutually exclusive, I think that's only true if you really want the text to go full tech manual. While I initially said I prefer brevity and clarity, maybe I'm more on the "authors voice matters most" side ... but I still like it if the author writes in a clear and concise voice (evocative is a bonus). For example I think Greg Stolze usually does this very well: He has a very distinct voice, but his rules-writing is typically very well-organized. You could trim something like his "Reign" down a lot (and he did, publishing the short version "Reign Enchiridion"), but it is a joy to read and still very usable at the table.
Regarding spell descriptions:
I think it is important to remember that in some games/with some spells, the "fluff" is the most important part of the description. Spells are about what they make happen. They may have damage values and reach and stuff like that, but if it's a great ball of fire that causes the damage, I need to know that to handle situational effects. A rules-lite game like Cairn has only "fluff" in its spell descriptions, no "crunch". Also, describing a spell in terms of what happens in-fiction encourages creative use of it, which is something that I consider very important for the enjoyment of spellcasters.
mamba
Legend
everywhere? Compare the 4e spell description to a 5e one. I picked this one at random from this thread
it absolutely does not, it has zero flavor, all it does is say what the spell does from
a technical perspective. It is absolutely sterile.
I am fine with adding a line that specifies something like ‘Range 150 feet, Radius 20 feet, 8d6 damage, Dex save halves’ before the text, but not as a replacement for it (if you have such a line, you can make that text more concise however)
mamba
Legend
true, but it takes them time once, it takes countless DMs time every time they play if the information is all over the place
I still maintain that if you keep repeating the same information over and over again, then you either have an organizational problem with the book, or a problem in the ruleset.
Tell me how to eg do a skill check once, and include all the relevant details, don’t give me bits and pieces of it in five places and never the full picture in one spot
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doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
I disagree vociferously with the bolded, but agree just as strongly with the non-bolded.
Dry reference manuals are better in digital form with solid search functionality and indexing.
In this, the year of our unending torment two thousand and twenty four, a print copy of a book is only valuable if it enjoyable to read, or somehow serves a purpose that cannot be duplicated via digital media.
Reference manuals work better as digital media, but ya know what doesn’t? A book full of art and engaging prose, that flows well from page to page, that looks and feels good to handle and read.
No amount of searchable indexing and cross reference hyperlinking, and tools for building characters or challenges or whatever you need to play will make a digital game book enjoyable to sit and read, but it will make it a vastly better reference tool.
TTRPG books need to be well organized and have solid indexes, sure. But the idea that they need to be technical manuals is, IMNHO, bunk all the way down.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
But nobody ever did that. It's a straw man. I mean it is a fine point in the abstract, I agree, but I feel like the more realistic question is whether or not to commingle mechanics and flavor or not, and then how exactly to present them effectively.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Sure, I actually found Gygax's writing style fairly easy to consume, but that's a separate question from whether his DMG is easy to use in play. Honestly it is not the worst book, it tends to keep each subject in one fairly well labeled place, but not the very best either due to the need to wade through a ream of text to find each rule or procedure.
This touches on something I’ve been thinking about. Everyone needs to be taught how to play/run the game. Perhaps text books (and other learning material) could be a source of design ideas. Instead of approaching the game like a instruction book, write it as a guide to learning how to play (while also making sure it can be used as a reference).
There is some of that informally already with how games are usually structured, but maybe some intentionality would help even more. (It really annoys me when a game mentions things it hasn’t introduced yet.)
