Technical writing is a part of my job. Believe me - this assumption people have that "we're not dumb!" is deeply erroneous. One of the reasons technical writing is written in its common form is because the writer is not allowed to assume any prrior knowledge or specific competence on the part of the reader. "But that's insulting!" people who don't do technical writing say. No, Non-Technical Writer, it is not. It is necessary, because you cannot be sure which piece of "assumed" knowledge you leave out of your document, or which ambiguous and crappily-written passage you figure is Good Enough because everybody'll just intuitively understand what you meant, is going to be the one that causes a multi-million dollar SNAFU because somebody did something they shouldn't have.
You want "natural language" because it sounds nicer and makes you feel like you're not being talked down to? Okay. We've had nine years of seeing what that's gotten us - endless misunderstandings, endless confusion, constant ambiguity, infinite nerd wars, stuff that can and has broken up tables. In the grand scheme of things, some standardized language is not gonna kill you, and it WILL improve the ruleset as a ruleset. It's always been up to the DM to provide narrative flair anyways, why are we demanding it in our rules documents?
What else would you call taking the effort to rework the phrasing of even just the PHB to maybe slightly reduce the amount of bad faith arguments that crop up? It’s a lot of work for minimal actual return, just the sake of being perceived to be doing something.
As another technical/professional writer, I can heartily second what Yurei writes.
While I do appreciate the natural language approach for the 2014 rules, it seems inescapable to me that the baked-in ambiguity of that chosen tone lead to many, many problems understanding/applying/agreeing upon the rules. Specificity and being explicit about steps/elements involved is necessary when you're trying to ensure a varied, diverse audience all get the same meaning from the text.
And while "having the prone condition" is indeed ungainly, it's also incredibly clear.
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.
You solve that problem by pulling the same shit on the player until they stop it. 😈
That said, it seems more like a problem on the conditional end of the equation, i.e- any effect that triggers when "knocked prone" needs to be less specific. For example, some monsters that can do a special attack against a prone target, but these usually say something like "against a target that is prone" so it doesn't matter how you became prone (fell, knocked, or chose to be), you still get stomped on.
I think more generally that type of issue doesn't stem from a lack of standardised wording, but a lack of consideration for how specific the conditional text needed to be. You can still end up doing the same thing by specifying stunned when you really should say something broader like incapacitated, or saying restrained instead of "unable to move" etc.
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What else would you call taking the effort to rework the phrasing of even just the PHB to maybe slightly reduce the amount of bad faith arguments that crop up? It’s a lot of work for minimal actual return, just the sake of being perceived to be doing something.
I don't know about all the effort. I'd call it a trivially small part of a larger refresh of all the rules that probably can be knocked out in an hour, if that. Even a slight reduction in potential confusion is a reduction. Seems like this is the perfect time to address a small issue like this. If they were going to start re-printing all the books just for this, I'd agree it's pretty silly. But as part of a larger effort, this is the exact time to do it.
As it stands, there's at least two different terms -- knocked prone and fall prone -- that lead to the same condition, prone. Could be there's more than those two, my rules knowledge isn't at that level. But in either case, the distinction on how you got the condition is meaningless. So, they'll remove the meaningless part and retain the part that matters. It simplifies things, which is the goal of any good writing.
Personally, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that people are super-attached to the word "knocked." I'm not trying to judge. I get attached to strange, small details myself. Just, I did not see this one coming.
What else would you call taking the effort to rework the phrasing of even just the PHB to maybe slightly reduce the amount of bad faith arguments that crop up? It’s a lot of work for minimal actual return, just the sake of being perceived to be doing something.
What are you talking about, it would take 1 intern at most minutes in Word to find every instance of the phrase “knocked prone” and automatically replace them all with different phrasing. You do know Word can do that, right?
What else would you call taking the effort to rework the phrasing of even just the PHB to maybe slightly reduce the amount of bad faith arguments that crop up? It’s a lot of work for minimal actual return, just the sake of being perceived to be doing something.
What are you talking about, it would take 1 intern at most minutes in Word to find every instance of the phrase “knocked prone” and automatically replace them all with different phrasing. You do know Word can do that, right?
I thought we were discussing a more comprehensive overhaul of the language used. I’m not particularly invested in “knocked prone” vs “prone condition” one way or the other, but the arguments I’ve seen that there’s an issue with natural language have seemed spurious, and reworking the entire book into more technical language seems a bit outside the scope of one intern using Find and Replace.
Nah, find and replace could do the bulk of the grunt work and make the whole process much much simpler. my point is, in the scope of this overall overhaul, “knocked prone” is the tiniest piece of it.
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I'm fine with the change. I'm less okay with the capitalization of basically every game concept. It makes sentences weirder to read, and reminisces of the structure of tweets posted by a notorious U.S. political figure who shall remain unnamed.
I'm fine with the change. I'm less okay with the capitalization of basically every game concept. It makes sentences weirder to read, and reminisces of the structure of tweets posted by a notorious U.S. political figure who shall remain unnamed.
Yeah the capitalisation is a horrible way to distinguish keywords, I'd prefer bold text or similar personally as it's not like bold text is used for anything else in the books really (besides headings which is the entire line).
We should all be used to that being the case here on D&D Beyond now anyway, and it'd be significantly easier to spot than a capital. Plus capitalisation is only going to cause confusion with the start of sentences, and names etc.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Technical writing is a part of my job. Believe me - this assumption people have that "we're not dumb!" is deeply erroneous. One of the reasons technical writing is written in its common form is because the writer is not allowed to assume any prrior knowledge or specific competence on the part of the reader. "But that's insulting!" people who don't do technical writing say. No, Non-Technical Writer, it is not. It is necessary, because you cannot be sure which piece of "assumed" knowledge you leave out of your document, or which ambiguous and crappily-written passage you figure is Good Enough because everybody'll just intuitively understand what you meant, is going to be the one that causes a multi-million dollar SNAFU because somebody did something they shouldn't have.
You want "natural language" because it sounds nicer and makes you feel like you're not being talked down to? Okay. We've had nine years of seeing what that's gotten us - endless misunderstandings, endless confusion, constant ambiguity, infinite nerd wars, stuff that can and has broken up tables. In the grand scheme of things, some standardized language is not gonna kill you, and it WILL improve the ruleset as a ruleset. It's always been up to the DM to provide narrative flair anyways, why are we demanding it in our rules documents?
As a former tech-writer, THIS. The most clear, and concise phrasing is best. Small words, with no room for interpretation work best. "It does what it says it does" should be the word of the day.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
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."
To double down, "the prone condition" is what's important. As a player, I can "inflict the prone condition" on myself to give my opponents disadvantage on ranged attacks by laying down. I'm not "knocking myself prone". It doesn't matter what activity I take or how I describe it. I am causing myself to have the prone condition with all benefits and disadvantages that come with it. That's what's important. If you feel that's "talking down to you", you need to grow a thicker skin. Stop being a bloody crybaby, and read the rule for what it is...a rule.
This is a rule book, not a story book. Rules are supposed to be clear and unambiguous. It's supposed to sound sterile.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
The "prone condition" style of wording is horribly, horribly awkward. Even as a tech writer myself, I can't stand it. There's got to be some middle ground that gets the point across yet doesn't roll off the tongue like a bag of caltrops.
To double down, "the prone condition" is what's important. As a player, I can "inflict the prone condition" on myself to give my opponents disadvantage on ranged attacks by laying down. I'm not "knocking myself prone". It doesn't matter what activity I take or how I describe it. I am causing myself to have the prone condition with all benefits and disadvantages that come with it. That's not what's important. If you feel that's "talking down to you", you need to grow a thicker skin. Stop being a bloody crybaby, and read the rule for what it is...a rule.
I don't think that's the issue at hand really.
The problem that this new wording is trying to solve is a problem that doesn't require the new wording to fix it; the issue is that there exist(ed?) features triggered by a target being "knockedprone" which opens the doors to players being asshats and saying "ah, but I chose to become prone".
But solving such problems is simple, all you need to do is refer to "a prone target" with no extra adjectives or whatever when using the condition… conditionally, as that's the part where problems are introduced, and referring to "knocked prone" wasn't adding any flavour to those features anyway. Plus the standardised wording is no guarantee of avoiding this; I'd rather they be more careful with how they word conditional statements rather than use standardised wording and potentially make the same mistakes anyway, just using the new wording (and perhaps overconfidence).
It's also not like it's really a problem in practice anyway, because when your player pulls nonsense like that the DM can just respond with either "well you still get stomped" or "ah, well in that case you didn't notice the power word kill glyph you 'became prone' upon. Byeeeee!"
I dunno, I'm all for improving the clarity of the wording, but there are less severe and repetitive ways to do it IMO.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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The "prone condition" style of wording is horribly, horribly awkward. Even as a tech writer myself, I can't stand it. There's got to be some middle ground that gets the point across yet doesn't roll off the tongue like a bag of caltrops.
As people have pointed out just bold the word prone or all cap it or make it printed in red indicating it is a condition. And then write the sentence in ways that contextually make sense.
When moving through the area of the grease spell a target must make a dex save or fall prone. etc.
Rules that people stop reading because they are written like crap are less understood than non perfect technical writing. And despite their claims people are not as dumb as some here like to think. If they would not understand or fall prone. they will also not understand or be inflicted with the prone condition. But thankfully outside language barriers, everyone will understand or fall prone.
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I dunno, strikes me as more performative than practical.
How so?
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Technical writing is a part of my job. Believe me - this assumption people have that "we're not dumb!" is deeply erroneous. One of the reasons technical writing is written in its common form is because the writer is not allowed to assume any prrior knowledge or specific competence on the part of the reader. "But that's insulting!" people who don't do technical writing say. No, Non-Technical Writer, it is not. It is necessary, because you cannot be sure which piece of "assumed" knowledge you leave out of your document, or which ambiguous and crappily-written passage you figure is Good Enough because everybody'll just intuitively understand what you meant, is going to be the one that causes a multi-million dollar SNAFU because somebody did something they shouldn't have.
You want "natural language" because it sounds nicer and makes you feel like you're not being talked down to? Okay. We've had nine years of seeing what that's gotten us - endless misunderstandings, endless confusion, constant ambiguity, infinite nerd wars, stuff that can and has broken up tables. In the grand scheme of things, some standardized language is not gonna kill you, and it WILL improve the ruleset as a ruleset. It's always been up to the DM to provide narrative flair anyways, why are we demanding it in our rules documents?
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What else would you call taking the effort to rework the phrasing of even just the PHB to maybe slightly reduce the amount of bad faith arguments that crop up? It’s a lot of work for minimal actual return, just the sake of being perceived to be doing something.
As another technical/professional writer, I can heartily second what Yurei writes.
While I do appreciate the natural language approach for the 2014 rules, it seems inescapable to me that the baked-in ambiguity of that chosen tone lead to many, many problems understanding/applying/agreeing upon the rules. Specificity and being explicit about steps/elements involved is necessary when you're trying to ensure a varied, diverse audience all get the same meaning from the text.
And while "having the prone condition" is indeed ungainly, it's also incredibly clear.
You solve that problem by pulling the same shit on the player until they stop it. 😈
That said, it seems more like a problem on the conditional end of the equation, i.e- any effect that triggers when "knocked prone" needs to be less specific. For example, some monsters that can do a special attack against a prone target, but these usually say something like "against a target that is prone" so it doesn't matter how you became prone (fell, knocked, or chose to be), you still get stomped on.
I think more generally that type of issue doesn't stem from a lack of standardised wording, but a lack of consideration for how specific the conditional text needed to be. You can still end up doing the same thing by specifying stunned when you really should say something broader like incapacitated, or saying restrained instead of "unable to move" etc.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I don't know about all the effort. I'd call it a trivially small part of a larger refresh of all the rules that probably can be knocked out in an hour, if that. Even a slight reduction in potential confusion is a reduction. Seems like this is the perfect time to address a small issue like this. If they were going to start re-printing all the books just for this, I'd agree it's pretty silly. But as part of a larger effort, this is the exact time to do it.
As it stands, there's at least two different terms -- knocked prone and fall prone -- that lead to the same condition, prone. Could be there's more than those two, my rules knowledge isn't at that level. But in either case, the distinction on how you got the condition is meaningless. So, they'll remove the meaningless part and retain the part that matters. It simplifies things, which is the goal of any good writing.
Personally, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that people are super-attached to the word "knocked." I'm not trying to judge. I get attached to strange, small details myself. Just, I did not see this one coming.
What are you talking about, it would take 1 intern at most minutes in Word to find every instance of the phrase “knocked prone” and automatically replace them all with different phrasing. You do know Word can do that, right?
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I thought we were discussing a more comprehensive overhaul of the language used. I’m not particularly invested in “knocked prone” vs “prone condition” one way or the other, but the arguments I’ve seen that there’s an issue with natural language have seemed spurious, and reworking the entire book into more technical language seems a bit outside the scope of one intern using Find and Replace.
Nah, find and replace could do the bulk of the grunt work and make the whole process much much simpler. my point is, in the scope of this overall overhaul, “knocked prone” is the tiniest piece of it.
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Eh.
I'm good either way.
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I'm fine with the change. I'm less okay with the capitalization of basically every game concept. It makes sentences weirder to read, and reminisces of the structure of tweets posted by a notorious U.S. political figure who shall remain unnamed.
Yeah the capitalisation is a horrible way to distinguish keywords, I'd prefer bold text or similar personally as it's not like bold text is used for anything else in the books really (besides headings which is the entire line).
We should all be used to that being the case here on D&D Beyond now anyway, and it'd be significantly easier to spot than a capital. Plus capitalisation is only going to cause confusion with the start of sentences, and names etc.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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I'd prefer use of bolded or colored text for denoting conditions in canon text (as opposed to upper case).
As a former tech-writer, THIS. The most clear, and concise phrasing is best. Small words, with no room for interpretation work best. "It does what it says it does" should be the word of the day.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
To double down, "the prone condition" is what's important. As a player, I can "inflict the prone condition" on myself to give my opponents disadvantage on ranged attacks by laying down. I'm not "knocking myself prone". It doesn't matter what activity I take or how I describe it. I am causing myself to have the prone condition with all benefits and disadvantages that come with it. That's what's important. If you feel that's "talking down to you", you need to grow a thicker skin. Stop being a bloody crybaby, and read the rule for what it is...a rule.
This is a rule book, not a story book. Rules are supposed to be clear and unambiguous. It's supposed to sound sterile.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
The "prone condition" style of wording is horribly, horribly awkward. Even as a tech writer myself, I can't stand it. There's got to be some middle ground that gets the point across yet doesn't roll off the tongue like a bag of caltrops.
I don't think that's the issue at hand really.
The problem that this new wording is trying to solve is a problem that doesn't require the new wording to fix it; the issue is that there exist(ed?) features triggered by a target being "knocked prone" which opens the doors to players being asshats and saying "ah, but I chose to become prone".
But solving such problems is simple, all you need to do is refer to "a prone target" with no extra adjectives or whatever when using the condition… conditionally, as that's the part where problems are introduced, and referring to "knocked prone" wasn't adding any flavour to those features anyway. Plus the standardised wording is no guarantee of avoiding this; I'd rather they be more careful with how they word conditional statements rather than use standardised wording and potentially make the same mistakes anyway, just using the new wording (and perhaps overconfidence).
It's also not like it's really a problem in practice anyway, because when your player pulls nonsense like that the DM can just respond with either "well you still get stomped" or "ah, well in that case you didn't notice the power word kill glyph you 'became prone' upon. Byeeeee!"
I dunno, I'm all for improving the clarity of the wording, but there are less severe and repetitive ways to do it IMO.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
As people have pointed out just bold the word prone or all cap it or make it printed in red indicating it is a condition. And then write the sentence in ways that contextually make sense.
When moving through the area of the grease spell a target must make a dex save or fall prone. etc.
Rules that people stop reading because they are written like crap are less understood than non perfect technical writing. And despite their claims people are not as dumb as some here like to think. If they would not understand or fall prone. they will also not understand or be inflicted with the prone condition. But thankfully outside language barriers, everyone will understand or fall prone.