I'm already sick of seeing "or have the prone condition" on new material that knocks creatures prone. It honestly puts the image in my mind of the creature looking around itself to make sure it's not going to sit down on anything, and then calmly lying prone on the ground.

Has there really ever been an issue with someone not knowing what "knocked prone" means? Just capitalize it to mark it as a specific rule and call it good! The same could go for all other conditions. "Or the creature is Restrained." "Saving throws against being Charmed." Spelling out "have the _____ condition" takes away the storytelling aspect of it entirely and focuses on spelling rules out to players and DMs as if they're fools.

And we have a marvelous example of why Wizards tried "natural language" rules with 2014 5e.

Standardized language is a very important part of technical writing, which is what game rules generally are supposed to be.  Saying something the same way, every time, is very important because it establishes a precise pattern and definition.  The rules saying "you have the [X] condition" is standardized language that lets you know when a specific rule is being invoked.  

Natural language assumes everyone is on the same page and has the same understanding of the words being said.  Nine years of horrifying Internet trollfights and flamewars concerning how the myriad ambiguities in 2014 5e's ruleset work later, it is patently obvious that this assumption is grossly incorrect.  When a DM says "your mighty blow knocks the ogre down for a moment before it staggers quickly back to its feet" as narrative fluffery for your critical hit, the 2014 version of the rules causes a twenty-minute argument about whether narrative fluffery means the player gets to prone the target.  The revised rules allow the DM to say "Did I say it had the Prone condition?  No.  Stop arguing with me and play, please."

I mean, if your table gets into a 20-minute argument over a bit of narration, there’s significantly deeper issues than how the manual is worded. They’re definitely experimenting with some more precise language in the playtest and nailing down some things like the Study Action, but I wouldn’t say they’re giving up on natural language altogether. The DM is not actually any less able to play the “do the rules say the target has the prone condition card?” in the above example, the main difference is just the signal that you should flip to the “Conditions” section to find the rules for prone is more overt for people working from a physical copy.

i thought we knew to show, don't tell. the dm sees 'prone condition' but the dm says 'she falls to the ground, landing on an elbow.'

same way you wouldn't say 'badguy begins casting fireball. they cast fireball. you've been fireballed. take fireball damage." i mean, you could. it's happened to all of us, but i think we'd agree it's a slip not to narrate the 'malevolently swirling ball of flames forming between their hands' and etc from there.

Put it this way.

If you write the rules precisely and technically, the narrative-based people get upset that everything feels so cold and soulless and not-narrative-y.

If you write the rules "naturally" a'la 2014 5e, then the technically-minded people will spend the next nine years pointing out the ten billion ambiguities, conflicts and contradictions, unintended consequences, and myriad other issues that arise when rules are written like a storybook instead of a rulebook.

They tried it the Narrative Way in 2014.  The fact that they're changing it now is a signal that it didn't work the way they wanted it to.

I'm mainly annoyed by the change because there's no way I'm changing all my homebrew to reflect the new form unless I absolutely have to in order to update something (i.e- no longer compatible), even then I'm very likely to be lazy about it; hey, I ain't being paid for it!

While in general I think it's better to be consistent, I'd prefer they did it with formatting; we should all be used to key words being tooltips on D&D Beyond, e.g "knocked prone" which makes it absolutely clear that this is a mechanical thing, not just narrative flavour. They could easily just do the same with the books by formatting keywords/phrases, e.g- with a block capital font (I'd demonstrate but the font selection on these forums sucks).

Quote from Haravikk >>

I'm mainly annoyed by the change because there's no way I'm changing all my homebrew to reflect the new form unless I absolutely have to in order to update something (i.e- no longer compatible), even then I'm very likely to be lazy about it; hey, I ain't being paid for it!

While in general I think it's better to be consistent, I'd prefer they did it with formatting; we should all be used to key words being tooltips on D&D Beyond, e.g "knocked prone" which makes it absolutely clear that this is a mechanical thing, not just narrative flavour. They could easily just do the same with the books by formatting keywords/phrases, e.g- with a block capital font (I'd demonstrate but the font selection on these forums sucks).

I hadn't even considered the implications for homebrew, especially for those who labor extensively to use the same language that WotC uses.

I think the biggest offender is Incapacitated. 

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

And we have a marvelous example of why Wizards tried "natural language" rules with 2014 5e.

Standardized language is a very important part of technical writing, which is what game rules generally are supposed to be.  Saying something the same way, every time, is very important because it establishes a precise pattern and definition.  The rules saying "you have the [X] condition" is standardized language that lets you know when a specific rule is being invoked.  

Natural language assumes everyone is on the same page and has the same understanding of the words being said.  Nine years of horrifying Internet trollfights and flamewars concerning how the myriad ambiguities in 2014 5e's ruleset work later, it is patently obvious that this assumption is grossly incorrect.  When a DM says "your mighty blow knocks the ogre down for a moment before it staggers quickly back to its feet" as narrative fluffery for your critical hit, the 2014 version of the rules causes a twenty-minute argument about whether narrative fluffery means the player gets to prone the target.  The revised rules allow the DM to say "Did I say it had the Prone condition?  No.  Stop arguing with me and play, please."

 I see the disingenuousness hasn't changed, because that conversation never happened.

Narrative fluff is what it is. A thing isn't prone unless it chooses to be or an ability makes it so. There was no "twenty-minute argument." If someone wanted to argue, the DM shuts it down.

Was “knocked prone” clear to me? Yes. I have no problem using my noodle to understand that. Do I appreciate the standardization of language to “resist or end the [condition] condition?” Yes. I always appreciate specificity of language.

Quote from Wysperra >>

I think the biggest offender is Incapacitated. 

 
Nah, exhaustion as it requires different language due to grammar.

Quote from Erik_Soong >>

Quote from Haravikk >>

I'm mainly annoyed by the change because there's no way I'm changing all my homebrew to reflect the new form unless I absolutely have to in order to update something (i.e- no longer compatible), even then I'm very likely to be lazy about it; hey, I ain't being paid for it!

While in general I think it's better to be consistent, I'd prefer they did it with formatting; we should all be used to key words being tooltips on D&D Beyond, e.g "knocked prone" which makes it absolutely clear that this is a mechanical thing, not just narrative flavour. They could easily just do the same with the books by formatting keywords/phrases, e.g- with a block capital font (I'd demonstrate but the font selection on these forums sucks).

I hadn't even considered the implications for homebrew, especially for those who labor extensively to use the same language that WotC uses.

 
As one of those people it doesn’t really bother me. When I wrote “to resist being knocked prone” that was the standard at that time. Now I write “to resist or end the prone condition” because it is the standard at this time. If I update something that I had previously written for some other reason, will I update that language while I’m at it? Sure. Will I go out of my way to specifically update that language? Absolutely not.

I think also, saying the condition reflects the broader reality of ways you might suffer from that condition. If you fail a save vs grease, you weren’t “knocked” anywhere, but you’re still prone. I guess now it has the wording fall prone. It doesn’t hurt to clean up the language so no matter how you get there, prone is prone.

Quote from Xalthu >>

I think also, saying the condition reflects the broader reality of ways you might suffer from that condition. If you fail a save vs grease, you weren’t “knocked” anywhere, but you’re still prone. I guess now it has the wording fall prone. It doesn’t hurt to clean up the language so no matter how you get there, prone is prone.

I guess but its not hard to just bold the work so people know its the condition, and then use better language in the context of what is going on. A trip might say knock a person prone grease if you fail your save you fall prone.  There is no confusion or difficulty in the technical language with things like this. Its both clean and evocative.

So, just checking: we're all down for another ten years of confusion, needless ambiguity, rules that can legitimately be read in multiple, directly contradictory ways, and concerns over weird edge cases and loopholes arising from ensuring the rules sound pretty rather than clearly and directly setting down the rules of the game?

Because that definitely seems like the ask.  "Natural Language" had its chance and they're having to recook the entire edition to clean up the problems "Natural Language" incited.  And I guarantee that if they tossed the "you have the [X] condition" language in favor of applying bold to keywords, people would complain just as long and loud about bold keywords as they do about unified language.  "Why do they have to bold things?!  It's stupid!  They should just trust us to know exactly what they mean when they say the flumboggler doombwazzles the florpgorblin for 3d6 husketoons!  We're not dumb, Wizards!"

So.  Do you want clear, precise, easily understood and digested rules?  or do you want "Natural Language" that sounds pretty and causes no end of DM headaches?

I’d rather have the precise standardized language. I can always put the flavor in myself.

If we weren’t giving DM’s headaches, how would they know we care?

But seriously, are we actually arguing that when a condition is applied is that ambiguous? Because the text is pretty clear about that already and the hypothetical point of some trying to turn narration into a mechanical benefit is neither a product of Natural Language nor something that can be addressed by any printed rule beyond Rule 0.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

If we weren’t giving DM’s headaches, how would they know we care?

But seriously, are we actually arguing that when a condition is applied is that ambiguous? Because the text is pretty clear about that already and the hypothetical point of some trying to turn narration into a mechanical benefit is neither a product of Natural Language nor something that can be addressed by any printed rule beyond Rule 0.

 
I’ve seen people argue that, while they may be prone, they weren’t “knocked” prone (they “fell” prone or something insteaand) so therefore certain things that proc when “knocked” prone wouldn’t apply. It’s 🐴💩, but I’ve seen it. Whereas if everything instead used the same standardized language, it would preclude such nonsense.

Maybe, but considering they’re arguing from a bad faith position to begin with, I’m not sure a slight change in wording is going to substantially impact how much they try to quibble semantics. As I’ve said before, that’s a point where the DM just needs to remind them of Rule 0 and tell the player to either deal with it or walk.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Maybe, but considering they’re arguing from a bad faith position to begin with, I’m not sure a slight change in wording is going to substantially impact how much they try to quibble semantics. As I’ve said before, that’s a point where the DM just needs to remind them of Rule 0 and tell the player to either deal with it or walk.

 
Every little bit helps. Getting rid of the semantical differences, gets rid of the semantical arguments.