Wordclouds from the 4e and 3e PH's

[Jack7]

Surely you mean, 'I think it's kind of AWESOME'. . .?

Um. Well, I do.

Aus, I can see an almost immediate and intuitive design philosophy similarity between the First Edition AD&D Player's Handbook and the Fourth Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. As well as a real similarity between the Ars Magica work and both the 1st Ed PHB, and the 4th Ed DMG. (all based upon these "word-cloud" analyses.)

I cannot however see any similarity in design philosophy (if I did not know before hand that they arose from the same "game-source") between the 4th Ed PHB and either the 4th Ed DMG or the 1st Ed PHB.

The 4th Ed PHB, based on these analytical parameters seems like an almost purely mechanical effort absorbed with strictly mechanistic matters.

I thought that was interesting.

It's almost like the 4th Ed DMG is from the same mind-set as the previous works, but the 4th Ed PHB arose from an entirely different design philosophy.

 

[Stoat]

I've already seen 5E.

The rules involve flipping a coin. If you win you get to hit the DM while shouting "MEGA BOOOOOM"

What if you lose?

 

[GnomeWorks]

What if you lose?

You flip again.

 

[Beginning of the End]

This whole issue of word count in one edition vs. another strikes me as having much more to do with editing decisions than with content. This whole thing with "spell" being the big thing in the first three editions and "power" being the big thing in 4th is all about editing.

Editing isn't the right word. The word you're looking for is "design".

The similarity between the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Edition word clouds is notable. The dissimilarity between all three and 4th Edition is also notable. And, to me, utterly unsurprising.

Here's the 1974 White Box (all three booklets): Wordle - D&D White Box

 

[amnuxoll]

Here's what I can glean from it:

Things that are similar:
1. They both have about an equally strong focus attacking others in
combat. With 3.5e this is "Attack" and (to a partial extent)
"Spell" + "Spells". With 4e this is "Attack" and "Power" +
"Powers". No surprise here.
2. "Damage" is about the same for both
3. 3.5e's "Bonus" is about the same as 4e's "Bonus" + "Modifier"
4. 3.5e's "Creature" and "creatures" is in balance with 4e's "target"
+ "creature"
5. Both editions use "One" a lot.

Significant Differences:
1. Because of the repetitive format of the powers are written in 4e,
some keywords that show up often there have more emphasis.
"Weapon" are the biggest of these. "Encounter", "Hit", "Gain",
"End", "Turn", "Effect" and "Daily" are others.
2. Interestingly, 4e uses "Action" more. I would think that this
would be the same given that the word is used in all the 3.5e
spell entries and all the 4e power entries.
3. "GP" gets more use in 4e. No doubt this is because the treasure
has been moved from DMG to PHB in this edition.
4. "Time", "Character", "See" and "Check" get significant use in 3.5e
but not 4e. I'm not sure what the difference is here.