TRPG General Chat

9:01 PM

also this one providing info about the Forgotten Realms (and some style elements), though I don't know its officiality: adventurersleague.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/…

BESW

Discord server for Songs for the Dusk playtesting.

V2Blast

mostly a note to self to update my answer to this question:

32

Q: What is the proper way to style references to D&D game elements?

(Preface: I'm not looking to establish an official formatting style we, on this stack, must adhere to. This is for my own personal writing consistency when writing on the topic of 5e.) I've been doing some writing on the topic of 5th edition in my spare time, and have run into a few instances wh...

dnd-5e

Rubiksmoose

9:14 PM

@V2Blast man I just came here to ping you about that (from that thread)

BESW

[squint] Chicago on gender neutrality. really.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW Apparently my friend is going to do her first online game with Mysty DMing over discord.

(I find this out after forwarding her that thread)

BESW

Ooh, cool!

Rubiksmoose

yeah I'm excited for her!

trogdor

ah cool

BESW

9:21 PM

@V2Blast Omigosh "females." Dear Wizards: you're still at least a decade behind the curve.

Points for the serial comma. Points off for italicizing non-English.

Hands up everyone who's ever seen any edition of D&D "overuse" cross-references.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW XD

BESW

...WIZARDS. NO. Page number references are not artisinally hand-crafted and if your publisher says they are you need to get a different publisher.

Any modern publishing software can handle that easily. I did it for an SBA manual two months ago.

Oh, yeah, you have rules about not calling dwarves women, and italicizing non-English words, but unspoken dialogue can be formatted however the author feels like.

> Teamwork and friendship are a huge part of what makes D&D distinct as a brand. [...] When in doubt, think about properties like the Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. If a situation would seem out of place there, it probably doesn’t belong in D&D.

yes, because when I think about Game of Thrones, I think about the power of friendship.

5

Rubiksmoose

@BESW hahaha that statement is so so bad in that context.

@BESW obviously in GoT friendship means something different. And by different I mean pointy and/or burny.

BESW

Welp, that style guide was terrible. CHICAGO. REALLY.

Wizards' (sorry, Wizards's) rules about fractions are dumb.

Rubiksmoose

9:39 PM

Just from reading the last few minutes, it seems like many of their rules are dumb.

BESW

> “Man,” “woman,” and their plurals are reserved for describing humans only. For example, we write “female dwarf,” not “dwarf woman” or “woman dwarf.” This rule can be broken in dialogue and first-person narrative.

NOT EVEN THE PEOPLE IN THEIR SETTING THINK THAT'S A GOOD IDEA.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW woooooooooooow.

that. is. awful.

And most importantly, I don't see where the heck that decision even came from. Where is the reason, logical or otherwise, that lead to that being the choice they decided to codify?

BESW

Probably the same reason they're using Chicago's rules for gender neutrality.

> See Chicago 5.225 for tips on achieving gender-neutral language. Use “he or she” sparingly, and avoid “he/she” and “s/he” altogether.
Don’t use “they” or “their” as singular pronouns, except in an informal context like dialogue. And don’t alternate between “he” and “she” in an attempt to be inclusive.
In rules text, we often achieve gender neutrality by writing in the second person.

@Rubiksmoose Seriously though, there's a common thread in the style guide of making bad choices that seem to be only because they don't respect their readership. In this case, they're probably trying to avoid "but it says 'man' and that means 'human'" RAW debates by.... making it true.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW I'm at a loss as to even speculate what that reason is within the bounds of Being Nice.

trogdor

@BESW yes, multiple

@BESW XD yeah no, I think about people murdering each other for dumb reasons

BESW

9:46 PM

@trogdor Really? You've ever thought "Gee, I wish this manual would stop telling me which page has more details about that rule it just mentioned."?

trogdor

@BESW oh I thought you meant the opposite

Rubiksmoose

(even 5e's index is bad at giving page numbers for its topics and that is its only job)

trogdor

IE that they have really bad indications of where things are

BESW

> Use cross-references judiciously. They are useful tools that can be easily overused.

WHEN HAVE YOU EVER HAD THAT PROBLEM, WIZARDS.

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, the index effort was underfunded/underresourced. hand to forehead

trogdor

9:47 PM

I realize you just meant that you can't tell people too much,... where something is

so I just read it wrong

@BESW yeah my mistake

BESW

> We avoid page references as much as possible. They are labor-intensive (they must be added by hand during galley review), and they invite error.

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast at this point since you're leaving similar/repetitive comments on multiple answers in the collection post, I think it'd be best if you open it as a separate meta (rather than the disagreement ranging all over the page in a disjointed way). The argument that following different conventions on meta vs. mainsite might be a bad example is an interesting one that I think needs more and better space than some answers' comment sections.

trogdor

@BESW wow the drugs, all the drugs they are on

Rubiksmoose

@KorvinStarmast yeah they clearly gave that job to the intern at 5pm on a Friday with a due date of Monday morning.

nitsua60

@BESW Srsly! Publishing software in the mid-90s could do it, even.

Rubiksmoose

9:50 PM

@BESW Well I'm certainly glad they disinvited errors from the books!

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Please give me 24 hours to decide if I feel that is a good use of my time. Why? When I raised my objection to new user treatment - in advance by some months of SE PTB agreeing with my position -- I discovered that it was a waste of time to tilt at the embeeded SE veterans on that topic. I suspect similar response now.

The suggestion to raise that on a meta was made in meta by two veterans. Once bitten, perhaps twice shy.

trogdor

@Rubiksmoose I don't know about errors but they do have some things they don't explain well in the book, like how casting spells works, or more accurately what happens after you use a spell up

Rubiksmoose

@trogdor That's fine though. Spellcasting is a really minor part of the game anyways and very simple. /s

trogdor

I had to have the group explain to me how spell slots work in 5e because it is trying very hard not to be either 3.5 or 4e

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast Fairy 'nuff.

trogdor

9:53 PM

and while I think I like they way it works,... they could have actually put an explanation of that in the entry of each class that casts spells

BESW

trogdor

@Rubiksmoose yes of course, very minor and simple yes

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 PS, I got a big grin last night as I read the credits page for Salt Marsh. :)

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast Did they put us in!?

Rubiksmoose

@trogdor yup clearly a low-priority system to debug. Just do what I do and make up spells and effects on the spot. Never look up spellcasting rules again! Add chaos and fun to every session!

KorvinStarmast

9:55 PM

@nitsua60 Yes. :)

trogdor

@Rubiksmoose oh god no XD

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast Oh, well now my vanity demands I pick one up. I was (unreasonably, and ashamedly) annoyed when they didn't include testers' names in the Waterdeep books, and didn't think to check GGtR or GoS.

Anyone with Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica handy want to tell me if the credits page has (100 or so) playtesters listed?

BESW

Good things about the style guide: it's clear and easy to understand. They know their syntax is esoteric and non-intuitive so they specify things like "rolling with advantage" vs "having advantage on a roll." They provide simple non-edge-case examples of almost every rule.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 I have a post for you in back room

@Rubiksmoose I have asked the players in my Thursday games to make sure they review their spells before play. The barbarian and fighter players - they laugh. "hahaha, we don't have to do homework, you silly spell casters do!" Made me grin. Interestingly, those two guys were the first two DMs I ever had back when dirt was recent ...

BESW

They use the serial comma (I'm an advocate of contextual comma choices and re-phrasing for clarity, but if you need one rule for all occasions the serial comma is it). They call it the serial comma. They advocate for contractions except where it would cause confusion, and specify a set of contractions which are almost always non-confusing. They require that lists be clearly introduced and explained.

KorvinStarmast

10:07 PM

@nitsua60 Was the credit thing to do with an unsavory kerfluffle thing regarding one of the creative types who contributed and later people made note of some not nice things? (Mayber this is a Not A Bar topic?)

user15026

@BESW okay the more I read about this style guide the more I want to mash my face into some sandpaper

BESW

@Ash It's not all bad. But what's bad is emblematic of the problems which run through the whole franchise.

user15026

@BESW That's kinda the impression I got, like this style guide just codifies the already present issues instead of addressing them

BESW

> A non-English word, whether from the real world or a D&D world, is italicized when used as a word.

Buddy. Pal. Sweetheart. We need to talk.

user15026

I...oh, you sweet cinnamon rolls

trogdor

10:23 PM

@BESW um, so everything?

literally everything?

BESW

@trogdor Well, I mean... yes, technically, but that's not even the problem.

Why We Don't Italicize Spanish

►

trogdor

ahhh ok

I see the issue there yeah

very very good explaination

BESW

"The format is meant to be used for clarity, to indicate to a reader that she hasn’t come across a typo or an English word she doesn’t know." Which assumes that the reader is (a) unable to figure that out on their own, so maybe you should edit for clarity or stop assuming your reader's an idiot; and (b) unfamiliar with any language except English.

trogdor

like literally using the visual of him being in different clothes and a different posture and doing a different thing all to emphasize the weird emphasis put on another language, I saw immediately what the problem was

BESW

Yeah, Older is pretty great.

Shalvenay

10:27 PM

on a different note, this video had me imagining tiny little fey creatures wielding sprite-scaled machine guns....

Watchmaker's Perfect Miniature MG08 Maxim

►

Carcer

@BESW I mean, they are writing in english, and native english speakers are pretty notorious for not learning other languages.

BESW

This whole "italicizing to signal non-English" thing is a major question that many of my clients wrestle with; it's so common in American texts that a lot of Pasifika authors just do it because it's the standard they see. It seems like one of the signifiers of "real" writing.
The editors and publishers I like to work with talk to the authors about audience and intentionality, and help them figure out if that italic is really reflecting their goals as an author, or if they just thought it's what authors do.

@Carcer Except elven.

Carcer

heh

trogdor

@BESW I actually see this at work too, not this specific thing I mean but doing things American equivalents do because,... they do it

not that this isn't America either but you know

we could have our own system here for stuff

especially because Guam has it's own language even if the majority speaks English

BESW

It's about expectations, othering, normalizing, and how formatting choices make declarations about who the text is for. The D&D style guide shows a lot of care and thought about handling their in-house creations, but general disregard for how their choices interact with the outside world.

user15026

10:36 PM

@BESW I really need to read more of his work.

trogdor

and it's a little weird if our textbooks here,... italicize Chamorro

BESW

@Ash I keep trying to read his books at points where I'm really not in the right brainspace for it.

trogdor

considering that I now know what the issue with that is

user15026

@BESW I read Shadowshaper and liked it, but he kinda just...fell out of my head.

BESW

@trogdor That's one reason I really liked working with Storyboard from 2013 to 2015. The editorial board was super into this kind of thoughtful intentionality.

They stopped requiring that all submissions be translated into English, they stopped requiring glosses, they consulted with authors on italicization, they got me language experts to make sure I was doing the Indigenous orthographies properly, they worked with me every year to modify the magazine's whole layout to make it a friendlier space for the kinds of submissions they were getting.

Rubiksmoose

10:41 PM

5e question: my friend is going to play a sorcerer. She likes divine and draconic bloodline. I vaguely remember one of those maybe being a bit of a trap mechanically. Anybody have mechanical advice between the two?

trogdor

@BESW that was the book you worked on right? the one they had an event at Two Lovers Point for?

BESW

@trogdor No, that was I Atfabeton Chamorro, the one being organized by A Guy From Boston who I had to introduce to various local experts so he'd understand what sort of project he was actually in charge of. Storyboard is the UOG literary magazine.

trogdor

@BESW ooooh ok

I never read that even when I went to UOG so I didn't know the name

I was a little busy either working on classes or falling apart so

XD

BESW

That's fair.

Storyboard is still going, but its editorial board was replaced with a single editor and the magazine's implementation is significantly different now.

BTW, if you look at the recent popular history of italicizing non-English words, it derives from British nobles going on hedonistic vacations (or Doing A War) across Europe and to the Colonies and coming back with a smattering of foreign vocabulary; using the vocabulary in public and being able to understand short foreign phrases in your reading material, was a sign of wealth and class.

They actually DID effectively italicize it in their own casual speech, because it wasn't a casual effect of multilingualism, it was a performance. And novels that were by, for, and about those kinds of people, did the same.

user15026

.....rich white people, making messes of everything :/

user15026

10:50 PM

(I remember arguing with a Creative Writing prof who wanted me to italicize words in my fantasy novel. She also wanted me to write out the dialects, like how the trolls get written in WoW and I hate that.)

user15026

(The fantasy novel also never got done because when I was ready to start wrapping the story up she told me it "wasnt' long enough" and to add more stuff and I got so mad I just threw it in a drawer and refused to touch it ever)

BESW

@Ash Right, because fantasy means epic door-stopper.

user15026

Apparently. :/

Shalvenay

@Ash yeah, I have a character I do that on actually, and her near uninteligibility has become a running gag

BESW

@Shalvenay "MUCKLE DAMRED CULTI 'AIR EH NAMBLIES BE KEEPIN' ME WEE MEN!?!?"

@Ash We can't all be Ursula Vernon writing Digger. Sometimes we're Ursula Vernon writing Nurk.

Shalvenay

10:58 PM

@BESW yeah, about that extreme

user15026

@BESW And there's nothing wrong with that! I love both.

BESW

@Ash See also: MURDERBOT MURDERBOT MURDERBOT.

Oh, and Binti.

Sometimes novella is exactly the right shape for your story.

user15026

(At Ruhi last week we were talking about graphic novels and I said I had to get them in hard copy or I had trouble reading them and mentioned how sometimes that was a problem and then someone asked why and I brought Digger out and she was just like "THATS A LOT OF BOOK")

BESW

Yes. Yes, it is.

trogdor

@BESW ah wow

Shalvenay

11:01 PM

@Ash yeah, and I'm sitting here waiting for book four in a nine volume set (never mind that I'll need to get the new edition of volumes 1-3 when that comes out)

BESW

@trogdor It's worth noting that at the time there was also more actual casual multilingualism going around. But... you can tell the difference when you look at which books were for/about which audiences.

Carcer

my cat continues to flirt with danger by trying to get out of the window again

after the last time, this involves squeezing under a net

trogdor

@BESW ah fair enough

user15026

@Carcer very determined cat!

Carcer

he's a very daft cat is what he is

last time he got out we couldn't find him for six weeks

right. after that adrenaline it's time to sleep

BESW

11:06 PM

Carcer

trogdor

@Carcer one of my cats likes to escape through the gate in the backyard, and he has gotten lost in our neighborhood multiple times for three days

user15026

@Carcer very helpful kitty :P

trogdor

I'm so glad my cats can't reach my laptop

@Ash :(

V2Blast

those sentences are about different things, though I still agree that GoT doesn't really fit:
"lements of humor or tragedy are fine, so long as they are true to the facts of the brand and don’t overtake the general tone. When in doubt, think about properties like the Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. If a situation would seem out of place there, it probably doesn’t belong in D&D. For instance, there are moments of humor with the hobbits, but ring wraiths aren’t used for gags."

trogdor

11:18 PM

@BESW Murderbot is gooooood

Miniman

@Rubiksmoose Both of those are fine.

user15026

@trogdor 10000% agree

Miniman

...at least as far as being a trap is concerned, I'm not saying the design of divine soul sorcerer is fine.

trogdor

@Ash well I 20000% agree so there

XD

BESW

@V2Blast Context is an attempt to provide a coherent concept of their brand image in a single sidebar, which attempt contains obvious and un-addressed contradictions. Being in two separate paragraphs doesn't make them unrelated; the idea is being built up. If they didn't mean for GoT to be a general touchstone they shouldn't have put it as an example in the concluding paragraph.

The medium is the massage.

V2Blast

11:21 PM

agreed

Hot RPG Questions

3

Q: Can a wizard copy a spell without first identifying it?

Let's say a Wizard finds a trove of spell scrolls. Rather than spending an hour per scroll identifying and then additional time and money copying it into their spellbook, can they simply copy the spell into their spellbook? And, if so, would the act of copying identify it?

dnd-5e spells magic-items wizard

BESW

Per above, the style guide provides examples of common pitfalls of the franchise; in this case, an inability to actually express a coherent brand image because they are trying to meet too many brand goals at once.

user15026

I feel like they're trying to be so much and they kinda trip over a lot of it

user15026

(Mind you D&D requires so much....stuff and knowledge and looking things up and dice and numbers and stats that my brain just shuts down)

trogdor

@Ash the weirdest thing is that some people apparently don't even want that to change, they apparently like that ridiculously confusing layout

BESW

11:26 PM

A big part of their challenge is that they're owned by a company that expects more out of a brand than an RPG can reasonably provide. To compensate they're doubling down on the cultural impression that D&D is the only RPG, capable of accommodating every player and play style.

And that's exacerbated by the fact that the one time they tried providing an edition with a narrow focus on a single well-executed play experience, it was memetically awful (Fourth Edition).

Rubiksmoose

@Miniman cool thanks!

trogdor

@BESW that's just so wrong too

@BESW :(

BESW

@trogdor I know, I know. But memes trump facts.

Their early goals for Fifth Edition, that it would be One Edition to Bring Them All And In The Franchise Bind Them, are clearly an over-response to panic that Fourth Edition had driven everyone into the arms of Paizo.

Carcer

@BESW in fairness my overall impression of feeling was that 4E was good at what it was trying to be, but that what it was trying to be was not what (many/most) people wanted

Miniman

@Rubiksmoose I think some people say divine soul is a trap because it has access to an insane number of spells, but only a very limited number of spells known. But that's ridiculous, because there's plenty of useless spells on the base sorcerer list - you can make yourself useless just as easily with one list as two. Moreso, really, because the sorcerer list has witch bolt in it.

BESW

11:31 PM

@Carcer Isn't that what I just said?

V2Blast

@Carcer yeah, that's what I've heard. it's relatively good at what it does, but substantially different from previous editions.

Carcer

@BESW drawing a distinction between someone saying it is awful and saying it's not what they want

Rubiksmoose

@Miniman that makes sense. Maybe that is what I was thinking of?

trogdor

I'm not personally convinced everyone who didn't "want" 4e gave it half a chance

Rubiksmoose

I know that even the traps in 5e are less trappy than 3.5 of course

Carcer

11:33 PM

okay actually going to bed now

BESW

@Carcer Yes, exactly. I said it offers "a single well-executed play experience" which was "memetically awful." That doesn't mean it was bad. It means the zeitgeist panned it.

I don't know what distinction you're trying to add.

Miniman

@Rubiksmoose Also, no sorcerer option that causes new, enthusiastic players to not pick wild magic can be defined as a trap.

trogdor

@Carcer that's also fair, but I think there was a vocal minority who were clamoring to just burn 4e to the ground because it was "too MMO" or wtv other weird things they found wrong with it

BESW

Very very little of the popular discourse on 4e was refined enough to draw a distinction between "I don't like this" and "This is terrible."

trogdor

People are allowed not to be interested or not to like something, what gets me about 4e is exactly what @BESW mentioned, people went out of thier way to declare it bad and I think that's a large part of it's lack of success

V2Blast

11:36 PM

@BESW It's not clear that "memetically awful" means that without explanation - and you said they tried to make a single well-executed played experience, which doesn't necessarily mean that they succeeded :P

BESW

7 mins ago, by BESW

@trogdor I know, I know. But memes trump facts.

trogdor

@V2Blast they did though

user15026

5e just feels like it is trying to be all things to all people and for me it just ends up feeling like no things to no people because you have to do so much work to get it to be a thing

trogdor

@Ash I actually feel like it's a better 3.5,.... But that's not saying too much

Glazius

@V2Blast Well, yes, all human projects are doomed to failure and decay. The striving toward the well-executed played experience must, in the end, be enough.

trogdor

11:38 PM

It definitely didn't pull off all things to all people status

user15026

@trogdor I don't really remember the few times I played 3.5

V2Blast

@Glazius lol

Rubiksmoose

@Miniman hahaha we have one player at our table that hates the theme of WMS and has begged the other players not to play it. And I don't disagree (but mostly because it flawed)

BESW

@Ash All my fond memories of 3.5 are exclusively about the people I played with, not the system we were using. By contrast I have pleasant memories of Fourth Edition as a system.

trogdor

@Ash that's fair enough, it's definitely different, but it's feel to me is very "more polished 3.5 with some 4e stitched on to it like a cruel joke"

Rubiksmoose

11:40 PM

@BESW Well, see that is where you are confused. Clearly, everything I don't like is terrible. And anybody who disagrees is just wrong.

user15026

@BESW that's an important difference I think

BESW

trogdor

Part of that is just me being bitter about what happened to 4e but it's also sad that they took good ideas from 4e and didn't implement them as well and gave no credit to where they got the ideas from first

Rubiksmoose

@BESW XD

trogdor

@BESW I mean I think I had some amount of fun in the 3.5 system,... But not a lot

There were definitely a lot of roadblocks they hadn't needed to put up

And the fun did come primarily from the group

BESW

11:43 PM

@trogdor I got a few dopamine hits from system mastery, but that's not fun. That's just mouse-with-a-lever-learns-not-to-get-shocked.

Miniman

@Rubiksmoose I've found it's especially appealing to exactly the kind of players who shouldn't be using something that out-of-the-box-crappy.

Like witch bolt, actually.

trogdor

@BESW that's fair

Shalvenay

@Miniman why is witch bolt so maligned btw?

BESW

Not saying you couldn't possibly have had actual fun with the system! Just that personally I sometimes felt rewarded by the system but not actually like the system was fun for me.

user15026

@BESW I feel like my brain knows where this is from

trogdor

11:47 PM

@BESW yeah I didn't think you were saying that. But even when we were playing it I was at least thinking about how hard it was to compete in that system with other players (Because yeah that's practically part of the system) and how some classes are just screwed from the get-go

BESW

@Ash I've linked it to you before?

It's from Jay Foreman's "very silly educational videos."

trogdor

The most fun I had with the system itself was in picking out a nice thematic character

But when it came to performance that usually sucked and then was less fun to play

Miniman

@Shalvenay Because it sucks.

Shalvenay

@Miniman ah, it's the concentration + range thing needed to hold it on a target that makes it so awful

user15026

@BESW Yes okay I remember, I like their Unfinished London videos.

Miniman

11:50 PM

@Shalvenay And because it looks good on paper, and the image is cool, so it's extra appealing to new players. Which makes it an incredibly trappy option.

Shalvenay

@Miniman yeah, it's definitely one of the trappier options in 5e

Miniman

Like, Jump also sucks. No matter what nitsua says. But I've never seen anyone pick Jump thinking it was good. Or, yanno, at all.

trogdor

@Miniman wait it has low range, takes concentration, and it's only effect is 1D12 damage every turn?

Miniman

@trogdor Takes your action, and breaks if the target moves out of the very short range, too.

trogdor

@Miniman wait it takes the initial action or one every turn?

Miniman

11:54 PM

@trogdor Both.

trogdor

Ewww what?

That's garbage

Total garbage

Miniman

And everyone in that question who's like "oh but it only needs one attack roll so it's better than using a cantrip every turn" - guess what, guys? That's the opposite of good. Because you're just as likely to miss that attack roll, and then you've wasted the slot. Using a cantrip every turn is vastly more consistent damage.

MikeQ

@trogdor I've had similar experiences, especially with D&Dish games, when the DM relies on the system as a crutch, and neglects the collaborative storytelling parts of gameplay

trogdor

@MikeQ I've never done that,... No sir (shifty eyes)

MikeQ

It's definitely a valid way to play, and it's kinda what these systems tell the DM to do. But if you want something more interesting than "wait your turn and then roll numbers", then the raw system mechanics aren't going to cut it.

Miniman

11:59 PM

Oh, and - yeah, the Emperor fried Darth Vader with it. But Darth Vader still strolled over and chucked him down a bottomless pit.

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