I read an interesting blog post today in which the author makes an eloquent and compelling case for describing dungeon locations (and, by inference, hex map locations) using only normal prose sentences and paragraphs, and without
boldings, italicizations, underlinings, smallcaps, parentheticals, bracketed asides, sidebars, lists, tables, bullets, nested sub-bullets, color-coding, font alternates, and all the innumerable other invented methods to display text.
The thesis is that the use of these 'innovations' tend to be distracting and, perversely, makes the parsing of the information both more difficult and less interesting. The post concludes with a cri de coeur which I can certainly get behind: 'The character of writing should be embraced as humans have written for millennia: in sentences and paragraphs, one after the other.'
I find myself agreeing with this, although I am a confirmed middle-aged fart whose innate proclivities tend towards agreement with any thesis that stands athwart change - or, even better, which advocates return to the antique past.
But then again I am also somebody who made an abortive attempt at writing a dungeon novel, which I consider, were such a thing to exist, to be the absolute pinnacle, the Platonic ideal, the holy grail of good representation of gameable material - something which is as enjoyable to read as a fantasy story but also usable to run games with. Or, as I put it back then:
The idea is: it's a collection of stories about adventurers exploring a dungeon, which follows their escapades in a sort of detached pseudo-Vancian narrative. Accompanying the accounts are maps, which can be pieced together. Periodically there are summaries consisting of big sections of the dungeon mapped out and keyed, detailing "the adventure(s) so far" - and at the end there is a full map of the entire thing, with contents, which you can then use to run your own parties of PCs through.
There are three reasons why I would advance the argument that this is indeed the pinnacle, and the best way to communicate the information.
1. It recognises the fact that most RPG materials are bought for entertainment as much as for use at the table, and that indeed there is a market for RPG materials which will never be used for gaming.
2. It recognises that the human brain processes information in narrative form very effectively and that reading a dungeon as a story, or set of short stories, allows the DM to imbibe a mood and a 'thick', tacit awarenesss of the contents much more readily than would be the case with simple, inert room descrptions.
3. It recognises that fantasy fiction has reached something of a dead-end in terms of genre; that there are lots of RPG players who like fantasy fiction; and that there is therefore a big gap in the market for such a product.
The chief hurdle is that which confronts any creative act: procrastination. The next biggest one is actually doing it. To which I can only respond:
We really need to address the question of bullet points. It has became epidemic.
ReplyDeleteAlso, good idea for a novel!
Bullet points are, if nothing else, aesthetically unpleasing. Especially on a page rather than a screen.
DeleteBen Milton and DCC have been having a debate on this. Basically how does a GM use a module, scan at the table or do your homework.
ReplyDeleteThat’s a fair observation.
DeleteI have to completely disagree with the argument from antiquity used here: as someone who spends a lot of time working on medieval manuscripts, the paragraph is actually a much later invention than most of the 'innovations' with which issue is being taken. Use of colour, underlining, changes in font size, bullets and other markers to highlight and emphasize text were EXTREMELY common in medieval manuscripts because they're a self-evidently useful tool for pulling information from a mass of text. They fell away in printed works in the early modern period because they're difficult to print cheaply, not because plain text was better at conveying information, and it ossified as the standard way of presenting text.
ReplyDeleteThey certainly draw the eye to what is emphasised. But I would say that has more to do with how much control the author wants to exert over the reader. That is not an illegitimate motive but it is different to what is best for conveying information holistically.
DeleteIt is a rather poor article that begins from an incorrect premise:
ReplyDelete‘I want to be clear: this is weird! These practices are strange and unusual! They defy explanation!’
These practices do not defy explanation; they are specifically designed to help a referee scan the text quickly during play. The writer appears to be referring to the OSE format, which is probably the most heavily bullet‑ and bold‑driven style in the OSR, yet its utility is perfectly clear.
The author also compares an RPG book to a book, article or essay, which are entirely different formats. Although some RPG books are written a little like novels, they are usually closer to cookbooks, technical manuals or board‑game instructions, all of which rely on bold text and bullet points to convey information efficiently. A cookbook that did not list ingredients clearly or break the method into steps, and instead delivered everything in a single paragraph of prose, would be extremely frustrating to use.
Another mistake the writer makes is assuming that an adventure should be read linearly. He writes that, unlike a novel, an RPG page full of bold text offers no clear place to start or continue. Once again, comparing an RPG product to a novel is pointless, because anyone who actually runs games knows that you move around the text constantly unless the adventure is completely linear. His argument that the text offers no clear starting point is entirely undermined by the presence of room numbers and distinct sections, so I do not understand his point there.
His example of an NPC is odd. He essentially suggests removing stat blocks in favour of purely descriptive entries. He seems to disapprove of skim‑reading, perhaps without recognising how useful that skill is at the table.
He does at least acknowledge that the older style of module writing was inefficient: key details were buried, secrets sat next to read‑aloud text, the flow of information became confused, and too many words made the material unwieldy. He claims these problems can be solved without using bullets and lists, but he never actually provides an alternative.
I would agree that modern OSR products could benefit from a little more verbosity and description in places to help convey tone. This can be handled easily with a short read‑aloud or descriptive box at the start of each section without turning everything into dense prose.
There are many other problems with the article, but this comment is already becoming rather long. If the article had argued that bullet points and bolding are sometimes overused, or that bolding is often applied inaccurately, that would be reasonable. But the usefulness of this formatting is obvious. The article gives the impression that the writer reads RPG products but does not actually play them, because the practical value of these formatting choices becomes immediately clear in play.
This is a weird comment that reads as though produced by AI.
DeleteI tried to put too much information into a comment, and edited afterwards. I guess I had too much to say about the article and got carried away. I should have been more concise I suppose.
DeleteI vehemently disagree. Teletype style with bolding is the way I write all my own notes, from long experience. I don't care if most RPG materials are bought for (literary) entertainment, because that is not the purpose for which I buy them and is not how they are advertised. I don't need a short story to conceptualise a mood because I will have already read the material before play, very likely modified it, and formed my own interpretation coloured by my own imagination. I am not interested in RPG material as ersatz fantasy fiction, because I would prefer to read actual fiction written for that purpose alone, and there is more quality fiction in the world than I have time to read. All of these things reduce the utility of the material for its ostensible purpose.
ReplyDeleteBooks and articles do not rely on short sentences and highlighted text because they are not reference works to be used under time-sensitive conditions, so the comparison is inappropriate. Do you know what things use a lot of bolding? The Oxford English Dictionary. Safety manuals. I do find a lot of the formatting experimentation in RPG material, such as bullet points, excessive use of paragraph breaks and colons, et cetera, more hindrance than help, but I note that Sorensen's use of bolding in his examples is essentially random, therefore disingenuous.
I think we can agree that bad ersatz fantasy fiction is bad, and that bad use of bullet points is bad.
DeleteI’m surprised at the vehemence. We are essentially debating taste, are we not?
Ah, sorry, "vehemently" was hyperbole. I strongly disagree; I'm not genuinely emotional about it.
DeleteI don't consider appropriate formatting and/or graphic design to be a matter of taste. Taste enters into it, but different ways of imparting information are varyingly effective in different circumstances - that is, after all, what you are claiming yourself about the narrative form. On the whole, adventures with silly formatting are considerably more useful than adventures with loggorhea. I don't like Sorensen's "contemporary style" example of a trophy room, but I will certainly take it over his preceding example. I read fast, but nearly one hundred and fifty words, in identical font, at a glance, with full comprehension? I can't do that. I've run wordy adventures without using a highlighter, and the constant breaks in the flow of play are unacceptable to me.
I made this comment on the other post, but isn't it normal to read through and then make notes anyway?
DeleteI've replied under your other post, to keep things in the same place.
DeleteP.S. It was before my time, and I no longer have the originals, but I used to be in possession of a set of very extensive handwritten notes for an urban D&D campaign circa 1978, and they were both ungrammatically terse and written in four different colours of ink.
ReplyDeleteI want RPG books to look and read like something written by Gary Gygax in the 1970s or 1980s. The farther removed from that, the less my interest.
ReplyDeleteI have actually seen grown men claim that 1981's Basic and Expert D&D rulebooks are incomprehensible and unusable, in spite of the fact that generations of 10-year-olds have understood and used them.
I used to run an extremely bare-bones rewrite of OD&D at a uni games club, designed for drop-in players with zero experience of RPGs. There were no classes, no spells, scarcely any inventory. The only stats were HP, AC, MV, and experience level. It fit on one A4 page. One column walked you through character generation, the other described the extremely simplistic in-game rules; I would instruct players to ignore the second column and only consult it when something came up in play. I still occasionally got complaints that it was too complicated.
Delete"Grown men a matter of different expec
I used to run an extremely bare-bones rewrite of OD&D at a uni games club, designed for drop-in players with zero experience of RPGs. There were no classes, no spells, scarcely any inventory. The only stats were HP, AC, MV, and experience level. It fit on one A4 page. One column walked you through character generation, the other described the extremely simplistic in-game rules; I would instruct players to ignore the second column and only consult it when something came up in play. I still occasionally got complaints that it was too complicated.
Delete"Grown men can't understand this when ten-year-olds can" is unkind and inaccurate. It's a difference in expectations - the people complaining were there for board games, and expected to be able to pick up the rules fast enough to enjoy play in the few hours available. We didn't get many takers for speed Diplomacy, either.
Without wishing to put words in Geoff's mouth, I think what he meant was just that the old rulebooks are perfectly usable. There is certainly space for different expectations from newbie gamers, but that's another topic.
Delete