Reading some game books recently, it occurred that good game writing is technical writing, not creative writing. Good rules writing and good supplement writing, anyway.
Don't get me wrong. Creativity is important. It's critical for stuff for your own games and for making what you write worth reading.
But ultimately when you're writing game material for publication, you're trying to write a set of rules or encounters or fluff in a way that useful to another person. It has to be clear, concise, well-organized, grammatically correct, and spelled correctly. It has to communicate the writer's intent and meaning first, and entertain second.
If you're planning to write for games, think of it as a operator's manual, not a novel.
If the rules aren't clear or the author's intent isn't clear you get questions, disagreements, rules conflicts, and important rules buried so deep in the text you don't know they are there. This is the "AD&D has a rule about helmets?" corollary. Or the endless wonder about how AD&D initiative really works.
This doesn't mean there will never be rules questions or disagreements if the writing is good enough. Rules might conflict in edge cases or even a well-written rule might be misread or misunderstood. In general the clearer the writing, the better. A well-turned phrase and a great idea is nice, but if you don't know how to play the game after you read it, it's not enough. It better be entertaining and interesting, but they can't do the job on their own.
In short, in my experience: Communicate first, communicate entertainingly second. Do both, but it works better if you keep them in that order.
I get where you are coming from, but a good novel has to follow many of the same rules, right? It must be clear and easy to understand, be grammatically correct, have good spelling, good meaning...
ReplyDeleteOK, classic lit folks, (I'm looking at you, Catcher in the Rye), there are exceptions. I'm speaking more generally :)
Good novels can, but don't have to. You can have a good novel that isn't clear or easy to understand, for example, and still be good.
DeleteAny rulebook or module or adventure or supplement that isn't clear and easy to understand has failed on a very important level.
Well, I suppose I have a low tolerance for novels that are hard to understand, but not everyone does.
DeleteThinking about it, I do agree that a book of rules does primarily serve a technical communication purpose... good job making folks like me think about this!
No question, I agree. But then, given my writing resume (Terminal Ballistics, The Deadly Spring, The Last Gasp, Technical Grappling), I would, now, wouldn't I? :-)
ReplyDeleteHeh. Well, for all of your drive to make the complex even more complicated, you do take care to explain it carefully. That's important. :)
DeleteReally, a novel is meant to entertain. Rulebooks are to help you understand how to play the game, and playing the game is meant to entertain. You do a good job of explaining how you mean the stuff to work, even if I'm going to stick to the bows in Basic Set. ;)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are not angry but I disagree. I would much rather have a book that inspires me than one that is so so and well organized. I can fudge the rules but the fantasy part is why I enjoy gaming. I love modules like The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun because it has a creepy mood and all sorts of cool descriptions. Mage the Ascension was a game that had so so rules but had some really cool ideas about how magic worked so I loved it. I also loved Elric for its dark mood and Pendragon for its treatment of the fairy which made them seem authentic. I guess for me, the rules are secondary to how cool the fantastic part is.
ReplyDeleteNot angry at all. I'd just say that if the game inspires you, but the rulebook is poorly written and hard to use, it hasn't done its job, only half of it. Ideally books are inspirational and entertaining while also being easy to understand and use.
DeleteBut if you ever wonder why I rag on books for making me flip pages when I'm running the game, it's that reason - it's supposed to help me entertain my friends, ultimately, not just be a good read and make me want to game.
I agree entirely. A game book should, ideally, be entertaining and/or inspiring, but it must be clear. I don't think it's a coincidence that my publications outside of gaming are technical works.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThat's a great summation of my post. "A game book should, ideally, be entertaining and/or inspiring, but it must be clear.
DeleteI'm flipping through my copy of the Campaign Book of Pacesetter's Chill. I loved playing this game for its sheer campiness. The game writers included a prologue that set the tone for the rule book and the game itself. The book even had a self described narrator: a raven. For the genre, I thought it struck a great balance between technical and creative writing.
ReplyDeleteI very much agree! I also got my pro-writing start with documentation and technical pieces for computer journals, and that has been an excellent foundation for the material I've written more recently. Conveying information clearly and cleanly is of vital importance, I think. Yes, I read over the AD&D books for hours at a time... but I shouldn't have needed to in order to extract the information in them!
ReplyDeleteThat's my chief comment on the DMG, really - I can read it over and over and get new stuff from it, because it's so badly organized you can't get all of it from one or even ten reads. Or find it during play.
DeleteIs it a case of poor editing, a poor editor, or Gary's influence on production as a whole?
DeleteIt's not badly edited, really - it's badly organized. It's hard to refer to and a lot of the rules that are hazy (initiative, say) could have been cleared up by getting a non-gamer to read them. It's hard to check rules for clarity when you already understand them.
DeleteIndeed, one of my most valuable proofreaders is my non-gaming girlfriend.
Delete