# Write this game for adults



## Blackwarder (Apr 30, 2012)

I just realized somthing that been nagging at me for a long time, I'd like to have the core rule books written for adults.

Flipping through the pages of 3e and 4e PHB I get the filling that the audience they are written for are teenagers and not grown up, I can't put my finger on it but the entire book feels PG13 and overly PC.

When I read through the 2e PHB it's feels like its one guy telling another about the game without any pussyfooting around, starting from the art (partially clothed females FTW EDIT: that was a bad jest that went out of hand, I apologize to every one who zeroed on it like a hit seeking missile) and down through how everything is told to the player, the book expect you to not be a dick and be a grown up around the table.

I would like to know what you guys think about this, I would much prefer having a book written by adults for adults and then having a kiddie friendly version, preferably in starter set boxes that I could buy for my small cousins.

What is your take?

Warder


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## jshaft37 (Apr 30, 2012)

I agree that it should be written in a mature manner.  That can be achieved by the tone and mood of the writing.

I disagree that mature means having sexualized female heroine art concepts.  If anything, that's immature.


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## herrozerro (Apr 30, 2012)

personally, now as a parent and a gamer.  i understand that there are some games that have adult themes and its just a part of the game.  but I dont feel that D&D should be one of those games.


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## Incenjucar (Apr 30, 2012)

"Partly clothed females FTW" is teenager material, not adult material.

Adult material would be if the PHB had a chapter on how to balance your household budget, raising your tween daughter who is being leered at by the half-elves at school and having self-esteem issues from being called round-ears, and dragon-slaying without losing a healthy work/life balance.


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## dkyle (Apr 30, 2012)

Blackwarder said:


> When I read through the 2e PHB it's feels like its one guy telling another about the game without any pussyfooting around, starting from the art (partially clothed females FTW) and down through how everything is told to the player, the book expect you to not be a dick and be a grown up around the table.




Funny.  I tend to think of "partially clothed female" pictures as geared squarely towards teenagers. "Adult" material doesn't make something "grown up".

That's not to say that I don't appreciate them, but I'm fully aware that they're tickling a part of my brain that hasn't changed much since I was a teenager.

Also, "don't be a dick" is pretty much right in the 4E DMG, so I'm not sure why that's a problem with 4E...


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## Kynn (Apr 30, 2012)

Blackwarder said:


> When I read through the 2e PHB it's feels like its one guy telling another about the game without any pussyfooting around, starting from the art (partially clothed females FTW) and down through how everything is told to the player, the book expect you to not be a dick and be a grown up around the table.





"Partially clothed females FTW" screams "immature teenager" more than anything in 3.x or 4e's rulebooks that I've read.


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## Blackwarder (Apr 30, 2012)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating to have Jenna Jameson on the cover of the PHB (mind you, I'm not terribly against this), I only gave it as an example of the mood in the book, when your target audience is adults than having some art showing some skin (male or female, why does having a nearly naked Connan never bother anyone?) wouldn't cause anyone to bat an eyelash.

The way I see it, we are the guys with the money, and we are the crazy hobbiest who will buy all those books when they'll come out so aim them for us, make some starter sets for the younger generation so we could show them the game while they are young, easily impressionable and don't automatically rule out doing anything with their old man but aim the main books for adults.


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## Morrus (Apr 30, 2012)

Blackwarder said:


> I just realized somthing that been nagging at me for a long time, I'd like to have the core rule books written for adults.
> 
> Flipping through the pages of 3e and 4e PHB I get the filling that the audience they are written for are teenagers and not grown up, I can't put my finger on it but the entire book feels PG13 and overly PC.
> 
> ...




You're talking about two things.

I agree that I prefer a tone more oriented towards the competent reader (though you need to remember that the game isn't just for adults, and kids need to find it accessible, too).

I absolutely do not agree that "maturity" means "partially clothed females". That screams "barely pubescent teenaged fantasy wet dreams" to me. If you really have to look at pictures of women in skimpy clothes, there are plenty of other publications available to you. I do not think that objectifism of women is either mature or appropriate.

So yes, I'd like it to be aimed at mature readers. Which means it wouldn't objectify women.  Your'e welcome to your own barely-pubescent-fantasy-wet-dreams, but as an adult I'd rather you kept them to yourself and didn't put them in my game books.


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## FinalSonicX (Apr 30, 2012)

I've never had the feeling that the 3.5 or 4e books were written for teens rather than adults. If anything, they feel fairly sterile, like technical manuals more than the slightly more conversational nature of previous edition's handbooks. Do you think that's what you're sensing when you read the books? If so, I think a bit more of a focus on a conversational tone would be nice, as long as it's all still clear and readable like the current "technical manual style".

As for writing for adults, I think that the game is kind of like the "gatekeeper" to the RPG industry. It needs to be kid friendly, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be any less palatable for adults. So I don't think your preference for partially dressed women in the art is appropriate. It also does not say to me "this game is mature".

Besides, the tone of the game will change depending on the DM and group anyways. Best to try to make everyone feel like they're "at home" reading the manuals.


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## GX.Sigma (Apr 30, 2012)

It should be accessible to (literally) everyone. That necessarily means it needs to be family friendly. Note that "family friendly" does not mean "immature." A movie like _Up_, for example, is very mature (with realistically portrayed themes such as aging, death, grief, etc.), yet fun for all the family. 

Perhaps a more pertinent example would be _The Dark Knight_. It features complex and psychological plot lines, and the subject matter is dealt with in a mature way, but kids can go see it and just enjoy a movie about superheroes beating people up.


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## herrozerro (Apr 30, 2012)

GX.Sigma said:


> It should be accessible to (literally) everyone. That necessarily means it needs to be family friendly. Note that "family friendly" does not mean "immature." A movie like _Up_, for example, is very mature (with realistically portrayed themes such as aging, death, grief, etc.), yet fun for all the family.
> 
> Perhaps a more pertinent example would be _The Dark Knight_. It features complex and psychological plot lines, and the subject matter is dealt with in a mature way, but kids can go see it and just enjoy a movie about superheroes beating people up.




I cant XP you(gotta spread more love around) but this bears repeating.   in addition: Mature and M for mature are two totally different things.


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## Kaodi (Apr 30, 2012)

Older children and younger teens have _always_ been part of the audience of D&D. It would be a serious break with tradition to leave them out o the equation.


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## Blackwarder (Apr 30, 2012)

At last I can post again!

I don't know wether to laugh and cry... What ever I'll end up doing I learned a valuable lesson today, you can actually high jack your own thread in your own opening post!! Amazing but true.

And to add insult to injury I'm not sure if my edit of the OP went through (edit it didn't but I added it now) or not because it seems like the forum itself reacted badly to it and now refuse to let me enter so I'm writing this up in pages hopefully so I'll be able to post this later tonight (or tomorrow morning) once all the guys with the torches and pitchforks grow bored and leave (fat chance though ).

So to the point, my "partially clothed females FTW" was a jest on the fact that 2e PHB had some of those, nothing more. Sometimes I forget though, that this being on-line, where we don't have the advantage of the instant feedback we have in face-to-face conversations, things that seems obvious to me as I write them seem like a different thing to the folks that read them

@ FinalSonicX, it's partially that it's more like a manual rather than a feeling it's one guy telling another about a cool game he's playing but it's mainly things like:
"play a dragonborn if you want... 
to look like a dragon.
to breath fire.
Etc etc..."
I mean look like a dragon? What am I? Twelve? 

That's one example but it's a vibe I get through reading the entire book, I never noticed this until I sat with some friends who never played 4e and had to go over the books for the first time in years (I usually just use the CB).

Warder


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## Skyscraper (Apr 30, 2012)

Jerry Seinfeld, when asked how he managed to make his TV show so popular for years, said: "I start on the assumption that my audience is intelligent."

I understand what you mean and somewhat agree. Using language that speaks to an intelligent reader is perhaps the key. (I'm not sure that maturity has anything to do with it.)


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## bloodtide (Apr 30, 2012)

I too wish that the next D&D can be mature.  Not hard core adult, mind you, just be written in a way that 'talks' right to people.

There has been a huge...huge push over the past couple of years (since I was a kid) to make _everything_ kid friendlily...and worse to make everything baby friendly(and worse crazy parent friendly).  As a kid I was exposed to lots of mature stuff for the simple reason that there was little kids stuff.  And even more so, lots of kids stuff dealt with quite complex and mature topics.  But by the time I was in high school there was a huge shift for kids stuff.  Anything made for kids needed to be good and pure and near perfect as not to offend anyone.  And it quickly went to the extreme and has stayed there.  

I started playing 1E _as a kid, _and the game was quite hard to understand and learn.  But even as a kid, I loved it.  I loved the challenge of 'not quite' understanding a concept of the game, and then having to do research and/or figure it out.  I liked the fact that the game never talked down to me.  But there has been a steady slide down hill from that point.  As each edition has gotten less and less mature, until you see the climax of 4E, a game written for a whole generation that can't take half a second to type the word 'you'.

A great example of the maturity is negative consequences.  1E/2E were full of them.  All sorts of bad side effect could zap a character.  But 3E smoothed out all of that so that 'nothing bad happens', and 4E just goes over the top with the near perfect world.

I'd love to see 5E bring back the negative, but doubt that will happen...


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## trancejeremy (Apr 30, 2012)

I agree with you OP, but I'm afraid such a thing is no longer possible in today's world. Our culture has dramatically changed over the last 30 years...


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## Morrus (Apr 30, 2012)

Blackwarder said:


> @ FinalSonicX, it's partially that it's more like a manual rather than a feeling it's one guy telling another about a cool game he's playing but it's mainly things like:
> "play a dragonborn if you want...
> to look like a dragon.
> to breath fire.
> ...




That I'll agree with. I read Billy Blue Hat when I was five. I don't need to read it again at the age of 37!

You're right. That stuff is aimed far, far too low.


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 30, 2012)

Skyscraper said:


> I understand what you mean and somewhat agree. Using language that speaks to an intelligent reader is perhaps the key. (I'm not sure that maturity has anything to do with it.)




Exactly. The artwork does not need bewbz to be adult but the writing needs to assume if not maturity, at least an inkling of intelligence in the reader. 

When I read my B/X rulebooks at age 10, I didn't get the feeling that the writing was talking down to me. Reading through them again as an adult I still don't feel that way even though the rules are clearly marked for ages 10 and up. 

The core 3E texts were dry and somewhat boring to read through (much like a technical manual) but served well enough as references. 

The 4E texts made me feel like I was taking a remedial reading class. The target reading level felt about right for 3rd-4th grade. I think that had more to do with turning me off that edition than the mechanics. 

So please, ensure these books are written at the adult level. Kids who like these sorts of games will still have no trouble with it and adults can actually enjoy it too. This doesn't mean the rulebooks have to be filled with mature themes or risque artwork at all. Proofread the text. If it sounds like you are teaching a grade schooler how to read then start over.


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## Blackwarder (Apr 30, 2012)

I totally agree with the exploding wizard, although I do think that in a book aimed at mature audiance the art shouldn't be filled with kiddie art.

Warder


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## Blackwarder (Apr 30, 2012)

Morrus said:


> That I'll agree with. I read Billy Blue Hat when I was five. I don't need to read it again at the age of 37!
> 
> You're right. That stuff is aimed far, far too low.




And that was what I was trying to said in the OP.

Warder


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## Crazy Jerome (May 1, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> The core 3E texts were dry and somewhat boring to read through (much like a technical manual) but served well enough as references.
> 
> The 4E texts made me feel like I was taking a remedial reading class. The target reading level felt about right for 3rd-4th grade. I think that had more to do with turning me off that edition than the mechanics.




I think if you ran the tests, you'll find that the 3E books are often written at around an 8th grade level (like a newspaper). Most of their confusion is the way they kept repeating stuff that did not need repeating, in an effort to teach it. They are written like history textbooks--and like such books, are all over the place. No one can sustain writing well in that environment for a whole book, but you'll get spots that are decent.

4E is written at about a 6th grade level, as almost pure technical manual. Part of this is the simplification aimed for in 3E has been intensified, but it is also that once they took out the redundant stuff, there were spots where *there simply wasn't a lot to say*. I can go back and pick some key 3E passages, rewrite them to remove such redundancies, and they will be about the same as 4E text. (I did this a couple of times back around 2002.)

When all Spot did was run around in the yard, how exactly are we supposed to enhance that much beyond "See Spot Run," without adding to it? 

A lot of 3E stuff is written to a formula--again, like a newspaper. Read the race listings, for example, with a gimlet, editorial eye. 4E also writes to a formula, but a simpler one. 

However, it's the advice that really contributes to the patronizing tone, in most of the WotC products.


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## Ranganathan (May 1, 2012)

Couldn't disagree more. Write the rules for teens, by that I simply mean write to the 8th grade reading level used for the evening news and newspapers. The easier it is to read, he easier it is to understand, and the more people who can potentially play the game.

And make the art mature, as in beyond the need to use sexist artwork that's simply put there as a lurid draw for kids and adults who haven't grown out of their childhood. Give us evocative art, yes, but we don't need  & ass to sell D&D.


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## Lanefan (May 1, 2012)

Kaodi said:


> Older children and younger teens have _always_ been part of the audience of D&D. It would be a serious break with tradition to leave them out o the equation.



Since and including 2e, yes.  Before that, while the books etc. said "ages 10 and up" or "ages 12 and up" the actual content always seemed to be written for high-school and up; and high school and college is when people got into the game.

2e started the downward spiral - I remember when the core 3 for that one came out, they were almost painful to read after years of 1e.  But a specific intent with 2e was to (wrongly, I think) aim for a younger audience, and for some reason that carried on in 3e.  4e I'll cut some slack to, as by then Hasbro is running the show and as they're all about toys and games for young kids it only makes corporate sense to aim low with D&D as well.  Still doesn't make it right.

Count another vote for mature writing.

Lan-"'dweomer': the very word just screams D&D"-efan


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## Crazy Jerome (May 1, 2012)

Ranganathan said:


> Couldn't disagree more. Write the rules for teens, by that I simply mean write to the 8th grade reading level used for the evening news and newspapers. The easier it is to read, he easier it is to understand, and the more people who can potentially play the game.




An average of around 10th to 12th grade level for most text passages would be better, reserving the 8th grade level for straight (and brief) technical writing.  In a few key places, something like 6th grade would be ok (e.g. writing a quick reference of basic combat rules).  

Any moderately intelligent 11 year old that reads a bit and likes fantasy is going to be a bit challenged by that, but will aspire to master the information.  That audience will widen as it ages.  An 11 year old that doesn't read much is not going to read a D&D book, no matter how much you dumb it down.


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## Ranganathan (May 1, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> That audience will widen as it ages.




Right. Just like the hobby's been doing for the last few decades? The only recent influxes have been the children of gamers and a few of their friends.


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## ExploderWizard (May 1, 2012)

Ranganathan said:


> Right. Just like the hobby's been doing for the last few decades? The only recent influxes have been the children of gamers and a few of their friends.




So the answer is to dumb down the books until even the existing players grow sick of them? 

Writing to the level of the lolspeak crowd will drive away the more intelligent players.


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## Ranganathan (May 1, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> So the answer is to dumb down the books until even the existing players grow sick of them?
> 
> Writing to the level of the lolspeak crowd will drive away the more intelligent players.




Excluded middle. The options aren't make it rarefied or make it for lolspeakers. You can have a complex game that's written in simple language. Compare a passage from AD&D to 4E, in the former you'd likely need a good dictionary to understand the passage, in the latter you wouldn't. It can be, and has been, said that 4E is dumbed down in language, but there are more rules, and more complex rules, in 4E than AD&D.


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## am181d (May 1, 2012)

D&D should not be written for old people who've been playing D&D forever.


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## ExploderWizard (May 1, 2012)

Ranganathan said:


> Excluded middle. The options aren't make it rarefied or make it for lolspeakers. You can have a complex game that's written in simple language. Compare a passage from AD&D to 4E, in the former you'd likely need a good dictionary to understand the passage, in the latter you wouldn't. It can be, and has been, said that 4E is dumbed down in language, but there are more rules, and more complex rules, in 4E than AD&D.




I don't disagree with this one bit. 

When I was reading AD&D at the age of 13 and looking up cool unknown words as I stumbled across them I enjoyed it. Not to say that a game manual has to require a thesaurus and dictionary to fully comprehend, but somewhere between that and the Berenstain Bears at least would be preferable.


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## Gold Roger (May 1, 2012)

I agree. 4th was very jarring in this regard "play race x if..." is justly infamous and there's more where that came from. I mean really, extensive color coding and english writing I haven't seen since 6th grade textbooks (and I'm not a native speaker).

Right, might be a teensy bit hyperbole (on the internet? Never!)

And I'm no old guy who has played D&D forever. I'm in my twenties and have played Tabletop RPG's for no ten years with some non-gaming years among those as well.

And just for the record, cheesecake and beefcake have their traditional place in D&D. They just need to make sense. No pornstars and supermodels in stripperific "armor" representing tough warriors please. But those Grazzt serving witches propably run around in ridiculous outfits.


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## was (May 1, 2012)

I am one of those 'old' guys..38..ish.  However, I believe in keeping things simplified, so that teens can easily game too.  Todays teen gamers ensure the future of the hobby.  Leave it up to each individual group, and DM, to determine how 'mature' they want their game to be.


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## ExploderWizard (May 1, 2012)

am181d said:


> D&D should not be written for old people who've been playing D&D forever.




What does age or amount of play experience have to do with intelligent writing? 

I would be put off by the 4E writing style even if I had been in 6th grade when reading it. D&D should be written for literate, intelligent people of any age who may be interested.


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## herrozerro (May 1, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> What does age or amount of play experience have to do with intelligent writing?
> 
> I would be put off by the 4E writing style even if I had been in 6th grade when reading it. D&D should be written for literate, intelligent people of any age who may be interested.




I'd like to think i have a decent reading level, but im unsure why people keep comparing it with the bearinstain bears and see spot run.  Hyperbole much?

What kind of real examples are we talking about?


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## braro (May 1, 2012)

What's very interesting to me is that I interface with the books in a totally different way.  

I want super plain writing in the core books, at least in the front of each section (class summaries, race summaries, etc).  The one page "Here are the stats, here are some tropes to play with" is great, and then it can go on to the added description all it wants; I know where I need to go to reference stuff, and the rest is so much hand-wavey flak that the PCs can use or not, as is there whim.  

But primarily, I am looking for a quick summary, and then ease of access to finding information.  The color coding and templating was great for this.


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## howandwhy99 (May 1, 2012)

*Write this game for children.*

Let the adults have their stupid game. Kids want a cool game with awesome pictures that understands us and what we want. It don't have to be a different game than the adult game just give us the game we can run for us without them. If you make the different better one for us, then you can lie to the parents that they need their own.


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## Morrus (May 1, 2012)

am181d said:


> D&D should not be written for old people who've been playing D&D forever.




We 30- somethings are the ones with all the money. We're either buying it for ourselves or buying it for our kids. It had better well cater to us!

When I was 10 or so, my parents bought me my first RPG. The game contributed - in a small way - to my education. It helped sharpen my vocabulary and my math skills, amongst other things. The world of literature it led me into exercised my mind, and was part of the reason I grew up with above average literary skills. 

The game didn't dumb itself down for me. It challenged me. And that challenge is what made it attractive. 

I owe Gygax & Co. a good deal. 

And that very challenging nature is WHY my parents bought me a weird uncool game. The role of these games was beyond that of mere entertainment.


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## Oni (May 1, 2012)

It does not matter how clear your book is, if it's boring to read people won't want to read it.  WotC needs to decide who their target audience is and write for them, and everyone is not a target audience. 

There is a lot tied up in this question actually.  Clarity, authorial voice, perception, accessibility.  For instance how many kids put down the game down back in the day because it wasn't as accessible versus how many latched onto it because it was a challenge, something meant for someone older.  How many kids get into something because it's accessible and inoffensive to the whole family, versus how many because of a hint of the forbidden , something mom might not entirely approve of.  Do people want to read a cold, technical voice, a rambling authority making pronouncements from on high, ornate purple prose, something very formal, or something that addresses the reader like they're the only one there, something conversational, et c. 

Personally, I enjoy the 2e core books writing style more than any other edition, and I've read at least bits and pieces of most of them.  I thought it was clear without being sterile and that it affected a friendly, helpful tone without being patronizing.  0e is darn near incomprehensible in places, a lot of the stuff put out for the various versions of basic is workman like and gets the job done, 1e is rambling and painful to read to me (I realize that is an unpopular opinion in some circles), 3e was okay, but nothing exciting, and 4e is mind-numbing and dry.


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## Kzach (May 1, 2012)

Morrus said:


> We 30- somethings are the ones with all the money. We're either buying it for ourselves or buying it for our kids. It had better well cater to us!
> 
> When I was 10 or so, my parents bought me my first RPG. The game contributed - in a small way - to my education. It helped sharpen my vocabulary and my math skills, amongst other things. The world of literature it led me into exercised my mind, and was part of the reason I grew up with above average literary skills.
> 
> ...



Plus ten billion.

There was a recent interview on the Colbert Report with a professor who wrote a book (I can't remember what it was) about literacy rates going down and how university degrees require far less analytical and intellectual thought because they've been reduced to multiple answer questions instead of essays. Or something like that, I can't remember the details.

My point is that accessibility shouldn't require the dumbing down of the language. Unless it's explaining a rule, in which case it should be as clear as possible, prosaic explanations, imaginative prose, and the use of a wide vocabulary should absolutely be a part of D&D. I used to carry a massive dictionary around with my D&D books and considered it a part of my collection solely because whenever I would hear or read a word I didn't know the meaning of, I'd want to immediately look it up.

The youth of today are so damned lazy they can't even be bothered to use capital letters at the start of sentences, let alone half-decent grammar or spelling. It drives me bananas that I, someone who dropped out of high school before the senior years, have better spelling and a wider vocabulary than people in university!


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## Kynn (May 1, 2012)

I hate it when people pull out their "I'm sooooo smart" egos and start talking about things like "this was written at a certain grade level" to justify how special and smart and genius they are.

The truth is, it's easy to write convoluted stuff that is at "a higher grade level," and it's harder to write effectively in a way that communicates simply and directly. Writing to an 8th grade level instead of a 10th grade level is a valuable skill, not a sign that someone is talking down to you.

(I also suspect that most people couldn't recognize "12th grade writing" or "8th grade writing" or "6th grade writing" if they saw it.)


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## Morrus (May 1, 2012)

Kynn said:


> (I also suspect that most people couldn't recognize "12th grade writing" or "8th grade writing" or "6th grade writing" if they saw it.)




Well, I couldn't, that's for sure! I don't even know what an 8th grade is! 8 year olds? 14 year olds? 21 year olds?


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## n00bdragon (May 1, 2012)

D&D books are not something you read to challenge yourself. If you do read them to challenge yourself I pity you. I pity you dearly. A well written manual isn't something you read for the enjoyment of the thing, it's to learn how to do something.

I don't curl up at night with a good VCR instruction booklet.


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## Morrus (May 1, 2012)

n00bdragon said:


> D&D books are not something you read to challenge yourself. If you do read them to challenge yourself I pity you. I pity you dearly. A well written manual isn't something you read for the enjoyment of the thing, it's to learn how to do something.
> 
> I don't curl up at night with a good VCR instruction booklet.




Drop the insulting tone right now, please.

And I did curl up at night and read my AD&D books, and have fond memories of doing so. I still pluck 1E and 2E books from the shelf and just read for 10 minutes here and there; I find this pleasurable. I can't do that with the 4E books, because they're written as reference books.

You may well consider that badwrongfun. But for me, it was an intrinsic part of the D&D experience; a part of The experience that I miss.

I understand your point that you need to be able to look something up quickly and easily. To that end, I hope that a detailed and comprehensive index will be found at the end of each book.


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## Leatherhead (May 1, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> "Partly clothed females FTW" is teenager material, not adult material.
> 
> Adult material would be if the PHB had a chapter on how to balance your household budget, raising your tween daughter who is being leered at by the half-elves at school and having self-esteem issues from being called round-ears, and dragon-slaying without losing a healthy work/life balance.




Oh come on now, why does adult = parent?

I've seen plenty of adults going around without kids and plenty of teens running around with them to know that isn't the case anymore.

And that's nothing to say of quality of some peoples child rearing skills.


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## Oni (May 1, 2012)

Kynn said:


> I hate it when people pull out their "I'm sooooo smart" egos and start talking about things like "this was written at a certain grade level" to justify how special and smart and genius they are.
> 
> The truth is, it's easy to write convoluted stuff that is at "a higher grade level," and it's harder to write effectively in a way that communicates simply and directly. Writing to an 8th grade level instead of a 10th grade level is a valuable skill, not a sign that someone is talking down to you.
> 
> (I also suspect that most people couldn't recognize "12th grade writing" or "8th grade writing" or "6th grade writing" if they saw it.)




In the end I don't think it's so much about reading level or complexity.  I mean there are people that get off on a barrier to entry due a difficult reading level because it makes them somehow feel elite, but those folk are a passing small minority I think.  What it really comes down to is, understandability/clarity, ease of use as a reference, and is it interesting enough to hold my interest as a read.  Now there are some trade offs involved in those categories, and preferences may vary a little from person to person, but ultimately it takes a good author to write with complexity and retain clarity, and it takes a good author to write with simplicity and retain a sense of depth and interest/engagement with the reader.

I couldn't tell you what grade level something reads at, other than this is harder or that is easier, but I like to think I can tell what is good writing and what is not.  And complexity or simplicity aren't, either one, inherently bad or good, they're just tools in a tool box. Authorial voice and the relationship established with the reader are all that really matter, and these are independent of the writing level, though extreme levels of simplicity or complexity can effect the reader's perception of what the author thinks of himself, or his or her audience (often in a negative way).


----------



## Incenjucar (May 1, 2012)

Leatherhead said:


> Oh come on now, why does adult = parent?
> 
> I've seen plenty of adults going around without kids and plenty of teens running around with them to know that isn't the case anymore.
> 
> And that's nothing to say of quality of some peoples child rearing skills.




You mistake my example for a definition.

Adult topics are difficult topics that can have significant consequences, not *jubblies*.


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## Morrus (May 1, 2012)

Oni said:


> In the end I don't think it's so much about reading level or complexity.  I mean there are people that get off on a barrier to entry due a difficult reading level because it makes them somehow feel elite, but those folk are a passing small minority I think.  What it really comes down to is, understandability/clarity, ease of use as a reference, and is it interesting enough to hold my interest as a read.  Now there are some trade offs involved in those categories, and preferences may vary a little from person to person, but ultimately it takes a good author to write with complexity and retain clarity, and it takes a good author to write with simplicity and retain a sense of depth and interest/engagement with the reader.
> 
> I couldn't tell you what grade level something reads at, other than this is harder or that is easier, but I like to think I can tell what is good writing and what is not.  And complexity or simplicity aren't, either one, inherently bad or good, they're just tools in a tool box. Authorial voice and the relationship established with the reader are all that really matter, and these are independent of the writing level, though extreme levels of simplicity or complexity can effect the reader's perception of what the author thinks of himself, or his or her audience (often in a negative way).




Good post.  For me, it's important that the books be a pleasure to read as well as a useful reference tool. 

While I can respect those who require only clarity and ease of reference, that's simply not enough to engage me. I can't engage with a dictionary or a cookbook; but I want to be able to engage with my D&D books.

And I know perfectly well this is possible. Because it's been done before. At the age of 11 I was perfectly able to understand how to play the game, and also enjoyed reading those rulebooks. And so did thousands of kids my age across the world. We loved those books; not once did we curse and cry out for a large font and smaller words. Not once did we bemoan the lack of bullet points or the excess of prose. Those books can't be that difficult to use if I managed it.

I'm not saying that game writing hasn't improved since those days; of course it has. But I still feel some of that readability can be maintained while catering towards functionality. I guess Pathfinder isn't too far off the mark there; a little dry for my tastes, but more readable than the 4E books.


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## Wiseblood (May 1, 2012)

If WotC were to write D&D like they write their smarter articles I would be able to read the book much more easily. Teach me something while I'm at it. I am not talking about mechanics but instead mythologies and cultures and history. It need not be pervasive but a sprinkling here and there. Just enough that I might want to delve deeper into these real world things for myself. The monsters , pantheons, and even direct comparison to characters from history and fiction were present in D&D and AD&D.  This, I felt was missing in 3e and 4e and also Pathfinder but only because pathfinder is enamored with its own setting's canon.

I could tell my wife what was going on in a fair amount of the movie Thor because of Deities & Demigods I have not read the comics (Excepting Deadpool when he had a copy of Mjolnir). I learned a fair amount of the Norse mythologies *because *of D&D and directly *from* D&D.


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## Shadeydm (May 1, 2012)

I hope my son won't have to be embarrassed by any of the illustrations in his DnD books. I hated the sense of embarrassment that had me hiding the succubus illustration from the ADnD MM whenever my mom was around. The game doesn't need it or maybe i'm too old and crusty of appreciate it lol.


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## RHGreen (May 1, 2012)

Orko, the brownies in Willow, 7-zark-7, Jar Jar Binks. I didn't/wouldn't like these things when I was young. (Lucas almost added R2D2 to the list, but as those films don't actually exist outside of a poorly remembered nightmare, he's still fine.)

I don't think it's age that is the problem. It's a problem with the writers thinking young people are too stupid to like anything more intelligent than bright flashing colours, loud noises and cutesy, loud, stupid furries. For example, if your space flight sim shooter isn't very good make everything brightly coloured and instead of a human main character, make him an anthropomorphized fox/dragon. "Wow, it's amazing and so cute." No it's not.

Maybe I'm wrong and they aren't very bright. Perhaps I'm one of the lucky ones that had a boring mother that didn't do recreational drugs when I was in the womb.


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## Kzach (May 1, 2012)

I think it's easy enough to separate rules descriptions, which should be clear and concise with no-nonsense writing, and everything else that fills a D&D book, which should be interesting, engaging, evocative, imaginative, creative and possibly more 'ings and 'tives than I can think of right now.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 1, 2012)

Ranganathan said:


> Right. Just like the hobby's been doing for the last few decades? The only recent influxes have been the children of gamers and a few of their friends.




By the audience widening, I am specifically talking about those people who might like the game later, but can't handle it now. This is not going to include many adults, as gaming isn't rocket science. (Adults will like it, or they won't.) You can write the game dumbed down to try to get every 11 year old *that you might possibly get*. You'll lose the people who don't like being patronized, which happens to include a fair number of 11 year olds. The patronized ones are probably lost for good. The 11 year old that is not quite ready to handle the more interesting text may still be available at 14 or 17 or 20. 

Of course, most people won't have any interest at 11 or later, no matter how you write it. That's why games only sell so much, and have been on the decline. A lot of those people in the 70s and 80s that bought because there wasn't much to do, wouldn't have bought then if they'd had the options we have now. 

It's not question of being elitist. Gaming is at heart too simple to be elitist. It's "pretend" all dressed up. Rather, it's a question of appealing to the kind of person who is going to want to roleplay in a tabletop game in the first place. There has to be some substance there to so appeal. With real substance, it helps to write about it as it is, not dumb it down. A good fantasy novel is rarely fine literature, but it is also rarely, say, a "junior" sports biography written to get an 11 year old to read something, anything. 

I forget which sci/fi author wrote it, but there is some statement along the lines of, "stories are told of all kinds of aliens, but every science fiction story we've ever seen has been written and read by 100% humans." Humanity is complex. Ultimately, games are a form of art, lowbrow as it may be, that is about exploring humanity--sometimes from some obscure angles. This is the real substance of the hobby. That's no call to make game procedures full of sophistry or other pretension. Sure, make those as clear as you can. But don't cheat the substance for some kind of false appeal to child--one that ultimately won't work, anyway.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 1, 2012)

Kynn said:


> The truth is, it's easy to write convoluted stuff that is at "a higher grade level," and it's harder to write effectively in a way that communicates simply and directly. Writing to an 8th grade level instead of a 10th grade level is a valuable skill, not a sign that someone is talking down to you.
> 
> (I also suspect that most people couldn't recognize "12th grade writing" or "8th grade writing" or "6th grade writing" if they saw it.)




Most people don't recognize the difference, because they haven't bothered to learn.  It's not all that useful of a skill, unless you write.  However, most people can *sense* the difference between, say, newspaper writing and something a bit more or less engaging.  For example, very few people tolerate fiction written at an 8th grade level.  Heck, most 8th graders can't even stand it.  (That would be around age 14 for you folks not in the USA.)  

Furthermore, it is perfectly possible to write "convoluted" material that says nothing in particular, and not because of the grade level.  Universities are full of it, as are many marketing pamphlets.  

The valuable skill is consciously choosing the grade level for your audience and writing in that.  Writing at a higher grade level conveys nuance.  With a lot of work, you could convey this nuance in a lower grade level, but it will take a lot of text.  

Do you think anyone here had trouble following what I just wrote?


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## Oni (May 1, 2012)

AnonGemini said:


> Orko, the brownies in Willow, 7-zark-7, Jar Jar Binks. I didn't/wouldn't like these things when I was young. (Lucas almost added R2D2 to the list, but as those films don't actually exist outside of a poorly remembered nightmare, he's still fine.)
> 
> I don't think it's age that is the problem. It's a problem with the writers thinking young people are too stupid to like anything more intelligent than bright flashing colours, loud noises and cutesy, loud, stupid furries. For example, if your space flight sim shooter isn't very good make everything brightly coloured and instead of a human main character, make him an anthropomorphized fox/dragon. "Wow, it's amazing and so cute." No it's not.
> 
> Maybe I'm wrong and they aren't very bright. Perhaps I'm one of the lucky ones that had a boring mother that didn't do recreational drugs when I was in the womb.




But sometimes kids and even adult's like those things, and not because they are mentally deficient.  They just do, people have different taste.  For instance I liked the brownies in Willow when I was a kid, heck, I still do.  My personal taste aside, I don't think the problem is having those things, it's just doing them well and having depth beyond them.  Like all things it comes down to execution, not everything has to be appreciated on the same level, and if it can be appreciated on multiple levels (Pixar movies for example) then all the better.


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## Incenjucar (May 1, 2012)

Fortunately, unlike in the 80s, we now have some very good examples of comedy relief characters who are not entirely insufferable thanks to the recent boom in quality animation.


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## TimA (May 1, 2012)

Blackwarder said:


> I just realized somthing that been nagging at me for a long time, I'd like to have the core rule books written for adults.
> 
> Flipping through the pages of 3e and 4e PHB I get the filling that the audience they are written for are teenagers and not grown up, I can't put my finger on it but the entire book feels PG13 and overly PC.
> 
> ...




That would be fine, but lets not make it TOO adult. Either in theme obviously or in tone more generally. 

For an example I recently visited a group that was looking for players. We had a nice night of boardgaming "to get to know each other" drinking and generally BSing about gaming. 

All good right? 

The next day an email goes out saying that beer is fine at a board game but theres no drinking at regular games, you must attend or give actual written (email is okay i think) notice 24 hours ahead of time or you'll be asked to leave the group. 

Now I get that flakes are a pain in the butt and no one wants people to be completely hammered during a game. 

But these guys idea of an "adult game" was a stuffed shirt contest that was more like a job then a fun diversion. 

 Half of us never talked to the people running the game after getting that email and put together our own thing. 

  So I think before saying a game should be "adult" you have to define what adult means. Otherwise you wind up lameness masquerading as maturity.


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## RHGreen (May 1, 2012)

Oni said:


> But sometimes kids and even adult's like those things, and not because they are mentally deficient. They just do, people have different taste. For instance I liked the brownies in Willow when I was a kid, heck, I still do. My personal taste aside, I don't think the problem is having those things, it's just doing them well and having depth beyond them. Like all things it comes down to execution, not everything has to be appreciated on the same level, and if it can be appreciated on multiple levels (Pixar movies for example) then all the better.




I could go with taste/style normally, but not in the area I'm thinking of.

Jim Carrey is the perfect example.

A baby lays there and its parents pull silly faces and make funny noises. The baby loves it. Then it grows up and it wants more from life. If its parents kept pulling silly faces and making funny noises when it turned 10, it would probably go to social services and ask for adoption on grounds of mental cruelty.

Jim Carrey spent his whole career (bar The Dead Pool) entertaining people who hadn't advanced past the baby stage, by pulling silly faces and making funny noises. Even he ran out of fans who decided they wanted more from life.



My point is: I want D&D to have a bit more adult intelligent content and feel, in the same way I couldn't live in a world where every film had Jim Carrey in it, pulling silly faces and making funny noises. (However, I can live with the Truman Show.) Just because some people are undemanding and like him does it mean we all have to and ommit everything else.


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## am181d (May 1, 2012)

Morrus said:


> We 30- somethings are the ones with all the money. We're either buying it for ourselves or buying it for our kids. It had better well cater to us!
> 
> When I was 10 or so, my parents bought me my first RPG. The game contributed - in a small way - to my education. It helped sharpen my vocabulary and my math skills, amongst other things. The world of literature it led me into exercised my mind, and was part of the reason I grew up with above average literary skills.
> 
> ...




But Gygax wasn't writing the AD&D DMG for your parents. He was writing it for you. I don't want Wizards fine-tuning D&D so that it's more enjoyable for you-now than it would have been for you-then.


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## Oni (May 1, 2012)

AnonGemini said:


> I could go with taste/style normally, but not in the area I'm thinking of.
> 
> Jim Carrey is the perfect example.
> 
> ...




What exactly, might I ask, is adult intelligent content?  By that I mean, what are some examples of the sort of thing you want to be in the books?  Does that just mean big sentences and complex words, or maybe grittier subject matter, or what? And what exactly are you protesting against?  What sins have past books committed, what specific childish content has bothered you?


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## Morrus (May 1, 2012)

am181d said:


> But Gygax wasn't writing the AD&D DMG for your parents. He was writing it for you. I don't want Wizards fine-tuning D&D so that it's more enjoyable for you-now than it would have been for you-then.




I keep rereading that, and I can't for the life of me figure out what you said! Ironic given the subject matter, but it's probably my fault


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## Leatherhead (May 1, 2012)

It should be written for adults. Mostly because that is something that will actually get kids to read it. Kids love to do things that make them seem more mature. They play video games with "mature" ratings and stuff like that.

Incidentally, I wasn't born before AD&D. So Gygax was, in fact, writing it for my parents.


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## Lanefan (May 1, 2012)

am181d said:


> But Gygax wasn't writing the AD&D DMG for your parents. He was writing it for you. I don't want Wizards fine-tuning D&D so that it's more enjoyable for you-now than it would have been for you-then.



It needs to be enjoyable for him-then *and* him-now, is the trick; just like it needs to be enjoyable for new-player-now *and* same-new-player-in-2040.

The 1e books pulled this off, so we know it's possible.


			
				n00bdragon said:
			
		

> A well written manual isn't something you read for the enjoyment of the thing, it's to learn how to do something.
> 
> I don't curl up at night with a good VCR instruction booklet.



You're missing the point, I think.

A VCR instruction booklet exists to give instructions, nothing more.

A D&D book exists for two reasons: to give instructions, and to *entertain* while doing so.  I think the entertainment piece has been let slide a bit as each new edition has come along, which is unfortunate.

Lanefan


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## Orius (May 1, 2012)

Clarity and ease of reference I think are fairly important.  These are books that may be referred to in a game, and I doubt groups want to wait as the DM flips through pages looking for a rule.  The actual grade level of writing makes little difference to me, the utility at the game table is more important. 

People talk about how evocative the 1e books were, but I've also read much about how they weren't exactly great at organization.  The old school gamers might have a sweet tooth for Gygaxian prose, but yeah, there are times where it probably would be out of place in a rulebook.  The 2e books were written fairly well.  Decent organization, easy enough to understand, but still pretty evocative in places.  The (early at least) 3e books weren't bad either, they feel similar to 2e, though the writing is a bit crisper.  I cannot comment on 4e.

A good balance would probably be something like this: the crunchiest parts of the rules, the ones most likely to be looked at during gameplay should have a no-nonsense approach and written for ease of use and clarity.  This doesn't mean written stupid, it means written in a way that doesn't bog down the DM.  So stuff like combat rules, rules for class abilities, skills, feats, spells, and so on, stat blocks, magic item descriptions, at the least the section that details the abilties, these are the parts that should be written like this.  Other sections like advice for players on RPing, various elements of DM advice, flavor text in modules and setting books and the like, and so on can go for the older, more favorful and evocative approach, as these are things that aren't going to be read during a game session.


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## Oni (May 1, 2012)

I was thinking about usability the other day when I was running the Kingmaker AP for my Pathfinder game.  The APs are fun reading, but I was looking for specific information I knew was buried in the text and I thought how nice it would be to have a sidebar along side the long form prose to let me grab the pertinent information on the fly without having to dig around for it.  It might be nice to have basic rules laid out in a very succinct bullet point format in a sidebar along a with a more detailed and evocative explanation in the text.  I realize it is a bit redundant, but it would suit both those looking for reference and those looking for a read.  This would work great for something like grappling or the like.    I think though you would have have to be careful how, and what, you separate out, for instance the hard division between fluff and mechanics in powers/spells and magic items in 4e was a huge turnoff to me and made each feel too sterile and mechanical.  They shouldn't be afraid to mix fluff and rules together and encourage DMs to take into account both when making their rulings, the fiction is important in RPGs and should influence outcomes when it would be logical it do so.


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## pemerton (May 1, 2012)

I read and reread a lot of RPG books, looking for new ideas, or reminders of old ideas, or trying to understand how some rule might work, or trying to work out how I might incorporate some mechanical or some story element into my game.

I seem to be in something of a minority in not finding the 4e books particularly juvenile or patronising. I mean, obviously they lack the personality and idiosyncracy of the best of Gygax, or Luke Crane in the Burning Wheel books, but they're no more anodyne (in my view) than say the HeroWars/Quest books.

For me, what stands out about WotC books (3E and 4e) isn't any particular tone. Rather, it's just their bad writing - and particularly their bad fiction.

Here is a passage from 4e's MM3 (p 12) that is completely typical:

Over the ages, a few spells of epic magnitude have reverberated throughout history. Spells that provide enough power to slay gods, bind primordials, annihilate empires, and create astral dominions leave behind some of their essence. In time, that essence can form a living spell, which stalks the universe and destroys everything in its path.​
That is just drivel. It's repetive ("over the ages", "throughout history", "in time"). It has poorly formed noun phrases. I mean, what the hell is this: "Spells that provide enough power to slay gods, bind primordials, annihilate empires, and create astral dominions "? And after that overblown thing, look at the boring verb phrase that follows it: "leave behind some of their essence". There is also an error of usage - I'm pretty sure that these things aren't stalking the universe but stalking _through_ the universe.

Unfortunately, the amount of this sort of guff in Monster Manuals has been increasing over the lifetime of 4e. Hopefully, the D&Dnext books will be more tightly written, particularly where they include fiction.

And for the curious, here's my first pass at rewriting the objectionable passage:

[sblock]A few spells of epic magnitude reverberate throughout history: spells that provide enough power to slay gods, bind primordials, annihilate empires, and create astral dominions. These leave behind some of their essence when cast, forming a living spell that stalks through the universe destroying everything in its path.[/sblock]


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## Ranganathan (May 1, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> By the audience widening, I am specifically talking about those people who might like the game later, but can't handle it now. This is not going to include many adults, as gaming isn't rocket science. (Adults will like it, or they won't.) You can write the game dumbed down to try to get every 11 year old *that you might possibly get*. You'll lose the people who don't like being patronized, which happens to include a fair number of 11 year olds. The patronized ones are probably lost for good. The 11 year old that is not quite ready to handle the more interesting text may still be available at 14 or 17 or 20.




And here I thought you'd left this logical fallacy behind, oh well. Clearly you're fixated on age and making sure gaming appears more adult.



> Of course, most people won't have any interest at 11 or later, no matter how you write it. That's why games only sell so much, and have been on the decline. A lot of those people in the 70s and 80s that bought because there wasn't much to do, wouldn't have bought then if they'd had the options we have now.



I'm sorry, but are you now arguing that people only bought D&D because there was nothing else to do? You've lost any hint of credibility.

Admin here. Discuss this without personal attacks. If you have to resort to insults, you've already lost. - PCat


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## Kynn (May 1, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> For example, very few people tolerate fiction written at an 8th grade level.  Heck, most 8th graders can't even stand it.  (That would be around age 14 for you folks not in the USA.)





I call shenanigans.

Harry Potter is immensely popular, including with 8th graders, and it's written at 5th to 7th grade level.

You are simply wrong.


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## Kynn (May 1, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> However, most people can *sense* the difference between, say, newspaper writing and something a bit more or less engaging.  For example, very few people tolerate fiction written at an 8th grade level.  ...
> 
> The valuable skill is consciously choosing the grade level for your audience and writing in that.  Writing at a higher grade level conveys nuance.  With a lot of work, you could convey this nuance in a lower grade level, but it will take a lot of text.
> 
> Do you think anyone here had trouble following what I just wrote?




Just so you know, what you wrote here was rated at grade level 7.58 and a Fog Index of 9.15.

So, no, what you wrote wasn't hard to understand. Because it wasn't even up to 8th grade reading levels.

Look it up here:

Tests Document Readability

My point, of course, is not that you are a poor writer who "dumbs down" what he writes, but rather that very few of us communicate with "high grade level" writing because we want to be clearly understood. Just like in an RPG.


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## fuindordm (May 1, 2012)

I would like the writing level to aim high rather than low.

If the game and the art are compelling enough, the Tweens will be inspired to use a dictionary, just as I once was.

4e did have that technical manual feel. It was easy to find information, partly because the kept repeating it, but it did nothing to draw me into the world of the game.


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## Kynn (May 1, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Here is a passage from 4e's MM3 (p 12) that is completely typical:
> 
> Over the ages, a few spells of epic magnitude have reverberated throughout history. Spells that provide enough power to slay gods, bind primordials, annihilate empires, and create astral dominions leave behind some of their essence. In time, that essence can form a living spell, which stalks the universe and destroys everything in its path.​




Apart from being drivel (and I don't disagree with you), it's also written at 11th grade level, which is amusing given how many people think 4th edition was written for 5th graders.


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## Kynn (May 1, 2012)

fuindordm said:


> I would like the writing level to aim high rather than low.




Why?

Lower writing level means it's easier for everyone to understand.

This reminds me too much of Monte Cook's ideas about "system mastery." It's a kind of false elitism that really doesn't belong in the game.


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## Incenjucar (May 1, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I read and reread a lot of RPG books, looking for new ideas, or reminders of old ideas, or trying to understand how some rule might work, or trying to work out how I might incorporate some mechanical or some story element into my game.
> 
> I seem to be in something of a minority in not finding the 4e books particularly juvenile or patronising. I mean, obviously they lack the personality and idiosyncracy of the best of Gygax, or Luke Crane in the Burning Wheel books, but they're no more anodyne (in my view) than say the HeroWars/Quest books.
> 
> ...




Eh. I'm not going to say that WotC's writing is good, but their version is fine for a non-academic audience. Phrases like "stalks the jungle" are normal in everyday language, and used in storytelling, which is what fluff text is for. Repetition is a tool used in poetry and speeches all the time. Communication and mood is far more important for creative writing than technical accuracy that 99% of the audience neither knows nor cares about.


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## Libramarian (May 1, 2012)

Here are examples of the game designer writing to the reader as a peer.

Gary Gygax, Preface to AD&D Players Handbook:This latter part of the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS project I approached with no small amount of trepidation. After all, the game's major appeal is to those persons with unusually active imagination and superior, active intellect -- a very demanding audience indeed. Furthermore, a great majority of readers master their own dungeons and are necessarily creative -- the most critical audience of all! Authoring these works means that, in a way, I have set myself up as final arbiter of fantasy role playing in the minds of the majority of D&D adventurers. Well, so be it, I rationalized.
​Gary Gygax, Preface to AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide:As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another. Pronouncements there may be, but they are not from "on high" as respects your game.

Naturally, everything possible cannot be included in the whole of this work. As a participant in the game, I would not care to have anyone telling me exactly what must go into a campaign and how it must be handled; if so, why not play some game like chess? As the author I also realize that there are limits to my creativity and imagination. Others will think of things I didn't, and devise things beyond my capability. 
​The 4e books don't even have forewords, never mind prefaces!


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## GSHamster (May 1, 2012)

There are other considerations as well.

For example, D&D will be translated into multiple languages. I suspect that D&D written at an lower grade level will be more easily translated. And the resulting translations will be closer in intent to the English version.


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## Kynn (May 1, 2012)

Libramarian said:


> Here are examples of the game designer writing to the reader as a peer.
> 
> ...
> 
> The 4e books don't even have forewords, never mind prefaces!




And thank goodness they don't!  I was never a fan of Gygax's rambling writings.

I realize that some people might enjoy it -- because they imagine that they're Gary Gygax's good buddy, perhaps, and he's writing "just to me!!!1!" -- but it's not a style that I'd like to see again in D&D manuals.

Fortunately, those who like this kind of writing can just buy the AD&D reprints. I'm hoping for something less rambling and self-interested from 5e.


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## Oni (May 1, 2012)

Kynn said:


> Look it up here:
> 
> Tests Document Readability




Thanks, I will now judge the validity of all posts and posters based on their scores.  High score wins.


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## Incenjucar (May 1, 2012)

Libramarian said:


> Here are examples of the game designer writing to the reader as a peer.
> 
> Gary Gygax, Preface to AD&D Players Handbook:This latter part of the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS project I approached with no small amount of trepidation. After all, the game's major appeal is to those persons with unusually active imagination and superior, active intellect -- a very demanding audience indeed. Furthermore, a great majority of readers master their own dungeons and are necessarily creative -- the most critical audience of all! Authoring these works means that, in a way, I have set myself up as final arbiter of fantasy role playing in the minds of the majority of D&D adventurers. Well, so be it, I rationalized.
> ​Gary Gygax, Preface to AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide:As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another. Pronouncements there may be, but they are not from "on high" as respects your game.
> ...




We have blogs for this kind of thing now. We don't need it wasting page space.


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## Kynn (May 1, 2012)

Oni said:


> Thanks, I will now judge the validity of all posts and posters based on their scores.  High score wins.




Why would you ever do such a thing as that? That's not what such a measurement is even for.


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## Yora (May 1, 2012)

Ranganathan said:


> Couldn't disagree more. Write the rules for teens, by that I simply mean write to the 8th grade reading level used for the evening news and newspapers. The easier it is to read, he easier it is to understand, and the more people who can potentially play the game.



Also, given that the books are not traslated into many languages and often not all books are translated or with a huge delay, lots of people just buy all their D&D books in English.
And I've played with a number of people who can read english, but are not really good at it. Using a simple vocabulary and clear short sentences benefits them as well. But of course, you can still use such language to say intelligent things. The first chapters of the 4th Edition PHB made an impression that the rest of the book never could overcome.
Also, use yards instead of feet. A yard is roughly the same as a meter for the purpose of imaginary people moving at imaginary speeds. But outside the US and maybe the UK, nobody has any clue how much a foot is. Even though I think that Americans know what a meter is, yard still has that old-timey, outdated feel to it, but you can convert yards to meters 1:1 without really affecting the game. Everybody wins.


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## Blackwarder (May 1, 2012)

GSHamster said:


> There are other considerations as well.
> 
> For example, D&D will be translated into multiple languages. I suspect that D&D written at an lower grade level will be more easily translated. And the resulting translations will be closer in intent to the English version.




I'm not quite sure that's correct.

When I was 10 my aunt bought me for my birth day this box game that had a cool image of a dragon hurtling toward am axe wielding man and I've been salivating on it for months. That was an intreductionary box for D&D, it was basic D&D written for kids but without being condensending and had everything you need to play either by yourself or with a group, and it was written in Hebrew.

I quickly moved to the great book of D&D rules compendium, which was abut more challenging than the box set but very usefull and interesting, and played with that for a couple of years.

From there I moved to AD&D 2e (again, using the Hebrew translation) and played that until 3e came out, over the years we switched from the Hebrew books to the English ones mainly because the company that translated the books went out of buissneses.

Right before I joined the army, I had the fortune of playing with one of the guys who translated the game to Hebrew and between sessions we had some time to talk about how he went through translating the books, according to him it was like pulling out teeths, mainly due to the fact that they strived (and looking back greatly succeeded) to retain the evocative feel of the books without dumbing it down, another thing that they had in mind was that their target audiance were late teens and folks in their twenties and thirties and this being tiny Israel with a tiny population of roleplayers, where everyone knows everyone, if they did dumbed the books down they would have been ridiculed.

My point is, talented translators don't need you to keep the language down for their benefits they are bright enough folks and can handle themselves.

My other point is that it's perfectly fine to have products aimed at younger kids. Back when I was ten, I wouldn't have been able to make heads or tail from the game if it wasn't for the starter box, and that's a great thing to have, but the more advance books were aimed to an older audiance and that worked great too.

I don't want to alienate the younger generation, heck my younger cousin is going to be ten when 5e will come out (and guess what I'm going to get him?) but I have no Intrest in reading books aimed for ten years old, and to be frank I grew out of it when I was twelve.

Warder


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## Ranes (May 1, 2012)

Blackwarder said:


> I would like to know what you guys think about this, I would much prefer having a book written by adults for adults and then having a kiddie friendly version, preferably in starter set boxes that I could buy for my small cousins.




Writing for adults and producing something children can read are not mutually exclusive ideas. When I read a PHB or DMG I don't want to feel that it was written for ten-year-olds but neither do I want a separate version for ten-year-olds. I'm not even sure that's possible.

Here's a thing: back when the world was flat, I worked on White Dwarf, among other things. We knew, from readership surveys, that the average age of our readers was 15-16 but we wrote for a mid-twenties reading age and our readers liked it, even those as young as 12. I have to admit, however, that the confusion occasionally evinced by correspondence from some of our very youngest readers still makes me smile.


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## Neonchameleon (May 1, 2012)

am181d said:


> But Gygax wasn't writing the AD&D DMG for your parents. He was writing it for you. I don't want Wizards fine-tuning D&D so that it's more enjoyable for you-now than it would have been for you-then.




I disagree - in part.  Gygax was half-writing the DMG for himself.

What I get when I read Gygax is a tone of "Hey, guys!  Here's something I find really cool!  And I'm pretty sure you'd like it too!"  And it's got all the challenge to understand of an enthusiast who doesn't think to slow down to come out and say what, to them, is obvious (and who you can't interrupt to ask what they mean because it's a book).

Now in terms of clarity that might be worse.  But that level of enthusiasm is inevitably emotionally engaging to any but the most jaded listeners IME.  And if I'm not engaged I'm not going to bother to go further - and emotional engagement will take things much further .

The 4e PHB on the other hand probably was written by committee.  It is in my opinion a very good system but I need to peel away the committee-ese and management speak to get at the layer a team of very talented designers have put together.  For all the language is dumbed down, the barrier to engagement is much much higher.


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## bloodtide (May 1, 2012)

Kynn said:


> I call shenanigans.
> 
> Harry Potter is immensely popular, including with 8th graders, and it's written at 5th to 7th grade level.
> 
> You are simply wrong.





This is a great example.  When I was a kid we did not have such ''lowly grade level'' books to read.  What did I read as a kid?  Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit.  Edgar Rice Burrows.  Issac Asimov.  And all the books we would now call 'classics' like the works of Mark Twain, 1984 or Uncle Tom's Cabin.  I had read most of them before I was even a teen.  Sure, I read Bunnica(the vampire bunny that only eats vegetables) when I was like six.  But well before the time I was ten, I was reading 'adult' fiction.

My generation did not have Harry Potter, Twilight or any of the other current popular fiction that ''talks down to kids on their level''.  I was reading Gulliver's Travels as a kid, a book that I'll bet that few under the age of twenty have read(unless 'forced' to in school).

I loved the feeling of 'rising above kid status' you got when you read 'adult' books.  Even as a kid, I could talk to and impress an adult, by talking about an 'adult' novel.  I loved the feeling of 'growing into the adult world' through books.  But kids today, just want to 'wallow in the kid mud'.  All the kiddie stuff put out today is just so much fluff....at best.

And I think D&D should be the same...have that old 'lifting up your status' feeling.  Maybe WotC could put out TWO D&D rule books?  Like a 'basic set' for the kiddies and an advanced set for the adults?  Radical Idea that has never been done before, right?


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## herrozerro (May 1, 2012)

Can anyone provide some real examples of "kiddie" writing in 4e?  I'm still not seeing it.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 1, 2012)

herrozerro said:


> Can anyone provide some real examples of "kiddie" writing in 4e? I'm still not seeing it.




Check out the advice on player types. Some of it is ok, but there are passages that can make you cringe. If no one has one by then, I'll look up a good example tonight.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 1, 2012)

Ranganathan said:


> And here I thought you'd left this logical fallacy behind, oh well. Clearly you're fixated on age and making sure gaming appears more adult.
> 
> I'm sorry, but are you now arguing that people only bought D&D because there was nothing else to do? You've lost any hint of credibility.




I tried twice to get my point across and clearly failed, since your response bears no logical relation to the point. Oh well, better luck next time. And no, I didn't do either of the things you said I did.


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## Frostmarrow (May 1, 2012)

I enjoy reading Cracked. Part of Cracked being a fun read is "the voice". Cracked have many writers but they all strive to write with that voice. One of those writers said somewhere that a Cracked writer need to get that voice "internalized". It seems to me that writing for Cracked is part acting.
Cracked articles are made up of popular science and culture with references to other works left and right with stupid/shocking/funny metaphors sprinkled ontop. It's a great recipe.
I'd like to see a D&D-voice. Ms Mazzanoble is on to something, for example, but it can be further developed.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 1, 2012)

Kynn said:


> I call shenanigans.
> 
> Harry Potter is immensely popular, including with 8th graders, and it's written at 5th to 7th grade level.
> 
> You are simply wrong.




Harry Potter is an interesting exception that proves the rule. What could be the appeal?  Let's see, the language is rather simple, but the subject matter is classic fairy tale level: Hansel and Gretel get eaten, Big Bad Wolves get thrown into pots, that kind of thing. In other words, it doesn't talk down to children. Billy Boat Gruff is often rendered so a 6 year old can read it, but it doesn't back away from the subject matter, either. So there are exceptions, of course. 

Now, you want to go pull an 8th grade literature textbook and have this discussion? I bet you a bucket of free bits that it is 75% drivel.


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## herrozerro (May 1, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Check out the advice on player types. Some of it is ok, but there are passages that can make you cringe. If no one has one by then, I'll look up a good example tonight.




Just looking through it I personally don't see anything really cringe worthy.  In fact this section really helped me with my own players.

I mean some of the advice is a little "duh" but I dont see what the big deal is.


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## Mallus (May 1, 2012)

bloodtide said:


> My generation did not have Harry Potter, Twilight or any of the other current popular fiction that ''talks down to kids on their level''.



What generation do you belong to?

I'm 43, and my generation had its share of young adult (YA) literature:

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The High King by Lloyd Alexander
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien
The Grey King by Susan Cooper
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

(The above is a selection of Newbery Award winners from the 60s and 70s.) 

Also, the language in The Hobbit marks it as a children's book, and while pulp fiction like John Carter wasn't expressly meant for a young audience, it's not sophisticated, either, though effective.


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## Oni (May 1, 2012)

Kynn said:


> Why would you ever do such a thing as that? That's not what such a measurement is even for.




Why wouldn't I? Obviously large, obscure words and difficult, complex sentence structures that require a postgraduate degree to decipher are a sign of intellect, consequently rendering the expressed opinions and ideas of greater validity. Now with your handy dandy text analyzation engine I need not even waste my precious brain power on such trivial task as deciding who I should listen to. 


Or I might have been taking an oh so subtle jab at some of the opinions given voice in this thread, I'm not sure yet. 



By the way I now have the highest score in this thread.  I'm lying.


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## GSHamster (May 1, 2012)

bloodtide said:


> This is a great example.  When I was a kid we did not have such ''lowly grade level'' books to read.  What did I read as a kid?  Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit.  Edgar Rice Burrows.  Issac Asimov.  And all the books we would now call 'classics' like the works of Mark Twain, 1984 or Uncle Tom's Cabin.  I had read most of them before I was even a teen.  Sure, I read Bunnica(the vampire bunny that only eats vegetables) when I was like six.  But well before the time I was ten, I was reading 'adult' fiction.
> 
> My generation did not have Harry Potter, Twilight or any of the other current popular fiction that ''talks down to kids on their level''.  I was reading Gulliver's Travels as a kid, a book that I'll bet that few under the age of twenty have read(unless 'forced' to in school).




Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, Enid Blyton's Famous Five.

Even in the field of fantasy, there were works like Lloyd Alexanders _Chronicles of Prydain_, which were definitely written to a lower grade level.

Our generation was just as bad as the current generation. Actually, if anything I would say that the main difference is that _adults_ of previous generations did not use to read children's books, and thus you never had the mega-successes of Harry Potter or Twilight or Hunger Games. Children's books stayed in with children, and did not migrate to society at large.


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## Stormonu (May 1, 2012)

If the game is written at the level of Moldvay basic, that's all I care for. And I don't want a purely technical manual - which was the feeling I got reading the 4E PHB; even the Pathfinder core book tends to be so dry I can't sit down to read it for pleasure.

Looking back over all the systems I've encountered, the most pleasurable to read and look at has actually been the 1st edition Legend of the Five Rings game.  I felt it very immersive and evocative, and the later versions just didn't carry the same interesting feel.

I'd love to see play sidebars sprinkled through 5E.  Not just bits of fiction, but tidbits of players discussing/playing the game fiction (like the old examples of play).  Not done as a big wall several pages long, but split out, with perhaps giving examples of certain sections of the rule as it plays out a story.


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## Mattachine (May 1, 2012)

I would rather not see D&D return to the days of "nerd snobbery." 

Luckily, no matter what we opine hear on this forum, the new edition isn't going to be written at the post-high school reading level. The game is being created for a mass market, which means the reading level will likely be pegged at about 6-8th grade.

Moreover, the reading level doesn't have to be difficult to be good writing.


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## jshaft37 (May 1, 2012)

Reading level should be set to be digestible by 13 year olds, and older.  I don't want to sit down and read James Joyce's take on D&D mechanics.  I want to read something that is clear and interesting.  I'd also like it written in a "mature" fashion (not R-rated). Just as someone else referenced that _Batman Begins_ and _The Dark Knight_ are rated PG-13 but are still "mature" in nature, as an example.


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## Steely_Dan (May 1, 2012)

Stormonu said:


> If the game is written at the level of Moldvay basic, that's all I care for.




Yeah, the Basic Rulebook is "Ages 10 and Up", and does not talk down to you, nor is it a dry read, IMO.


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## fjw70 (May 1, 2012)

Just give me rules as clearly written as possible. That is all I ask.

I loved playing 1e as a kid but the writing left a lot to be desired (but I am greatful to EGG for teaching me about eg and ie when I was a kid).


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## Kynn (May 1, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Now, you want to go pull an 8th grade literature textbook and have this discussion? I bet you a bucket of free bits that it is 75% drivel.




I did a quick Google search and found pages like this one:

Popular Eighth Grade Literature Printables for Teachers (Grade 8) - TeacherVision.com


"Sarah, Plain and Tall," "Diary of Anne Frank," and Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" are worthless drivel?

To me, it sounds like you simply don't have an informed grasp on what an 8th grade reading level looks like, and why it doesn't mean "talking down" to anyone.

Did you have a particular 8th grade textbook in mind?


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## Kynn (May 1, 2012)

bloodtide said:


> This is a great example.  When I was a kid we did not have such ''lowly grade level'' books to read.  What did I read as a kid?  Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit.  Edgar Rice Burrows.  Issac Asimov.  And all the books we would now call 'classics' like the works of Mark Twain, 1984 or Uncle Tom's Cabin.  I had read most of them before I was even a teen.  Sure, I read Bunnica(the vampire bunny that only eats vegetables) when I was like six.  But well before the time I was ten, I was reading 'adult' fiction.
> 
> ...
> 
> I loved the feeling of 'rising above kid status' you got when you read 'adult' books.  Even as a kid, I could talk to and impress an adult, by talking about an 'adult' novel.  I loved the feeling of 'growing into the adult world' through books.  But kids today, just want to 'wallow in the kid mud'.  All the kiddie stuff put out today is just so much fluff....at best.




I hate to burst your bubble and your feelings of superiority, but none of those books you're naming are particularly written at a high level of reading. They're all around 8th grade level of reading, give or take.

Do you understand what "level of reading" means? It doesn't mean that you get extra points for reading them. It just means they're easy to understand. Mark Twain, for example, is not a particularly hard read.

The concepts may or may not be "adult," but the writing style doesn't dictate what the concepts can be. Many good novels are written to be easily read.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 1, 2012)

Steely_Dan said:


> Yeah, the Basic Rulebook is "Ages 10 and Up", and does not talk down to you, nor is it a dry read, IMO.




I'll agree with that.  The tone seems to have been carried through to the Rules Compendium as well, though I'm not sure how much of that is directly catering to ages 10 and up.  (Though I suppose the sections that are suspect are optional, anyway, making it a rather moot point.  Presumably, the 10 year old that found them difficult would ignore them until later, and carry on merrily with the main parts.)


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## Morrus (May 1, 2012)

I'm on my iPhone, so please imagine this post is in red text.

There are a few people in this thread taking little passive-aggressive jabs at each other. Knock it off, please.

If you find yourself asking a sarcastic question, using words like "smugness", "elitism", or sarcastically referring to "superiority", delete your text and try again without doing that.

This is an issue clearly important to people, and we should discuss it.  This does NOT mean insulting each other. We are all allowed to have our own preferences in terms of text style, and we can present our own preferences and disagree politely without attacking others.

/modvoice disengage


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## Doug McCrae (May 1, 2012)

It's not D&D if it doesn't embiggen my vocabulary!


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## hemera (May 1, 2012)

I wouldn't mind a mature tone to the books, but most of all I would like a more..evocative tone. The modern books tend to be a bit boring really. Though some of 4e's later books did ok (like feywild). But I'm not looking for the Dostoyevsky does D&D version, (though you know...) there are plenty of PG-13 movies, comics, books aimed at teens that handle mature situations without going full monty on things. I don't need rules for drug addiction or if you should really think about casting remove disease after visiting that brothel.


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## Doug McCrae (May 1, 2012)

Gunning Fog index of 13.51. I guess it's 'trepidation' and 'arbiter' that do it.

This latter part of the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS project I approached with no small amount of trepidation. After all, the game's major appeal is to those persons with unusually active imagination and superior, active intellect -- a very demanding audience indeed. Furthermore, a great majority of readers master their own dungeons and are necessarily creative -- the most critical audience of all! Authoring these works means that, in a way, I have set myself up as final arbiter of fantasy role playing in the minds of the majority of D&D adventurers. Well, so be it, I rationalized.​


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## bloodtide (May 1, 2012)

GSHamster said:


> Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, Enid Blyton's Famous Five.
> 
> Even in the field of fantasy, there were works like Lloyd Alexanders _Chronicles of Prydain_, which were definitely written to a lower grade level.
> 
> Our generation was just as bad as the current generation. Actually, if anything I would say that the main difference is that _adults_ of previous generations did not use to read children's books, and thus you never had the mega-successes of Harry Potter or Twilight or Hunger Games. Children's books stayed in with children, and did not migrate to society at large.




There were some books for the 'other kids', who wanted to 'wallow in just being a kid' for a couple more years(say until they were thirty).  But _most _of us stopped reading anything 'written just for kids' by the time we were close to teenaged.  

The point is not really the 'grade level', as everything is written at 6-8 grade level as that is the 'average that normal people can read'.  The point is intelligent adult topics and not endless rated G crap.

Most classic books are full of 'politically incorrect' and 'morally incorrect' stuff, by today's standards.  The stories are full of death, violence, hatred, passion, love, sex and even worse things.  So while a modern hero will shoot a ''Zapamundo'' and knock a bad guy out, the classic hero would ''decapitate his foe with a swipe of his sword and clean the blood of his blade on his shirt''.


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## Harlekin (May 1, 2012)

Leatherhead said:


> Oh come on now, why does adult = parent?
> 
> I've seen plenty of adults going around without kids and plenty of teens running around with them to know that isn't the case anymore.
> 
> And that's nothing to say of quality of some peoples child rearing skills.




cut


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## Crazy Jerome (May 1, 2012)

bloodtide said:


> Most classic books are full of 'politically incorrect' and 'morally incorrect' stuff, by today's standards. The stories are full of death, violence, hatred, passion, love, sex and even worse things. So while a modern hero will shoot a ''Zapamundo'' and knock a bad guy out, the classic hero would ''decapitate his foe with a swipe of his sword and clean the blood of his blade on his shirt''.




Even worse things, perhaps being "expelled"?  Sorry, was channeling there for a moment ...


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## OnlineDM (May 1, 2012)

I love 4e, and I agree with those who have said that some of the books (especially the earlier ones) are boring to read; rather dry and clinical. I disagree that they're talking down to the reader, though. I didn't feel patronized when I read the PHB, DMG and MM. I didn't find them to be great works of literature, but I didn't feel like I was being treated as a kid (I'm in my mid 30s, by the way).

I wanted to echo [MENTION=78503]hemera[/MENTION]'s comment about Heroes of the Feywild being much, much better as an entertaining read. It's a great book, and I absolutely devoured it. The clarity of language is still there, as is the clarity of rules. But the writing is much more evocative - more flavor, more wonder, more engagement of the reader. And while I'm certainly no expert on this, I don't believe it's written at any higher grade level than other 4e books.

RPG books absolutely need to be accessible. I know that some folks would prefer to only read books that are challenging, but I don't think that's the right approach for a game book that's intended to appeal to adults but also to mature children and teenagers. Saying that the books should be evocative - I agree. Saying that the books should be a challenge for the reader - I disagree. Make them enthralling AND accessible. It can be done, and it HAS been done!


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## gweinel (May 1, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> I disagree - in part.  Gygax was half-writing the DMG for himself.
> 
> What I get when I read Gygax is a tone of "Hey, guys!  Here's something I find really cool!  And I'm pretty sure you'd like it too!"  And it's got all the challenge to understand of an enthusiast who doesn't think to slow down to come out and say what, to them, is obvious (and who you can't interrupt to ask what they mean because it's a book).
> 
> Now in terms of clarity that might be worse.  But that level of enthusiasm is inevitably emotionally engaging to any but the most jaded listeners IME.  And if I'm not engaged I'm not going to bother to go further - and emotional engagement will take things much further .




Damn, I would prefer every day such writing than the one of 3e/4e!


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## Mallus (May 1, 2012)

bloodtide said:


> There were some books for the 'other kids', who wanted to 'wallow in just being a kid' for a couple more years(say until they were thirty).



You mean like all the award-winning books I listed? Which won an award given out by the American Library Association -- I hear they know a thing or two about books. 



> But _most _of us stopped reading anything 'written just for kids' by the time we were close to teenaged.



Who is _us_?


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## Mattachine (May 1, 2012)

Outside of the hobby, many folks I know and talk to would say everything about D&D games is written just for kids.


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## Morrus (May 1, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> Outside of the hobby, many folks I know and talk to would say everything about D&D games is written just for kids.




At this point, I don't think outside the hobby is a priority. WotC's focus was in getting new kids to play with 4E, and the  result was that half their player base defected to Pathfinder. The message was clear. Now, their priority needs to.be getting those customers back, not trying the same thing and expecting different results.

Yeah, there's a bunch of new young D&D players. There's a lot more old D&D players who are now Pathfinder players.


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## Mishihari Lord (May 1, 2012)

As much as I would like to agree with the OP, as much as I would like the books written with adults (me) as a target audience, I don't think it would be a good idea.

Most of the people I've met who play RPGs started before they hit twenty.  This is the audience that needs to be addressed by the books to grow the market, which WOTC needs to do.  The rest of us will buy the books anyway as long as the rules are good.

Personally, I would like to see the rules written in Gary's style, but that might be a bit of a barrier to new people wanting to play.  {EDIT}  On second thought, I started playing AD&D at 12 years old (Basic at 10).  I might be underestimating kids' ability to absorb such stuff.  On the other hand, I may not be typical since I grew up reading the King James Bible, which tends to make you pretty good at figuring out obscure meaning from context.


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## am181d (May 1, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> I disagree - in part.  Gygax was half-writing the DMG for himself.
> 
> What I get when I read Gygax is a tone of "Hey, guys!  Here's something I find really cool!  And I'm pretty sure you'd like it too!"  And it's got all the challenge to understand of an enthusiast who doesn't think to slow down to come out and say what, to them, is obvious (and who you can't interrupt to ask what they mean because it's a book).




That's fair. But it's worth pointing out that Gygax wasn't (by rule of physics) a lifelong RPGer when he wrote the AD&D books. 

There's a history in niche hobbies for fans to take control of the hobby and "pull the ladder up." They redirect the hobby to producing things they've always wanted to see and stop worrying about producing the things that got them into the hobby in the first place. As a result, fewer young people discover the hobby and the hobby base contracts towards extinction.

That's why, as much as I want 5e to be my favorite version of D&D ever, I'd also be happy if it wasn't, as long as it brought it a new generation of players.


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## OnlineDM (May 1, 2012)

Morrus said:


> At this point, I don't think outside the hobby is a priority. WotC's focus was in getting new kids to play with 4E, and the  result was that half their player base defected to Pathfinder. The message was clear. Now, their priority needs to.be getting those customers back, not trying the same thing and expecting different results.
> 
> Yeah, there's a bunch of new young D&D players. There's a lot more old D&D players who are now Pathfinder players.




You know, I almost always agree with the Guvnor, but in this case I don't. I understand that WotC is aiming to attract non-4e players back to D&D with D&D Next. I don't think that means that they should abandon the idea of attracting new players, nor do I expect them to do so.

As I said, read Heroes of the Feywild. THAT is a good way to write a D&D book. Clear rules language with evocative prose throughout. Still accessible to a new audience, and still enchanting for experienced RPGers (at least in my opinion). Since that is one of their most recent books, I consider this to be an encouraging sign for the writing in D&D Next.

To be clear, their most recent book, Heroes of the Elemental Chaos, also did a good job in this regard; it was just not quite as good as Heroes of the Feywild in my view.


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## technoextreme (May 1, 2012)

bloodtide said:


> Most classic books are full of 'politically incorrect' and 'morally incorrect' stuff, by today's standards.  The stories are full of death, violence, hatred, passion, love, sex and even worse things.  So while a modern hero will shoot a ''Zapamundo'' and knock a bad guy out, the classic hero would ''decapitate his foe with a swipe of his sword and clean the blood of his blade on his shirt''.



You transparently don't watch many kids cartoons do you. I can beat death, violence, hatred, passion, love, and sex without even batting an eye with the only cartoon show on television that actively references D&D.


> As I said, read Heroes of the Feywild. THAT is a good way to write a  D&D book. Clear rules language with evocative prose throughout.  Still accessible to a new audience, and still enchanting for experienced  RPGers (at least in my opinion). Since that is one of their most recent  books, I consider this to be an encouraging sign for the writing in  D&D Next.



All Heroes of the Feywild did was make me realize how much D&D rips off actual fantasy and to dust off my copy of Grimm Fairy Tales.  In fact it was really pissing me the hell off because I knew that they basically copied fairy tales word for word from it but I couldn't remember the name of them.


ExploderWizard said:


> So the answer is to dumb down the books until even the existing players grow sick of them?
> 
> Writing to the level of the lolspeak crowd will drive away the more intelligent players.



Honestly most of the stuff that comes off as incredibly stilted to me in previous editions is stuff that actively references older editions.  I think I actually yelled out loud,"What type of idiotic name is Melf?", when I read the previews for Heroes of the Elemental Chaos.


----------



## Dausuul (May 1, 2012)

Morrus said:


> At this point, I don't think outside the hobby is a priority. WotC's focus was in getting new kids to play with 4E, and the  result was that half their player base defected to Pathfinder. The message was clear. Now, their priority needs to.be getting those customers back, not trying the same thing and expecting different results.
> 
> Yeah, there's a bunch of new young D&D players. There's a lot more old D&D players who are now Pathfinder players.




Is there, in fact, a bunch of new young D&D players? I wonder. I can't imagine, as a kid (or as an adult!), being engaged or excited by the early 4E books. Now, maybe kids these days are different, but I suspect they're not as different as all that. D&D of any edition, even BD&D and 4E, is a hugely complicated game requiring a big up-front time investment. To get people to pick up a game like that, you have to really sell them on it with something that fires their imagination. A big textbook o' rules, however slick and well-formatted, is not enough.

Now, I haven't looked at the recent stuff like "Heroes of the Feywild," so I'll take everybody's word for it that the quality improved. But it's a bit late to sell the kids on 4E now.

I'm not convinced that "keep the grognards" and "snag the newbies" are such contradictory goals.


----------



## ExploderWizard (May 1, 2012)

technoextreme said:


> Honestly most of the stuff that comes off as incredibly stilted to me in previous editions is stuff that actively references older editions. I think I actually yelled out loud,"What type of idiotic name is Melf?", when I read the previews for Heroes of the Elemental Chaos.




Melf is an indefensible name. It is lame. How could it get worse than Melf I wonder.......

(What if Melf was a playtest character)

*Melf*

Melf is an elf. Elves live in the woods and shoot bows. They build their homes in the trees. Pretty neat huh? Play an elf if you want:

To have pointed ears like Spock.

To be able to answer the question: does a bear  in the woods?

To shoot a bow real good.


----------



## Ranes (May 1, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> Outside of the hobby, many folks I know and talk to would say everything about D&D games is written just for kids.




Sure but given that the opinion is of those outside the hobby - and therefore is the opinion of those who don't read the material - it must be informed by cursory analysis of the subject matter, not the writing style.

Not that I'd argue with it.

OD&D and 1e were definitely not written for kids. Every other edition, including BECMI, was written with accessibility across age groups in mind. That's what I want from the writing style of any future edition.


----------



## technoextreme (May 1, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> Melf is an indefensible name. It is lame. How could it get worse than Melf I wonder.......



Bigby?? Rigby??? Medium Rary???  Jim Ward spelled backwards???  Anagram of Vance???  Someone whose last name is Kas???? Gygax spelled backwards???" Drizzt Do'Urden ???


----------



## Morrus (May 2, 2012)

OnlineDM said:


> You know, I almost always agree with the Guvnor, but in this case I don't. I understand that WotC is aiming to attract non-4e players back to D&D with D&D Next. I don't think that means that they should abandon the idea of attracting new players, nor do I expect them to do so.




Then you misunderstand me. The long term goal must - if course - be growth. The short term goal should be consolidation. Consolidation then expansion.

No business can do both at the same time. You can build a sports car or a family offroad SUV. If you try to build both into one car, you get a horrible compromise with no vision or direction.

So. Consolidate. Get those older players back. Secure your foundation. Then expand.

It's basic Business 101. I would be willing to bet real money that doing both at the same time will achieve neither.


----------



## Morrus (May 2, 2012)

Dausuul said:


> Is there, in fact, a bunch of new young D&D players?




Anecdotal, but it seems to be that EN World has a bunch of younger members in the last year or two. I feel like I'm running into teenagers a lot more. But I'll be honest - it's just an impression.


----------



## Lord Mhoram (May 2, 2012)

Doug McCrae said:


> It's not D&D if it doesn't embiggen my vocabulary!




Yeah - besides the names of all the polearms, Milieu, Campaign, Verisimilitude are all words I learnd from D&D. That was part of the enjoyment.

As to the difference in tone about reference book and not I throw this in for consideration - in a reference book you look it up, and keep looking it up (or print cards). We never did that much back in the day - because the book was fun to read, we would read it for fun, and then reread it for fun - so I never had to look up favorite spells because I knew them, from reading for pleasure.

I do understand the people wanting formality and clarity - I play HERO after all. But while I want clearly presented rules, I want a game book that is fun to read on it's own merits as a book (even if non fiction) in addition to being a game book. 
Maybe have an appendix that is the rules stripped bare as a reference section, but the book itself is written with engagement and reading in mind.


----------



## Libramarian (May 2, 2012)

It's not really a fluff vs. crunch thing. I don't want more overwrought italicized fluff. AD&D doesn't actually have stuff like that. What I would like is a text that doesn't feel like it's trying to wrap a hermetic seal around its take on D&D, if that makes sense. A text that feels more "open" and less sterile and packaged -- more personality, more references to real-world history, mythology, literature, maybe even the way previous editions of D&D did things. Just loosen up a bit.

I don't see Gygax's prose as pretentious...it's playful. It appears alongside cartoons about +2 backscratchers and the game Papers & Paychecks.

Here's a little joke:Inform those players who have opted for the magic-user profession that they have just completed a course of apprenticeship with a master who was of unthinkably high level (at least 6th!).​Written from the perspective of a low level noob. That's fun!

Mike Mearls mentioned  Beowulf and Roland in his latest article on the Fighter class design  goals. I want to see them  mentioned in the 5e PHB. Why not?

I also would like to see a foreword talking about the history of the game and re-iterating their goals for this edition. Basically like one of Mearls' Legends & Lore articles.


----------



## Oni (May 2, 2012)

Libramarian said:


> It's not really a fluff vs. crunch thing. I don't want more overwrought italicized fluff. AD&D doesn't actually have stuff like that. What I would like is a text that doesn't feel like it's trying to wrap a hermetic seal around its take on D&D, if that makes sense. A text that feels more "open" and less sterile and packaged -- more personality, more references to real-world history, mythology, literature, maybe even the way previous editions of D&D did things. Just loosen up a bit.
> 
> I don't see Gygax's prose as pretentious...it's playful. It appears alongside cartoons about +2 backscratchers and the game Papers & Paychecks.
> 
> ...




While I'm not personally a fan of Gygaxian prose, I do agree with your overall sentiment.  I more relaxed and personal authorial voice would be welcome.  With a sort of big tent ideology that welcomes a range of aesthetic choice, I'd love to see examples of the various classes in the text pulled from everything from movies and books to anime and mythology.  A subtle reminder that you can get a lot of mileage out of the same set of rules simply by imagining and presenting the fluff and story details slightly differently, sort of like how if you gave the exact same script to two different directors you'll get two different movies.   

I keep saying this over and over again in various forms, but I really hope that they include a lot of reminders in the text to make the game your own, that you can fold, spindle, and mutilate it to your hearts content and you won't be doing it wrong.


----------



## Lanefan (May 2, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> Melf is an indefensible name. It is lame.



I suspect it simply started out as shorthand for "Male Elf" or "Magic-user Elf".  Kind of like a name from our crew once: Pelmuc.  Part-Elf Magic-User Cleric.  Or one of my own currently-active PCs: Elena.  Elf Lawful Evil Necromancer Assassin.

Lan-"no, my name is not an acronym"-efan


----------



## Lanefan (May 2, 2012)

Oni said:


> I keep saying this over and over again in various forms, but I really hope that they include a lot of reminders in the text to make the game your own, that you can fold, spindle, and mutilate it to your hearts content and you won't be doing it wrong.



I completely agree.

Now all they have to do is make the system robust enough so that after all that folding, spindling and mutilation it remains at least vaguely playable.   And say what you will about specific elements, on the broad scale this is something 1e got very much right.

Lan-"speaking from experience, it handles stapling and perforation too"-efan


----------



## JamesonCourage (May 2, 2012)

First of all, my brilliance:[sblock]







Kynn said:


> Just so you know, what you wrote here was rated at grade level 7.58 and a Fog Index of 9.15.
> 
> So, no, what you wrote wasn't hard to understand. Because it wasn't even up to 8th grade reading levels.
> 
> ...





Kynn said:


> Apart from being drivel (and I don't disagree with you), it's also written at 11th grade level, which is amusing given how many people think 4th edition was written for 5th graders.



First paragraph of my book:


> Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
> Gunning Fog index :	 49.44



Now, either I'm a genius (which I'd gladly accept), or there's something I don't quite completely trust about the system. My second paragraph came up:


> Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
> Gunning Fog index :	 22.98



So, dramatically lower. Maybe the first one was a bit off. My next paragraphs are 15.37, 18.17, 19.88, 22.11, 17.49, and 20.99 (end of intro). According to Wiki (always reliable!):


			
				Wiki said:
			
		

> The index estimates the years of formal education needed to understand the text on a first reading. A fog index of 12 requires the reading level of a U.S. high school senior (around 18 years old).



My other ratings on the site seemed more valid, though (at times). My Coleman–Liau index ranged from 10.5-13.3 (ages 16-19); my Flesch Kincaid Grade level ranged from 13.76-47.48 (best understood by university graduates, or some high school reading); my ARI ranged from 15.2-58.04 (ages 20-63); my SMOG ranged from 14.09-25.58 (14-25 years of education).

Well, color me skeptical. I was 20/21 years old when I wrote the book. I doubt I'm as intelligent as it makes me out to be (at times). I mean, I smart and all (yes, "I smart"), but still... [/sblock]

Okay, now that _that's_ out of the way...

I'm all for writing at a decently low level. Obviously, you can dip too low, here, but the game needs clarity, inspiring text, and implied themes (violence, intrigue, danger, etc.). Nothing needs to be over the top or so low that it's painful to read. Nothing needs to be bogged down by its own weight, or simply repetitive and fluffy. The text just need to be there being inspiring, thematic, and clear.

Just create that spark, and then get out of the way as my imagination takes off. That's all you need to do. As always, play what you like


----------



## El Mahdi (May 2, 2012)

Morrus said:


> Anecdotal, but it seems to be that EN World has a bunch of younger members in the last year or two. I feel like I'm running into teenagers a lot more. But I'll be honest - it's just an impression.




Maybe they're just lying about their age...


----------



## Kynn (May 2, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> First of all, my brilliance:
> 
> First paragraph of my book:
> 
> ...





You're misinterpreting the statistics.

A hard-to-read text doesn't mean the author is brilliant. It means that he's a poor communicator who can't write effectively enough to be understood.

The point of readability indices isn't to get the "highest score" so that you can feel superior to everyone else.


----------



## Sunseeker (May 2, 2012)

I'm not really sure how you are defining "adult".  IME when people want something written for adults, that usually means they want swearing, indecency and all sorts of immature content.  I'll take a PG13 over NC17 any day in my D&D books.


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## Oni (May 3, 2012)

Kynn said:


> You're misinterpreting the statistics.
> 
> A hard-to-read text doesn't mean the author is brilliant. It means that he's a poor communicator who can't write effectively enough to be understood.
> 
> The point of readability indices isn't to get the "highest score" so that you can feel superior to everyone else.




That is a gross simplification.  Just as a simple writing style doesn't mean the author is a poor writer, neither does a more complex writing style that challenges the reader somehow have to mean the author is an ineffective communicator.


----------



## pemerton (May 3, 2012)

Doug McCrae said:


> Gunning Fog index of 13.51. I guess it's 'trepidation' and 'arbiter' that do it.
> 
> This latter part of the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS project I approached with no small amount of trepidation. After all, the game's major appeal is to those persons with unusually active imagination and superior, active intellect -- a very demanding audience indeed. Furthermore, a great majority of readers master their own dungeons and are necessarily creative -- the most critical audience of all! Authoring these works means that, in a way, I have set myself up as final arbiter of fantasy role playing in the minds of the majority of D&D adventurers. Well, so be it, I rationalized.​



What makes this hard to read is, in my view, not the vocabulary - a dictionary will help with that - but the syntax.

The syntax is Object-Subject-Verb-Adverb. Which is already a bit stilted in English.

Then look at the phrases. Object noun phrase "This latter part of the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS project". Adverbial phrase "with no small amount of trepidation".

And the other problem is that the content is bascially vacuous. I mean, Gygax is not the first author to say "I was anxious when I started working on this book", but it's hardly gripping stuff, and doesn't really become more gripping just by upping the lexcical and syntactic complexity.



Oni said:


> I more relaxed and personal authorial voice would be welcome.



Sure, although it also starts to depend a bit on the author. For instance, I don't particularly care for the tone of the author of the core HARP rulebook.



OnlineDM said:


> Heroes of the Feywild
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



I don't need my game books to be challenging. I need them to give me a good idea of how to play the game.

Personally, Heroes of the Feywild didn't do a lot for me - the rules are fine, but the prose is neither here nor there. If I want to read a fairy story I'll pick up Tolkien, or read one to my kids. My favourite 4e book for story elements is the original MM: most of the fiction is clear and to the point, there's not too much of it (not like the drivel I quoted upthread about Living Spells) and the mechanics are crisp (though in retrospect there are the known issues with some of the solos, and with upper level damage). By "crisp" mechanics I mean that I can read a stat block and (i) get a feel for how a monster might play, and (ii) therefore work out how a monster can play a useful story role.

What I _don't_ want in a gamebook is lots of fiction which may or may not be evocative (personally I've never read gamebook fiction that does much for me), but isn't related to the game - doesn't reflect or express how the game will play.

The rulebooks I've read recently, besides 4e ones, are Moldvay Basic, Runequest and lots of Burning Wheel. What is striking about the BW rulebooks is that the tone of the book - which is very distinctive - reinforces the way the game plays.

A simple example of this (from memory): when explaining, in the Adventure Burner (which is something like BW's GM's guide), how Let it Ride works, Luke Crane gives as an example as a change in circumstances that will permit a retest "your finery gets covered in blood/mud/s**t". Why this struck me isn't just that it's a bit provocative, in a juvenile sort of way: it also tells you that, in this game, _it matters if you're wearing finery_, and _it matters if your finery gets soiled_. That is, players are expected to ask for advantage dice when they talk to kings in their finery, and the GM is expected to make them recheck - perhaps with a penalty - when the PCs return to the court covered in mud, blood and/or excrement.

One of the problems for me with Heroes of the Feywild is that it has all this stuff about pixies painting the dew on the grass, and the rainbow in the sky, and so on, but doesn't make it part of the game. The Manual of the Planes has similar issues when it talks about the brightness of the Feywild and the oppression of the Shadowfell. Contrast with this the cards in the Shadowfell box set, or the sample skill challenges in Plane Below and Demonomicon, which (although not always as good as they might be) show me how the oppressive character of the Feywild or of the Abyss actually takes on life in the play of the game and the resolution of action.

*TL;DR* - I don't want evocative fiction, I want rules that make it clear what the game is about (_actually about_, in play, not what the designer wishes it was about) and makes me want to care about that.


----------



## MichaelSomething (May 3, 2012)

D&D is a game with Multiple Demographic Appeal.  The question is, are the older people who started in the TSR days the Main Demographic or they the Periphery Demographic now?  Either way, WOTC better include stuff that appeals to the older players.


----------



## JamesonCourage (May 3, 2012)

Kynn said:


> You're misinterpreting the statistics.
> 
> A hard-to-read text doesn't mean the author is brilliant. It means that he's a poor communicator who can't write effectively enough to be understood.



Well, my point was that it _doesn't_ take 20-40 years of school to understand my writing. Is it more advanced than, say, the newspaper? Yes. But the methods employed by the link don't really prove anything to me. Not even how clear something is to read (considering how off it was).

My "brilliance" comment was sarcasm. I'm not smarter, or anything. I'm not even a poor communicator (most of the time). As I was writing it, my friends read it with no problems. There was no massive confusion.



Kynn said:


> The point of readability indices isn't to get the "highest score" so that you can feel superior to everyone else.



Well, I _did_ go on to say:


			
				JamesonCourage said:
			
		

> I'm all for writing at a decently low level. Obviously, you can dip too low, here, but the game needs clarity, inspiring text, and implied themes (violence, intrigue, danger, etc.). Nothing needs to be over the top or so low that it's painful to read. *Nothing needs to be bogged down by its own weight*, or simply repetitive and fluffy. The text just need to be there being inspiring, thematic, and clear.
> 
> Just create that spark, and then get out of the way as my imagination takes off. That's all you need to do.



There's a happy medium, somewhere, and I don't think it's a small target. As always, play what you like


----------



## Zireael (May 3, 2012)

> Most classic books are full of 'politically incorrect' and 'morally  incorrect' stuff, by today's standards. The stories are full of death,  violence, hatred, passion, love, sex and even worse things. So while a  modern hero will shoot a ''Zapamundo'' and knock a bad guy out, the  classic hero would ''decapitate his foe with a swipe of his sword and  clean the blood of his blade on his shirt''.




True, and there is no reason to shy away from such topics or to present them in immature ways (chainmail bikini is an example).

I'd prefer it if D&D Next was similar in style to OD&D or AD&D - that is, fluff and rules both, without unnecessary redundancy or "using short words and short sentences" I saw in 4e.


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## DracoDruid (May 4, 2012)

I haven't read the whole thread, so I don't know where the discussion ended, so I will just answer to the OP:

I don't care about half-naked women. I'm okay with that, but since this game is also for children/teens in the USA, we should avoid them. Here in germany, we have naked boobs in the ads and its no big deal. You might enjoy our shampoo commercials... 


But what I REALLY miss in D&D3/3.5/4.0/PF is the artwork and the real paper from the old editions.
These where real ART and had a COMPLETE different feeling than those comic styled pictures printed on high-gloss paper.

The reason why we avoided the transcent from AD&D to 3.0 was that it felt so artificial. It felt pure mechanical and lost all its fantastic charm.

I really think, D&D needs this back!

I do understand the benefits of more robust paper, but the game lost part of its charm I say.


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## Otakkun (May 7, 2012)

Morrus said:


> We 30- somethings are the ones with all the money. We're either buying it for ourselves or buying it for our kids. It had better well cater to us!
> 
> When I was 10 or so, my parents bought me my first RPG. The game contributed - in a small way - to my education. It helped sharpen my vocabulary and my math skills, amongst other things. The world of literature it led me into exercised my mind, and was part of the reason I grew up with above average literary skills.
> 
> ...




so.very.true.

Couldn't give you exp, but this post summarises my feelings on D&D. Somewhere along the way, someone got ashamed about D&D being for nerds. I'm not.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (May 8, 2012)

Adult is not the same thing as sexual, or rather it is not limited to sexuality. It includes violence, cruelty, responsibility and other issues. It is also conveyed by the writing (somewhat different thread) and over all tone. 

Give me writing at least on a 10th grade level. That will help with the adult issue. Writing on a 7th grade level makes it childish.


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## Tsuga C (May 9, 2012)

*And Get the **** Off My **** Lawn!  ;-)*

I started with the Basic Set in 1979 when I was a 12 year-old Tolkien-o-phile and then quickly moved on to AD&D in 1980.  The 1E books were written by adult wargamers for a literate demographic of bright high schoolers and college students.  I still have my near-pristine PHB, MM, DMG, D&D, and FF.  Why did I keep them all of these years even though my actual playing of D&D waned considerably?

Two reasons: 1) AD&D was an important childhood touchstone; 2) the books were aimed at an educated, reasonably sophisticated demographic, not a grabasstic hoard of zit-popping button mashers.  From time to time I still pull out one or more of my books and read through them for sake of entertainment and nostalgia because they were *that* well written.  The same cannot be said of the lifeless dreck WotC churned out for 4E.

It's high time that they recognize their mistake and accept and remedy it in 5E by starting with the assumption that their audience is both literate and intelligent.  Any tabletop RPG designed to appeal to the least common denominator will fail in spades because the people willing to spend 4-6 hours once or twice per week gathered around a table to roleplay and engage in good-natured arguments over weapon speeds and "to hit" adjustments of customized gear aren't going to be satisfied with dull, ultra-streamlined prose and rulesets.  We're better than that and we *demand* more.


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## Morrus (May 9, 2012)

RobertSullivan said:


> Adult is not the same thing as sexual, or rather it is not limited to sexuality. It includes violence, cruelty, responsibility and other issues. It is also conveyed by the writing (somewhat different thread) and over all tone.
> 
> Give me writing at least on a 10th grade level. That will help with the adult issue. Writing on a 7th grade level makes it childish.




For me, it's nothing at all to do with the content. It's all to do with the writing style.

Play a dragonborn if:
- You want to be scaly.

...is a style of writing which doesn't just fail to engage me, it pushes me away. It says to me "You, an adult, are playing a game designed for children".

I also refuse to believe that a young teenager is bamboozled by paragraphs. I was able to handle the horror of the paragraph when I was young, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't a child prodigy or anything.


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## DimitriX (May 9, 2012)

If you're looking for a game written by adults and for adults, then look over *here*.


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## Sunseeker (May 9, 2012)

Morrus said:


> For me, it's nothing at all to do with the content. It's all to do with the writing style.
> 
> Play a dragonborn if:
> - You want to be scaly.



This is a pretty gross exggeration, and either speaks to a profound level of ignorance which someone with your prominence on this forum simply shouldn't have, or a very obnoxious level of passive-aggressive edition hating.

To quote from right under the Dragonborn statblock:
"Born to fight, dragonborn are a race of wandering mercenaries, soldiers and adventurers."
Right there we've got a lot more than just "be scaly."  But it doesn't stop there, and that was only the FIRST LINE.
"Long ago, their empire contended for worldwide domnision..."
In the first half of the SECOND line, we give players a great reason to play dragonborn: worldwide conquest.  But maybe we need more.
"...but now only a few rootless clans of these honorable warriors remain to pass on their legends of acnient glory."
Here's some GREAT matieral.  You are one of a few, perhaps the last of your kind, you can seek to rekindle your empire, make one last great mark for the Dragonborn people, or all sorts of things.  

Alright alright, there is that list that says things like:
"look like a dragon"
"be a proud heir of an ancient, fallen empire"
"breath acid, fold, fire, lightning, or poison"
"to be a member of a race that favors the warlord, fighter or paladin classes"

Alright, you get the first one.
Second one?  Nope back to the good material.
Third?  Eh, 50/50 that appeals to some people.
Fourth?  Could apply to a lot of races, but certainly gives you an idea for your character beyond "scaly".

The book then spends a FULL page going into greater detail, and there's also a short handbook of some 20 pages talking about the race.

So I'm sorry Morrus, but you either didn't bother to read the 4e PHB, or are passivly trying to start up an edition war.  Because the book does not simply say "play dragonborn if you want to be scaly."  In fact, only a tiny fragment of the written material on the Dragonborn in the PHB even references their draconic ancestry.


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## Morrus (May 10, 2012)

shidaku said:


> This is a pretty gross exggeration, and either speaks to a profound level of ignorance .... or a very obnoxious level of passive-aggressive edition ... you either didn't bother to read the 4e PHB, or are passivly trying to start up an edition war.




Let's be clear.

You are welcome to disagree with me. You are welcome to debate my opinions. You are NOT welcome to make personal attacks against me or anyone else on these forums. There are no exceptions, no matter how right you feel. 

I hope that's crystal clear. Feel free to discuss the subject without the insults or email me if you're unclear on EN World's rules.


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## herrozerro (May 10, 2012)

Morrus said:


> Let's be clear.
> 
> You are welcome to disagree with me. You are welcome to debate my opinions. You are NOT welcome to make personal attacks against me or anyone else on these forums. There are no exceptions, no matter how right you feel.  I hope that's crystal clear.




He does have a point though.  Is "play a dragonborn if you want to be scaly" in the books?


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## Libramarian (May 10, 2012)

Not quite "scaly", but the exact quote is

Play a Dragonborn if you want...

- To look like a dragon.

Which is how I might explain it if I were talking to a 6 year old.

Maybe not even. I actually would expect most 6 year olds to be able to infer from the picture of the dragonborn right there that dragonborn look like dragons and would allow them to look like a dragon if they were to choose dragonborn.


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## herrozerro (May 10, 2012)

So its true to an extent the morris has been exaggerating when he keeps using that line...


----------



## Gaming Tonic (May 10, 2012)

I am going to assume that the adult part of this whole conversation relates to the artwork because as I look over my older editions it appears that much of the actual content is bland and rather text bookish.  I think that many amazing pieces of fantasy art have been commissioned and used by TSR/WotC that were not extremely sexual.  Dragon Magazine Issue 126 is a great example of a female  looking totally amazing without wearing something inappropriate.  Dragon 108 was an example of a female in a silly outfit.  So there have been misses.  I like to be able to share the game with younger players and introduce them to the hobby but that is a lot more difficult to sell if the game is selling sex.


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## Libramarian (May 10, 2012)

yes I suppose.

The problem is the habit they got into of listing the features of each class and race in point form format. They stuck to it for every one and then the first point for dragonborn ended up coming across as particularly dumbed down.

actually this might be just as bad.

Play an elf if you want...
- to be quick, quiet, and wild.


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## Morrus (May 10, 2012)

herrozerro said:


> He does have a point though. Is "play a dragonborn if you want to be scaly" in the books?




It is not in the books; it's a little rhetoric hyperbole on the line "... if you want to look like a dragon".

A mild parody, if you will.

I'm fine with people finding that a little too hyperbolic, and you're welcome to say so; that does not excuse personal insults, however.


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## Sunseeker (May 10, 2012)

Morrus said:


> It is not in the books; it's a little rhetoric hyperbole on the line "... if you want to look like a dragon".
> 
> I'm fine with people finding that a little too hyperbolic, and you're welcome to say so; that does not excuse personal insults, however.




Perhaps we should extend that rule to editions, because summing up everything 4e says on dragonborn as "if you want to be scaly" is hyperbole to the point of insulting.  As you said yourself, you are free to disagree, but there is a lot more content to dragonborn than "if you want to be scaly", so if you disagree, I would appreciate that disagreement be based on its merits, not absurd hyperbole.


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## ExploderWizard (May 10, 2012)

herrozerro said:


> So its true to an extent the morris has been exaggerating when he keeps using that line...




Not by very much. A strong dislike for the tone of the writing is simply that. It is a separate issue from the content of the rules. A game is entertainment, and in entertainment presentation matters. If the presentation ticks you off then that puts a bad taste in your mouth for the actual content. 

When writing an rpg product, don't underestimate your audience. Chances are good that the children interested enough to read the rulebook in the first place are capable of reading on an adult level. If the reading expands the vocabulary of the reader so much the better. Education is a good thing and not to be purposefully avoided merely because the content is supposed to fun. Education and fun are not mutually exclusive.


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## Gaming Tonic (May 10, 2012)

shidaku said:


> Perhaps we should extend that rule to editions, because summing up everything 4e says on dragonborn as "if you want to be scaly" is hyperbole to the point of insulting.  As you said yourself, you are free to disagree, but there is a lot more content to dragonborn than "if you want to be scaly", so if you disagree, I would appreciate that disagreement be based on its merits, not absurd hyperbole.




There is a lot more content in the PHB, and the many supplements, articles, etc. that have followed.  It is silly to think that anybody would state all that has been put out about 4E and it is clear what was meant by the "scaly" comment.  Not everyone uses the dragonborn background, origin, racial history, etc., but I bet in almost every game they have scales.  Morrus was saying there is no reason to be rude or insulting, which the comments he responded to were.  The absurd is not getting along as a community when we are already a small group and not showing each other any respect.


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## Ranes (May 10, 2012)

Let's all nibble on a chill munchie. Morrus had a basis - simply in terms of 4e copy - for what he said but the way he paraphrased it left him vulnerable to accusations of editionism, perhaps because it could be said to have been a tad glib. However, let's also keep some perspective. When it comes to people being passive aggressive about edition preference, Morrus is definitively not that guy. Everything he does in relation to this website and forum speaks to that.

So there's no call for any kind of Mexican standoff. Indeed, to borrow a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is never a bad idea:

"Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who. This is supposed to be a happy occasion."


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## Sunseeker (May 10, 2012)

Alright lets put it this way.

Some people want to play tree-loving folks with pointy ears for no other reason than the fact that they love trees and pointy ears.
Some people want to play scaly dragon-people for no other reason than they think that's cool.

While I disagree with Morrus's feelings about 4e writing as I feel he is taking from an _incredibly_ limited selection of the text, the fault here is not 4e's.  All 4e has done by creating these bullet points for races and classes is acknowledged the different reasons people may want to play that race.  These reasons existed _long_ before they were made into bullet-points and listed in the 4e PHB.

Some people have always liked to play elves for no other reason than they like pointy ears.  Some people have always liked to play dwarves because they love the "fat beared drunk" stereotype.  Some people have always liked to play halflings because they like the idea of a character who is not an adventurer by nature but is perhaps too curious for their own good.

Some folks play humans because they want to play an idealized representation of themselves in the game world, and be a hero where they cannot be one in real life.

Some folks just like scales.  4e acknowledged that there are different reasons that people play different classes.  Some of them are deep, some of them aren't.  We can't honestly expect people to only play races on the basis of some deep psychological attachment to the concept.

Some folks just like dragons.  Given that this is Dungeons and *Dragons*, nobody should find that the least bit surprising, especially not the fact that some folks want to find a way to play one.


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## Libramarian (May 10, 2012)

shidaku said:


> Alright lets put it this way.
> 
> Some people want to play tree-loving folks with pointy ears for no other reason than the fact that they love trees and pointy ears.
> Some people want to play scaly dragon-people for no other reason than they think that's cool.
> ...



Oh of course. The idea of wanting to play a dragonborn to look like a dragon, or to play an elf to be quick, quiet, and wild is not in itself weird.

Acknowledging that in the PHB -- presenting it as advice on how to choose a race -- is weird. It serves no purpose. Just describe what the races are like in regular paragraphs, and let people formulate their own reasons for preferring one over the other.


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## Sunseeker (May 10, 2012)

Libramarian said:


> Oh of course. The idea of wanting to play a dragonborn to look like a dragon, or to play an elf to be quick, quiet, and wild is not in itself weird.
> 
> Acknowledging that in the PHB -- presenting it as advice on how to choose a race -- is weird. It serves no purpose. Just describe what the races are like in regular paragraphs, and let people formulate their own reasons for preferring one over the other.




I disagree.  Sometimes I have trouble choosing a race, and a suggestive sentence emphasizing a particular attribute of a race that I may not have considered can be helpful.  And it's not like it took up a particularly large amount of space, and it did cover a fairly wide range of reasons for playing a dragonborn in those lines.

I don't feel it was _necessary_, but I don't agree that it's weird or useless.

And in any case, contrary to Morrus' absurd hyperbole, the PHB did spend a good half a page expounding upon the Dragonborn(and every other race), then there is of course, the additional material found in the Dragonborn racial book.


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## renau1g (May 10, 2012)

Blackwarder said:


> I'd like to have the core rule books written for adults.




[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo]Children - YouTube[/ame]


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## Libramarian (May 10, 2012)

We are thinking of the children. Many of us think they would also prefer a book written for adults.


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## Hussar (May 10, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Most people don't recognize the difference, because they haven't bothered to learn.  It's not all that useful of a skill, unless you write.  However, most people can *sense* the difference between, say, newspaper writing and something a bit more or less engaging.  For example, very few people tolerate fiction written at an 8th grade level.  Heck, most 8th graders can't even stand it.  (That would be around age 14 for you folks not in the USA.)
> 
> Furthermore, it is perfectly possible to write "convoluted" material that says nothing in particular, and not because of the grade level.  Universities are full of it, as are many marketing pamphlets.
> 
> ...




Pulled this one out while perusing the thread.

Umm, J. K. Rowlings would like to have a word with you.  As would Stephen King and pretty much most mainstream novelists.  Because most of them?  Yup, 8th grade reading level. 

/edit 

Phew, finally pushed through.

Ok, first off.  If you want D&D Next to be written at the level of Young Adult Fiction, you would be okay with graphic representations of rape, sex, substance abuse, and a variety of other elements because I can guarantee you that a 30 second perusal of your local library's Young Adult Fiction (13 yo to 20 ish) section will find novels with every one of those.  

The days of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are a LONG way behind us.  Let's not forget that The Hunger Games is a YA fiction novel about children being forced to murder other children for the entertainment of the masses.  D&D has NEVER been written to this level.  The old World of Darkness books would be considered YA fiction now.  

Eight grade reading level?  Insulting to readers?  Yeah right.  It's pretty obvious you folks haven't been reading a whole lot of YA fiction for a long time.  

Do we really want D&D to be this graphic?  I'd go so far to say that YA is too much.  We should be writing for a more family audience.  

Now, as far as language goes, I'd peg an 8th grade reading level at about right.  Most mainstream novels are written at about this level of complexity.  You can certainly encapsulate any concepts you care to talk about within that framework without any real difficulty.  When you start getting higher up, all you do is make it more opaque, not more informative, or even more interesting.  There's a reason Steven King routinely sells millions of copies and someone like James Joyce doesn't.  The books are accessible without being too simplistic.


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## pemerton (May 10, 2012)

Tsuga C said:


> I started with the Basic Set in 1979 when I was a 12 year-old Tolkien-o-phile and then quickly moved on to AD&D in 1980.  The 1E books were written by adult wargamers for a literate demographic of bright high schoolers and college students.  I still have my near-pristine PHB, MM, DMG, D&D, and FF.  Why did I keep them all of these years even though my actual playing of D&D waned considerably?
> 
> Two reasons: 1) AD&D was an important childhood touchstone; 2) the books were aimed at an educated, reasonably sophisticated demographic, not a grabasstic hoard of zit-popping button mashers.  From time to time I still pull out one or more of my books and read through them for sake of entertainment and nostalgia because they were *that* well written.  The same cannot be said of the lifeless dreck WotC churned out for 4E.



Maybe I'm just a zit-popping button masher, but I've never felt any desire to read (say) the AD&D Monster Manual for sheer entertainment. It's full of long lists of stats, plus multiple prose paragraphs in which are buried long lists of stats.

Here is the 4e MM entry for spectres:

Insane and unfettered by the memories of its past life, a specter exists only to snuff out the living. It appears as a ghostly, twisted apparition.​
That is as interesting and informative about a spectre as anything in the AD&D MM or the Moldvay Expert rulebook (I don't have the AD&D entry in front of me, but my recollection of it is that it mostly discusses the spectre's immunity to various weapons and spells, and the level draining effect of its touch).

Here is part of the 4e MM entry for spiders:

Spiders are sacred to the evil goddess Lolth. Long ago, before she became the Demon Queen of Spiders, Lolth was a deity of fate who wove the strands of mortal destiny; it’s said she created the art of weaving after watching spiders make their webs.​
I don't remember anything that interesting in the spider entry in the AD&D MM. (Phase spiders, the most interesting part of the entry, are barely elaborated upon.)

The only really interesting entries in the original MM that I can recall concern demons and devils (obviously!), the tribal names for orcs and hobgoblins (which in the case of orcs went on to form the basis for the holy symbols of their pantheon), and the sahuagin entry. The only problem with the sahuagin entry is that it builds up this rich social structure for a humanoid race that is niche at best. Imagine if we'd been given that sort of detail about hobgoblins, or some other more mainstream humanoid race. Perhaps something like this:

Goblins form tribes, each ruled by a chieftain. The chieftain is usually the strongest member of the tribe, though some chieftains rely on guile more than martial strength.

Hobgoblins rule the most civilized goblin tribes, sometimes building small settlements and fortresses that rival those of human construction. Goblins and bugbears, left to their own devices, are more barbaric and less industrious than hobgoblins. Bugbears are dominant in a few mixed tribes, but hobgoblins tend to rise above their more brutish cousins unless severely outnumbered.. .

Hobgoblins once had an empire in which bugbears and goblins were their servants. This empire fell to internal strife and interference from otherworldly forces—perhaps the fey, whom many goblins hate.

Hobgoblins developed mundane and magical methods for taming and breeding beasts as guards, laborers, and soldiers. They have a knack for working with wolves and worgs, and some drake breeds owe their existence directly to hobgoblin meddling. All goblins carry on this tradition of domesticating beasts.

Given their brutal magical traditions, hobgoblins might have created their cousins in ancient times: Bugbears served as elite warriors, and goblins worked as scouts and infiltrators. The disintegration of hobgoblin power led to widespread and diverse sorts of goblin tribes.​
(Which, for the curious, is from the 4e MM. And even uses "whom" rather than "who" when the grammar of the sentence calls for it. And also paragraphs.)


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## Zireael (May 10, 2012)

> Ok, first off.  If you want D&D Next  to be written at the level of Young Adult Fiction, you would be okay  with graphic representations of rape, sex, substance abuse, and a  variety of other elements because I can guarantee you that a 30 second  perusal of your local library's Young Adult Fiction (13 yo to 20 ish)  section will find novels with every one of those.
> 
> The days of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are a LONG way behind us.   Let's not forget that The Hunger Games is a YA fiction novel about  children being forced to murder other children for the entertainment of  the masses.  D&D has NEVER been written to this level.  The old  World of Darkness books would be considered YA fiction now.




You know, you are right, and those facts many of us here missed in this discussion. So it is even more silly for D&D to shy away from such elements completely.


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## Mallus (May 10, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Now, as far as language goes, I'd peg an 8th grade reading level at about right.  Most mainstream novels are written at about this level of complexity.  You can certainly encapsulate any concepts you care to talk about within that framework without any real difficulty.  When you start getting higher up, all you do is make it more opaque, not more informative, or even more interesting.  There's a reason Steven King routinely sells millions of copies and someone like James Joyce doesn't.



I'm finding this whole reading level thing deeply, and perhaps meanly, amusing. I'm with you, well-written text at an 8th grade level is fine. It's good enough for the New York Times. Also...

Recognize the passage below?

"A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

It's some of my favorite English prose. I practically tear up by the time I get to "... falling faintly and faintly falling... ". According to the Flesch-Kincaid Index, it's at an 8th grade reading level.

It's the last paragraph of "The Dead".

By James Joyce.


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## Piratecat (May 10, 2012)

I'm suddenly laughing, because I'm equating YA fiction with the new category of Supernatural Teen Romance. Can you imagine? "Play this race if you want to fall in love with a vampire that glitters."


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## Sunseeker (May 10, 2012)

Piratecat said:


> I'm suddenly laughing, because I'm equating YA fiction with the new category of Supernatural Teen Romance. Can you imagine? "Play this race if you want to fall in love with a vampire that glitters."




So, taking from YTF, we'd get themes of "Emo", with a background of "my patents make me do chores" and a class of "whatever man".  Combined with some hearty bishonen rape fantasies which are ended tragically when both parties commit suicide.

Yeah, if that's "adult" now I'll stick to my Magic Schoolbus.


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## DiomedesRex (May 10, 2012)

shidaku said:


> And in any case, contrary to Morrus' absurd hyperbole, the PHB did spend a good half a page expounding upon the Dragonborn(and every other race), then there is of course, the additional material found in the Dragonborn racial book.




Yeah, I don't have an issue with saying 'they're scaly', but it's disingenuous to imply that is _all_ that is said about the Dragonborn.


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## Mallus (May 10, 2012)

Piratecat said:


> "Play this race if you want to fall in love with a vampire that glitters."



"Play this class if you want to choose between two wonderful boyfriends and murder people on live TV".


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## Crazy Jerome (May 10, 2012)

Mallus said:


> I'm finding this whole reading level thing deeply, and perhaps meanly, amusing. I'm with you, well-written text at an 8th grade level is fine. It's good enough for the New York Times. Also...
> 
> Recognize the passage below?
> 
> "A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."




I don't remember that many phrases keeping text to a low reading level, but it has been awhile since I learned it, and perhaps the simpler vocabulary there is compensating. In any case, I'm willing to concede on the "8th grade reading level" part. I'm not willing to concede on "like a newspaper". 

Here's a link to a USA today travel section, which is the *most* flattering, non-political example I could find in a short search: World's strangest tourist attractions - USATODAY.com. A sample:
*The Gnome Reserve *
*Devon, England *
You may have seen animal reserves before, but what about a home for garden gnomes? The Gnome Reserve in Devon, England, has more than 1,000 gnomes scattered free-range-style around the park's four acres. (The antique gnomes are confined to the on-site museum.) Visitors can pose for pictures with the statues, using the provided fishing rods and gnome hats to blend in. Dogs are welcome to visit, but they must be on leashes so they don't scare the gnomes.
​It's chirpy, staccato, with just enough phrases to escape Dick and Jane alusions. It's not terrible, but it is a style written in a hurry, for a disposable medium, to be read and then tossed aside. For something in a hardback, I'd like something a little closer to Stephen King than that--not Stephen King, but merely enough of a smidgeon along that route to not remind me of newspapers. (Not writing dialog, typically, is of course going to severely restrict what can be done, and probably should.)

Edit:  It also occurs to me just now that, given the reputation of the newspapers in Great Britain, that perhaps "like a newspaper" has very different connotations for different people.  For me, it means something roughly akin to "written quickly by someone whose main skill is asking impertinent questions of people and then largely failing to grasp the answers." YMMV.


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## Mallus (May 10, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I don't remember that many phrases keeping text to a low reading level, but it has been awhile since I learned it, and perhaps the simpler vocabulary there is compensating.



It's a good example of simpler language being beautiful. Also, a classic!



> In any case, I'm willing to concede on the "8th grade reading level" part.



Heh... I brought out the big guns, Joyce! 



> I'm not willing to concede on "like a newspaper".



I don't want 5e to sound like a contemporary newspaper, either, not even the NYT. Though I'd be happy if portions channeled H. L. Mencken doing his "hoist the black flag and start slitting throats" thing (newspapers used to be cool!).  

Try this on for size: it's not the complexity of Gygax's language that explains its popularity (in some quarters). It's his _voice_. The man behind the words shines through. His rule books are written like good essays, which don't to remove the author's personality, idiosyncrasies, the "I" from the text. They aren't just instruction manuals, they're this interesting _character_ reading you an instruction manual, using language which would had been comically ill-suited for task if it didn't wind up resonating with so many people.

Lively writing with a point of view doesn't require a surfeit of complexity. It's just that Gary's did.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 10, 2012)

Mallus said:


> Try this on for size: it's not just the complexity of Gygax's language that explains its popularity (in some quarters). It's his _voice_. The man behind the words shines through. His rule books are written like good essays, which don't to remove the author's personality, idiosyncrasies, the "I" from the text. They aren't just instruction manuals, they're this interesting _character_ reading you an instruction manual, using language which would had been comically ill-suited for task if it didn't wind up resonating with so many people.




I'll gladly agree to all of that, with the additional caveat that part of what makes it interesting is that Gygax has something to say.  There is some thought behind it, and it is that thought that shines through the personality. Maybe we've gotten so jaded that it is difficult to have anything more to say about pretending to be an elf.


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## Umbran (May 10, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Ok, first off.  If you want D&D Next to be written at the level of Young Adult Fiction, you would be okay with graphic representations of rape, sex, substance abuse, and a variety of other elements because I can guarantee you that a 30 second perusal of your local library's Young Adult Fiction (13 yo to 20 ish) section will find novels with every one of those.




Reading level is about reading comprehension - grammar complexity and breadth of vocabulary.  It has *nothing* to do with the subject content of the work.  A passage at a given level could be written about unicorns and flowers, or a grisly battle scene.  

Let us not confuse "reading level" for "content appropriate for a given age", as they are not by any means the same thing.


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## technoextreme (May 10, 2012)

Mallus said:


> mplexity of Gygax's language that explains its popularity (in some quarters). It's his _voice_. The man behind the words shines through. His rule books are written like good essays, which don't to remove the author's personality, idiosyncrasies, the "I" from the text. They aren't just instruction manuals, they're this interesting _character_ reading you an instruction manual, using language which would had been comically ill-suited for task if it didn't wind up resonating with so many people.
> 
> Lively writing with a point of view doesn't require a surfeit of complexity. It's just that Gary's did.



Honestly Gygax couldn't write very well.  Most of the stuff I've read of his tended to contradict itself every other sentence which makes reading his stuff headache inducing.


Morrus said:


> I also refuse to believe that a young teenager is bamboozled by  paragraphs. I was able to handle the horror of the paragraph when I was  young, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't a child prodigy or anything.



If they write them like older editions yeah because no one in their right mind writes like that.  I was reading some old D&D book that was talking about a Dog Handler and it took me a long time to even figure out that I was reading actual rules and not fluff text.  Pathfinder has a similar problem where the rules are so poorly worded that if you had any ability to edit you could condense down three paragraphs into one.  You really couldn't make the rules any more confusing and obscure.


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## Morrus (May 10, 2012)

technoextreme said:


> Honestly Gygax couldn't write very well. Most of the stuff I've read of his tended to contradict itself every other sentence which makes reading his stuff headache inducing.
> 
> If they write them like older editions yeah because no one in their right mind writes like that. I was reading some old D&D book that was talking about a Dog Handler and it took me a long time to even figure out that I was reading actual rules and not fluff text. Pathfinder has a similar problem where the rules are so poorly worded that if you had any ability to edit you could condense down three paragraphs into one. You really couldn't make the rules any more confusing and obscure.




Gygax passed away a few years ago.  You don't need to worry about him writing 5th Edition.

Clear, evocative, _well-written_, well-indexed text is the goal to aim for here.


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## Hussar (May 11, 2012)

Morrus said:


> Gygax passed away a few years ago.  You don't need to worry about him writing 5th Edition.
> 
> Clear, evocative, _well-written_,* well-indexed* text is the goal to aim for here.




Honestly, I think the part I emphasised there is 10000 times more important than anything else.

Game designers and writers, please,

Learn to write an INDEX!


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## Hussar (May 11, 2012)

Umbran said:


> Reading level is about reading comprehension - grammar complexity and breadth of vocabulary.  It has *nothing* to do with the subject content of the work.  A passage at a given level could be written about unicorns and flowers, or a grisly battle scene.
> 
> Let us not confuse "reading level" for "content appropriate for a given age", as they are not by any means the same thing.




I was more responding to the idea that somehow writing at a, say, 8th grade level, equated with The Magic Bus or other children's stories.  It most certainly does not.  Higher level language is primarily used for academics where semantics is such a huge issue.  Use a bigger word because bigger words are frequently less ambiguous.  Use complicated sentence structures because you have very limited word count in many academic publications.

However, I most certainly don't want my D&D books written at that level.  It should never be difficult to read a rulebook.


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## technoextreme (May 11, 2012)

Morrus said:


> Gygax passed away a few years ago.  You don't need to worry about him writing 5th Edition.
> 
> Clear, evocative, _well-written_, well-indexed text is the goal to aim for here.



I guess I'm just tap toeing around the issue. I've never actually seen any evidence that any RPG books were ever evocative to start off with.  At their best they are like lollipops. Sugary and sweet without any real sense of substance to them.  Then again I'm a fairly abnormal reader.


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## Sunseeker (May 12, 2012)

technoextreme said:


> I guess I'm just tap toeing around the issue. I've never actually seen any evidence that any RPG books were ever evocative to start off with.  At their best they are like lollipops. Sugary and sweet without any real sense of substance to them.  Then again I'm a fairly abnormal reader.




The quality of evocation of any bit of writing I think really depends on how you go into the situation.  Much like the age old concept that you will always meet the kind of people you expect to find, the writing in a book will always be the sort of writing you expected.

If you expect DDN to be a dictionary, no matter how flavorful it is, you will likely see all the dictionary aspects and consider it quite encyclopedic instead of evocative.

If you expect DDN to be colorful, evocative, and flavorful, you will likely see all the color, flavor, and evocation, regardless of any attempts of it to be rulesy and encyclopedic.

Your perceptions, as always, determine your reality.


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## fuindordm (May 12, 2012)

Two examples of core rule books that were well written, evocative, stylish, and unambiguous:

Earthdawn and 7th Sea (both 1st ed.)

And one reason they stand out is because they weren't afraid to discuss the setting as part of the rules. Neither was Gary. I don't want D&D to give nearly as much detail, as its setting is more generic, but neither is it a blank slate. Talk about the classes, skills, feats, and magic in the world, not just as collections of rules.


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## Piratecat (May 13, 2012)

technoextreme said:


> I guess I'm just tap toeing around the issue. I've never actually seen any evidence that any RPG books were ever evocative to start off with.  At their best they are like lollipops. Sugary and sweet without any real sense of substance to them.  Then again I'm a fairly abnormal reader.




I think the most evocative RPG books I've ever read were Planescape. Holy crap, did those inspire me and fire my imagination.


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## Lord Mhoram (May 13, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Honestly, I think the part I emphasised there is 10000 times more important than anything else.
> 
> Game designers and writers, please,
> 
> Learn to write an INDEX!




I agree.

When DOJ was in the process of bringing out HERO system 5th, they did a poll and asked the fans did they want the book sooner, or wait an extra month (and/or add price to the book) and get a detailed index. Overwhelming vote for the index - which was 12 pages long, 3 column in normal small type for index. Really set the standard for game indexes as far as I am concerned - plus it had a great Table of Contents as well.


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## technoextreme (May 13, 2012)

fuindordm said:


> And one reason they stand out is because they weren't afraid to discuss the setting as part of the rules.



You just listed a bunch of games where the setting and the rules are intertwined.  Now show me where Dungeons and Dragons did that with its double digit settings and don't show me a setting book.


> I think the most evocative RPG books I've ever read were Planescape. Holy crap, did those inspire me and fire my imagination.



I like Planescape but I really don't like the philosophical underpinnings of that setting.  I think the fundamental problem is that there aren't many settings in D&D that didn't steal from a book or some concept which is why when I look at them they really aren't that intriguing.  Dungeons and Dragons plot has always been like WoW.  Entertaining but really schlocky.


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## Orius (May 15, 2012)

Piratecat said:


> I think the most evocative RPG books I've ever read were Planescape. Holy crap, did those inspire me and fire my imagination.




Yeah, the Planescape books had some great writing.  The tone of the books and boxed sets went a long way towards conveying the feel of the setting.    The MC appendices (especially the later ones) had some truely wonderful descriptions of the monsters.  Even the little quotes that would be peppered around in the pages of the various books were fun.  But it also kind of reflects the point I made earlier in the thread on crunch vs. flavor; the Planescape books tended to be pretty heavy on the flavor.


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## pemerton (May 15, 2012)

Piratecat said:


> I think the most evocative RPG books I've ever read were Planescape. Holy crap, did those inspire me and fire my imagination.



I think there are (at least) two different ways in which an RPG book can inspire.

It can present compelling fiction. Planescape pesonally doesn't do much for me, but I know it does something for some. For D&D(-ish) material that I find inspiring as fiction, I would put forward Dark Sun and Arcana Unearthed. These are settings and story elements the I can enjoy thinking about and imagining playing in.

The other way that an RPG book can be inspiring, I think, is to make me want to play, by giving me a good feel for the sorts of compelling episodes it might produce in play. The 4e books had this effect on me. So do the Burning Wheel books. 3E doesn't do this for me. B/X and AD&D did, but personally I found a bit of a mismatch between what they promised and what the delivered. Oriental Adventures (the AD&D version) did deliver for me: a promise of compelling play that it delivered on.

These two ways of being evocative can interrelate, because part of what can make an episode compelling in play is the story elements it involves. This is part of the explanation for why Oriental Adventures both inspired me and delivered for me. But there is much more to compelling episodes of play than just the story elements. Oriental Adventures, for example, didn't just say "family and honour matters". Nor did it just present compelling fiction in which family and honour were shown to matter. It put family and honour into the core of the PC build mechanics. (These days I'd do it a bit differently - and it's not a patch on Pendragon - but back then I was young and impressionable.)

Part of what makes 4e books evocative, for me, is that they promise compelling episodes of play, and the actual play experience then delivers.

For those for whom the mechanics are less important - whose ideal would be for the mechanics to "fade away" - then my distinction might not hold, though. Because if mechanics don't matter to you, then it may be that nothing but story elements determines whether or not an episode of play is compelling for you.



technoextreme said:


> I've never actually seen any evidence that any RPG books were ever evocative to start off with.



In my experience it depends heaavily on the book. But I would agree that the fiction in RPG books - and especially D&D books - is in general not very well written.



shidaku said:


> The quality of evocation of any bit of writing I think really depends on how you go into the situation.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



I think this elides the differences between different D&D books.

Part of why the Planescape that I have read tends to do little for me (and I'm thinking here especially Dead Gods, Infinite Staircase and the 3E Expedition to the Demonweb Pits) is because when I read it, I don't feel that a compelling play experience is being offered. The outcomes seem highly predetermined (though Infinite Staircase is perhaps not quite as egregious in this respect), and the action resolution mechanics a poor match for the situations that the players are expected to engage via their PCs.


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## Steely_Dan (May 15, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Part of why the Planescape that I have read tends to do little for me (and I'm thinking here especially Dead Gods, Infinite Staircase and the 3E Expedition to the Demonweb Pits) is because when I read it, I don't feel that a compelling play experience is being offered. The outcomes seem highly predetermined (though Infinite Staircase is perhaps not quite as egregious in this respect), and the action resolution mechanics a poor match for the situations that the players are expected to engage via their PCs.




If you haven't checked out the original 2nd Ed Planescape boxed set, I highly recommend it, there are no predetermined outcomes and the action resolution mechanics are standard D&D rules.


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## pemerton (May 15, 2012)

Steely_Dan said:


> the action resolution mechanics are standard D&D rules.



That's part of my problem. The 2nd ed AD&D rules don't promise evocative situations dealing with moral choice, allegiance, divinity etc - at least, not to me.


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## Steely_Dan (May 15, 2012)

pemerton said:


> That's part of my problem. The 2nd ed AD&D rules don't promise evocative situations dealing with moral choice, allegiance, divinity etc - at least, not to me.




Fair enough, what rules-set (action resolution mechanic) do you feel provides this?

You could always use that system to run Planescape.


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## pemerton (May 15, 2012)

Steely_Dan said:


> Fair enough, what rules-set (action resolution mechanic) do you feel provides this?
> 
> You could always use that system to run Planescape.



If I wanted to run Planescape (which personally I don't, so my opinion is probably irrelevant!), I'd look at HeroWars/Quest. Good mecanics for relationships and augments. PC build is in terms of descriptors, some of which can be broad and some narrow (so can include keywords like Primer, Sensate, etc as well as more narrow and literal descriptors like "Clueless Berk", "Worships Odin", etc). The flexibility in scene framing and in the relationship between mechanical play detail and in-fiction detail seems like it would suit a plane-hopping, planar-exploration/courier sort of game (which is at least part of the impression I get from Planescape).

A gritty Sigil game might be able to be run using Burning Wheel (some new Lifepaths might be needed). Maybe even plane hopping could be included without too much mechanical tweaking.

I personally find that 4e D&D is better than earlier versions of D&D for a certain sort of belief/allegiance oriented game, because it has a more conflict-riven cosmology more tightly integrated into a range of PC build elements and monsters/NPCs on the GM side. But I have doubts that it would do Planescape that well - at least as I understand it, Planescape is more about the planes and powers as backdrop then as antagonists/protagonists. (But maybe I'm wrong about that.)


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## Steely_Dan (May 15, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I personally find that 4e D&D is better than earlier versions of D&D for a certain sort of belief/allegiance oriented game, because it has a more conflict-riven cosmology more tightly integrated into a range of PC build elements and monsters/NPCs on the GM side.




Interesting, why do you feel it's a more conflict driven cosmology, and why do you think it's more tightly integrated into PC build elements and monsters/NPCs than previous editions?


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## pemerton (May 15, 2012)

Steely_Dan said:


> Interesting, why do you feel it's a more conflict driven cosmology



A few things. The gods, demons etc seem to me to be set up more overtly in conflict: Raven Queen vs Orcus vs Vecna vs Kas; Bane vs Gruumsh (whereas in classic D&D this is Maglubiyet and Gruumsh, both of whom are typically going to be off to the side as far as PCs are concerned); Bahamut and Dragonborn vs Asmodeus/devils and Tieflings; etc. 



Steely_Dan said:


> why do you think it's more tightly integrated into PC build elements and monsters/NPCs than previous editions?



The last example above shows one answer to this question. Dragonborn and Bahamut; Tieflings and devils; Dwarves and Moradin; Elves and Corellon - part of what makes this significant is that the older demi-human gods are not brought into the cosmological mainstream. The history of fallen empires also creates an overlay on this: the default setting is in fallen Nerath, which has an ambivalent relationship to the previous empires of Dragonborn and Tieflings, not to mention other humanoids like hobgoblins (once had an empire) and gnolls (who killed the king of Nerath).

Other features that bring in these conflicts are warlocks (with their pacts), sorcerers (with their power sources), many paragon paths and epic destinies, and even clerics and paladins - these have obviously always brought in divine allegiances, but at least I've found in 4e do this more because (i) the mechanical style of multi-classing makes it more likely that you might have a divine PC or two in the party, and (ii) with fewer gods more broadly embedded into the story elements, any given cleric is more likely to be in some sort of relationship to any given monster/NPC.

Turning to monsters and NPCs, very many are defined in relationship to gods, or primordials, or demonlords, or the Dawn War - most of the classic humanoids, for example. Sphinxes, Naga and some of the other classic "magical guardians" are retconned in this way. Dragons of course keep their links to Bahamut and Tiamat, but this is again retconned to fit into a key aspect of the Dawn War. Elementals and Giants also take on a new cosmological signficance, because of the relationship between Elemental Chaos and the order that the gods have created.

And this in turn fits into the way that the planes and cosmology are set up as objects of player protagonism, rather than backdrops to it. I'm thinking here especially some of the ideas in Worlds and Monsters, in Underdark, in the Plane Above and in Demonomicon - this feature comes through less, I think, in Manua of the Planes or The Plane Below. The Plane Above, for example, even talks about old-style Rune/Hero-Quest "Heroquesting" (under the name "Journeying into Deep Myth") - travelling into the past of the Dawn War and before to reaffirm, or perhaps transform, some feature of the cosmic order. 

I wouldn't expect everyone to read 4e in this way. It's something I hadn't anticipated about the game from the pre-release info until I read both Worlds and Monsters and the first Monster Manual, and then all these ideas for a cosmologically-based campaign (which is my preferred D&D style in any event), and the way the PC build rules seemed so strongly to support it, leapt out at me.

It's not everywhere in the game, either. A party of halfling rangers who worship Avandra and Melora don't really suggest to me cosmologicall-imbued conflict. Nor do ankhegs or giant ants as encouter elements. But even though it's a matter of degree, I have found that the difference of degree between 4e and earlier editions is fairly striking.

The only other comparable D&D experience I can think of is when Oriental Adventures first came out (1986, I think, in Australia) and it had all this stuff in it - about gods, and spirits, and clans, and honour, and PC build rules that integrated all that stuff and linked the PCs (and therefore the players into it). But (partly because 4e has volumes rather than pages!) I've found 4e richer - I'm not sure there's enough in OA to sustain years and years of play, whereas I've got 3 years out of the 4e default setting and its still going very strong. And 4e has other mechanical features, emphasising greater player protagonism and less GM force over the story, than classic AD&D OA.

Anway, just one poster's reflections!


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## Steely_Dan (May 15, 2012)

pemerton said:


> A few things. The gods, demons etc seem to me to be set up more overtly in conflict: Raven Queen vs Orcus vs Vecna vs Kas; Bane vs Gruumsh (whereas in classic D&D this is Maglubiyet and Gruumsh, both of whom are typically going to be off to the side as far as PCs are concerned); Bahamut and Dragonborn vs Asmodeus/devils and Tieflings; etc.
> 
> The last example above shows one answer to this question. Dragonborn and Bahamut; Tieflings and devils; Dwarves and Moradin; Elves and Corellon - part of what makes this significant is that the older demi-human gods are not brought into the cosmological mainstream. The history of fallen empires also creates an overlay on this: the default setting is in fallen Nerath, which has an ambivalent relationship to the previous empires of Dragonborn and Tieflings, not to mention other humanoids like hobgoblins (once had an empire) and gnolls (who killed the king of Nerath).
> 
> ...





Cool, I can dig it, and thanks for posting your reflections without any passive-aggressive, anti-pre-4th Ed cosmology bashing.

I think both the Great Wheel/Planescape and World Axis cosmology are great, but as I am currently running a Planescape campaign, I have used the World Axis cosmology to add to/enrich my Planescape campaign. 

I very much like the dwarf/giant, and formorian/gnome deal.  The Shadowfell enhances the Plane of Shadow/Ravenloft.  Feywild has good ideas for The Plane of Faerie/Seelie Court/Tir Na Nog.  I also love Torog. 

I could go on, but you get the idea.


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## pemerton (May 15, 2012)

Steely_Dan said:


> I could go on, but you get the idea.



Sounds like good stuff.

I've been running bits and pieces of H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth over the course of my 4e campaign. That is set in old minotaur ruins. And one thing I've introduced, beginning more-or-less spontaneously in an early session but then building on it over time, is that the dwarves, after they freed themselves from the giants, were "pupils" of the minotaurs - so the dwarf PC sees echoes of dwarven style and architecture in the ancient minotaur hauls, minotaur weapons, etc.

Besides putting a bit of an ambivalent sheen on that PC's culture - which I like in itself, because it gives the players some more material to work with than just loving beer and hating goblins and giants - it also makes the subsequent fall of the minotaurs, and their turning to Baphomet and Orcus and other dark forces, a bit more poignant. Maybe the same thing could happen to the dwarves!

As far as the Great Wheel goes, I've never really run it as written. In old Rolemaster games (but very heavily D&D influenced in everything but mechanics) I have used the inner/outer planes distinction (although with a fused ethereal/astral plane). For me it has a different vibe from what I'm doing with 4e, but I like the feel of astral/ethereal travel, and especially like charonadaemons. I've got a lot of good mileage out of them in two high level RM campaigns, and out of astral/ethereal travel more generally. I like the idea that your thoughts/desires are what influences your travel. Particularly in a high level Oriental campaign with strong Buddhist/Taoist "take control of your mind to pierce the veils of illusion" tropes, the astral/ethereal plane and travelling on it under the direction of thought figured fairly prominently.


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## Herschel (May 15, 2012)

Blackwarder said:


> it's partially that it's more like a manual rather than a feeling it's one guy telling another about a cool game he's playing but it's mainly things like:
> "play a dragonborn if you want...
> to look like a dragon.
> to breath fire.
> ...




I though that was a good addition to make the game/book accessible to kids/new players which are VERY important to the future of the game/product line. We "adults" don't need a 'Play a Dragonborn if you want a STR/CHA stat combo for a balanced Paladin or a Thaneborn Barbarian or Dragon Sorcerer in our upcoming releases.'

I would have liked to see a few more prose sections between the sections just to make for some nice reading, but that's just a fluff addition.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 15, 2012)

This is probably peculiar to my tastes and the handful that share them, but the kind of "objects of player protagonism" pemerton is discussing above resonates for me as one of the main keys to creating the flavor of some of the stories that I happen to like.  This rather primordial, elemental, ancient, but still personal, emnity matters in the works of E.R.R. Eddison (e.g. "The Worm Ouroboros"), the more serious Poul Anderson fantasy (e.g. "The Kingdom of Ys"), even Jack Vance's "Lyonesse" trilogy. In some of their better works, even someone not really wired that way, like Harry Turtledove or Harry Harrison, can edge into it, despite their limitations as writers.  

You'll get references to that kind of things from all types of fantasy writers, and that might be enough to spark someone to run with it.  That seems to be Raymond Feist's usual starting point, for example.  It'd be easy enough for me to take Midkemia as a setting at a particular point, and then supply my own "objects of player protagonism" that are evoked by Feist's world, but rarely are his villains a good template for that.  They are often too impersonal.  In the Kingdom of Ys, however, there are *minor* characters that I could lift out wholesale and use in this manner.


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## Herschel (May 15, 2012)

pemerton said:


> A few things. The gods, demons etc seem to me to be set up more overtly in conflict: Raven Queen vs Orcus vs Vecna vs Kas; Bane vs Gruumsh (whereas in classic D&D this is Maglubiyet and Gruumsh, both of whom are typically going to be off to the side as far as PCs are concerned); Bahamut and Dragonborn vs Asmodeus/devils and Tieflings; etc.
> 
> The last example above shows one answer to this question. Dragonborn and Bahamut; Tieflings and devils; Dwarves and Moradin; Elves and Corellon - part of what makes this significant is that the older demi-human gods are not brought into the cosmological mainstream. The history of fallen empires also creates an overlay on this: the default setting is in fallen Nerath, which has an ambivalent relationship to the previous empires of Dragonborn and Tieflings, not to mention other humanoids like hobgoblins (once had an empire) and gnolls (who killed the king of Nerath).
> 
> ...





Must spread XP but repeated for emphasis. I'm pretty much in lock step with you on this.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (May 15, 2012)

DracoDruid said:


> Here in germany, we have naked boobs in the ads and its no big deal.




I live in Bulgaria and the local newspaper often have large images of naked women on the back page. Pity I can barely read the language. 

Anyway, sex and violence are not the same thing as adult



Morrus said:


> For me, it's nothing at all to do with the content. It's all to do with the writing style.




This is true and I admit independent of grade-reading level. However, lower grade levels are tacitly insulting, in much the same way the line to parody is a bit insulting a patronizing.


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