Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
In the last week or so I've acquired a bunch of new RPG material to read:
- The "Bitter Reach" campaign for Forbidden Lands
- I pre-ordered (post-KS campaign) Stonetop and got some materials
- The huge Humble Bundle that includes the 661-page Rappan Athuk, the complete Dungeon Crawl Classics game, and a lot of other stuff
In perusing all this material, I realized something: RPGs have so much descriptive prose that I have trouble "getting" the materials.
I don't want to dismiss the efforts and talents of the writers. I've done a little bit of published RPG writing, and it's hard. It's much easier to, say, design a monster mechanically than it is to put those ideas into good prose (which includes avoiding clichés).
But...I don't actually find it useful. The opposite, really: it gets in my way.
I do have two 5e adventure modules I bought a while ago: The Secrets of Skyhorn Lighthouse and The Corruption of Skyhorn Lighthouse, by Kelsey Dionne, and they were a breath of fresh air. Instead of long, descriptive prose, much of the adventures are described in a consistent, concise shorthand. Areas (e.g. rooms) have subheading such as "Development", "Transition", and "Dramatic Question", and under each heading are succinct bullet points. Easy to scan, easy to grasp.
And here's an example of an NPC, all of which follow a similar format:
That is plenty of information for me to bring Silvara to life, but most RPGs would have used a short essay to describe Silvara, and while I might have appreciated those writing efforts, it would have actually made it harder to absorb the pertinent information. As DM I'm perfectly capable of translating Silvara's summary into prose for my players, but when I'm trying to understand the adventure the prose doesn't help.
This sort of reminds me of going to conferences and attending presentations in which the slides are bullet points of the exact same thing the speaker is saying. It takes me all of 30 seconds to fully absorb the page full of bullet points, and then for 5 minutes I have to listen to the speaker say the exact same thing in a more long-winded way.
(Total aside: the best Power Point presentations I have ever witnessed, on multiple topics, are by Lawrence Lessig. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, do it. He's amazing.)
Anyway, I will continue to buy and pore over RPG materials, but I wish more people would adopt/refine Kelsey Dionne's approach. And I'm sure there are lots of games/supplements out there that do use this approach, I just haven't seen a lot of them. (Suggestions welcome.)
Thoughts?
- The "Bitter Reach" campaign for Forbidden Lands
- I pre-ordered (post-KS campaign) Stonetop and got some materials
- The huge Humble Bundle that includes the 661-page Rappan Athuk, the complete Dungeon Crawl Classics game, and a lot of other stuff
In perusing all this material, I realized something: RPGs have so much descriptive prose that I have trouble "getting" the materials.
I don't want to dismiss the efforts and talents of the writers. I've done a little bit of published RPG writing, and it's hard. It's much easier to, say, design a monster mechanically than it is to put those ideas into good prose (which includes avoiding clichés).
But...I don't actually find it useful. The opposite, really: it gets in my way.
I do have two 5e adventure modules I bought a while ago: The Secrets of Skyhorn Lighthouse and The Corruption of Skyhorn Lighthouse, by Kelsey Dionne, and they were a breath of fresh air. Instead of long, descriptive prose, much of the adventures are described in a consistent, concise shorthand. Areas (e.g. rooms) have subheading such as "Development", "Transition", and "Dramatic Question", and under each heading are succinct bullet points. Easy to scan, easy to grasp.
And here's an example of an NPC, all of which follow a similar format:
Silvara, N merfolk scout
“No chance o’ pearls or gold was worth coming to these blighted waters.”
• Appearance. Fishbone crossbow. Arm tattoo of an orca, her totem animal.
• Does. Echolocates with tongue clicks (she has 10 ft. blindsight when she does so).
• Secret. Is dodging a deep gambling debt owed to Captain Annabel Lee.
That is plenty of information for me to bring Silvara to life, but most RPGs would have used a short essay to describe Silvara, and while I might have appreciated those writing efforts, it would have actually made it harder to absorb the pertinent information. As DM I'm perfectly capable of translating Silvara's summary into prose for my players, but when I'm trying to understand the adventure the prose doesn't help.
This sort of reminds me of going to conferences and attending presentations in which the slides are bullet points of the exact same thing the speaker is saying. It takes me all of 30 seconds to fully absorb the page full of bullet points, and then for 5 minutes I have to listen to the speaker say the exact same thing in a more long-winded way.
(Total aside: the best Power Point presentations I have ever witnessed, on multiple topics, are by Lawrence Lessig. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, do it. He's amazing.)
Anyway, I will continue to buy and pore over RPG materials, but I wish more people would adopt/refine Kelsey Dionne's approach. And I'm sure there are lots of games/supplements out there that do use this approach, I just haven't seen a lot of them. (Suggestions welcome.)
Thoughts?