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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sparkle_cz" data-source="post: 9271500" data-attributes="member: 7044879">I apologize in advance for a long post. This is a topic that I deal with regularly in my gaming community and is important for me on personal level, so I would like to offer my perspective as a person from a small country (Czechia) who writes stuff in Czech language for a tiny market.Here in Czechia, no one is able to make a living by writing RPGs or RPG supplements in Czech language. We have regular jobs and write RPG stuff in our free time and gain zero money from it. And it is not gonna change anytime soon unless some aliens enslave the Earth and force everyone to speak Czech.This situation means one thing: people here write RPGs only when they are EXTREMELY emotionally invested and attached into it. I’m one of them.So, even when I know that the correct way to write a supplement is to be short and concise like a manual, I can’t bring myself to do that because then I would lose the thing that keeps me motivated to write and I would quit entirely. I NEED to write that „unnecessary prose“ because that is what I enjoy and love. My beloved setting elements, my beloved political factions, my cursive mini-stories, my awesome NPCs…And there are many people here around me in my social bubble that have it like me. There are so many gaming materials in Czech that are clearly someone’s pet project that the person will never see a single penny from. And yes, it contains „unnecessary prose“. But I know that if the author was not allowed to have these bits there, he would quit writing that stuff entirely. So, I learned to be tolerant and accepted that when I use a product that was clearly made by someone for free, I have to accept a certain level of author’s „self-indulgence“ or how to call it.And now, why am I writing it here. Unfortunately, in recent years, a small but vocal part of Czech RPG customers has started to demand products that read like manuals, without taking into account the specifics stated above. And they became quite cruel and unforgiving about it. They mock and cyberbully small authors whose works are full of this „unnecessary prose“. Even authors who put their work online FOR FREE are judged so strictly. It has come to the point where these authors are afraid to publish adventures. I am in contact with them and I am honestly terrified of where this is going. It breaks my heart to see them scared to publish anything "prosier" for the fear that they would be dragged through the mud by some cynical blogger.So, while I know that you mean well when you say that RPG books should be short and not full of prose etc., I have seen the dark side of this paradigm when it got out of hand. So please, while I technically don’t disagree with you, I am asking you to be forgiving and kind when judging products with „unnecessary prose“ from small authors and publishers.Thanks and cheers to everyone who managed to read this through.Small writer</blockquote>

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