Criteria: Evocative-Terse continuum vs. Rorschach for the referee

[tetramorph]

Hello folks, good to see everyone around here. I am here because I benefit from Bryce's reviews every now and then, because I agree with his criteria by which he reviews modules, say, about 90%, and because I notice a lot of user-names of folks I know and trust.

I would like to discuss the review criteria for theoretical and practical reasons. Theoretical, because I think his review criteria are just helpful for when I prep a session for my on-going campaigns whether I would ever want to share that material as usable for other referees or not. Practical, because I am thinking of finally sharing something I think other refs might find helpful, and I would both covet and fear Bryce's potential review of it.

As I said, I agree with at least, say, 90% of Bryce's stated review criteria. That said, I think there are only really two criteria for Bryce, in the end: terse prose and evocative description. That is it. It seems to make or break any review.

Has anyone noticed that these are, at least theoretically, opposed to one another? So that is one thing. Or, perhaps they form a kind of continuum where they form the two poles along which prose might fall. Trying to do both seems to me like trying to ask someone to square the circle.

Although I fundamentally agree with the criteria of terse, curt, clear, concise prose - for the sake of actual usability at the table, I do not agree with evocative prose as a criteria. This is for many reasons, but I would like to head to what is, I believe, my own most important reason: module as Rorschach for the referee. Let me explain what I mean.

I do not want an overdetermined module, because the more fleshed-out the module is the more it is in someone else's game-world and mind and the harder it is for me to fit it into my game world and into my mind for ease of play at the table. More importantly, the more overdetermined a module is the less I can determine its use in my game world and at my table. The more "creative" the prose of the module, the less creativity it gives to me. And the more work I have to do to work it into my campaign world and to "own" it at the table so that play runs smoothly. (Am I alone here, among members here who actually regularly run a campaign?)

The more open the module's description, the more I can make the module my own - which is what I want. And the more easily I can work it into my own on-going campaign, which is, again, what I want. I want a module to give me all the stuff that is tedious and time consuming to generate: good maps, terse room location descriptions, nifty wonderful puzzles and traps, encounter tables, terse monster and NPC descriptions with all the stats, terse treasure and magic item descriptions with all the stats. A nice terse intro, inviting me to imagine some ways I could best put the module to use. Done. Then I read it and make it mine. I fill in the "evocative description." The evocative belongs to me as the referee.

In other words, to use an analogy, I don't want a 100 page multiple choice personality test, I want a Rorschach. I want to look into the module and see "myself," that is to say I want to be inspired to make my own connections between locations, NPCs, monsters, factions, magic items, and the like that fits my play-style and my campaign world. Overdetermination deprives me of my own creativity - my own "evocative prose." (Again, among members here who actually regularly play or run campaigns, I can't be alone in this, can I?)

This is why, for me, Judges Guild modules are still the gold standard. Now, admittedly, I could use just a tad more description than they offered. And they really dropped the ball in terms of puzzles and clever and magical traps and tricks. But, correcting for those things would form the "perfect" module to me. (Notice I call them "modules," not "adventures." Characters go on expeditions that lead to adventure. I, as referee, provide locations for adventure. What I want others to offer me, and what I would like to offer others, is modular locations that we can share with one another to fit into one another's campaign settings. So, modules, not adventures are what I want and what I want to offer.)

Finally, and practically speaking, if and when I do publish a module, I am considering just giving a "Bryce-heads-up" where I just say: I have avoided overdetermined description deliberately, as a design philosophy, for the sake of opening a space for the referee's own creativity and for easing the referee's ability to place the location in his/her campaign - and ease of putting the information in his or her brain for ease of table play! I know already that Bryce would notice I wrote it and then commence to use this fact as a reason to dismiss the value of the module. But, oh well!

I appreciate any engagement. Fight on!

 

[squeen]

I can only respond in part right now. I think the terse vs. evocative dichotomy you lay out is a false one, and here's why:

The "evocative" is not intended to be read-aloud...so it's not for the players...it's for the DM. Bryce has said many times and places over the years that a good description jabs an idea into the DM's brain with just a couple of well-chosen words. It's maximally efficient data transfer. Poor writing takes two paragraph to accomplish the same thing that only a few well-chosen evocative words can achieve (and far less powerfully).

The advantage of evocative descriptive language that does a lot with few words is that the DM, when he reads the key (to remind him quickly) of what's in a room at-the-table, it rapidly (by association with other cultural "tropes" he's already got stored in his brain) enables him to immediate start winging it and describe that locale using his own words or imagination.

Those few, terse, magic words, evokes a whole-sale notion or setting the DM can immediately leverage. That's your Rorschach test, perhaps? No contradiction.

 

[squeen]

How about an example?

Version 1: Descriptive and Detailed
The bugbear wandered in here because he thought it might be a tunnel down to Bugbear Heaven. He scratches rapidly at random spots on his fur because he thinks that invisible stinging bugs are crawling on him. If the characters attempt to parley with him, he will take one side of an argument and then unexpectedly switch to the other. Sometimes the bugbear will mutter gibberish to himself or just stare off into the distance, only to suddenly snap out of it and become enraged and combative.

Version 2: Evocative and Terse
The bugbear is as mad as a bag of bees---alternatively catatonic, euphoric, and berserk.

(drops mic)

 

[Beoric]

I agree with @squeen (it happens), the evocative nature of the prose is supposed to inspire. It is not necessarily to describe, except in the most cursory fashion. To expand on your Rorschach analogy, short evocative prose makes for a more interesting ink blot

Also:

Version 3:
A violently unstable bugbear scratches at his mangy fur, muttering incoherently.

Maybe we can get @Osrnoob to write version 4 as a haiku.

 

[The1True]

Maybe we can get @Osrnoob to write version 4 as a haiku.

omg YES PLEASE

 

[The1True]

Also, this thread might have some answers for you...

Finally, and practically speaking, if and when I do publish a module, I am considering just giving a "Bryce-heads-up"

Sounds like you're rationalizing and it kind of invites the exact response you're hoping to avoid... There's a Bryce orthodoxy that's verging on dogma around here which makes for excellent guidelines to start off with, but if you really look at a broad cross section of his reviews, you'll notice that there's some wide latitude among his top-tier picks. Basically; have fun, clearly communicate that fun to me the reader and further on to the player end-user, and above all, be fucking awesome. You can get away with a lot if your adventure doesn't actually suck. The terseness and evocative liturgy comes out more for the middle of the road, journeyman efforts imho.

As a general rule: there's a happy (and wider than people think) middle ground between walls of text and cluttered, superfluous information, and dry stat blocks and treasure summaries.

 

[Osrnoob]

Seismic violent
A perfect, mangy bugbear
because of the fur

 

[The1True]

tears.

 

[squeen]

As a general rule: there's a happy (and wider than people think) middle ground between walls of text and cluttered, superfluous information, and dry stat blocks and treasure summaries.

I think of it as a spectrum. Some is "to taste", and some is workman-like vs. sheer-brilliance. I think "Evocative & Terse" is the far, far harder of the two styles to pull off, but can be devastatingly good when it works (and horribly bad when it fails: looking at you bullets!). Like anything hard, you have to work your ass off to master it (10,000 hours?)---and everyone's "best effort" is going to be different.

Personally, I like the challenge.

Slight change of topic: Bryce has his Four Pillars, while you have reduced it down to just two.

And speaking of bullets...there are other tricks in technical writing that help convey information better than long descriptive paragraphs. Bullets are the over-used, lowest-common-denominator, easy-cheese, PowerPoint crap-mechanic (my fringe opinion), but in general graphics (drawings, flow charts, tables, etc.) can be more efficient for a certain type of information transfer than just prose. Again, there's a lot of skill needed there too--to make good graphics so that a picture (or table) is worth a thousand words and not just, say, 1.4 words. Folks sometimes call that skill "layout", and also throw their hands up in the air rather than bother to learn it too. To me, it's just another communication conduit that when done well is invaluable.

And then just to blow everyone's mind, there's the Art of Nothing, i.e. white-space management on the page. That's honestly the one that twists me into pretzels trying to balance against allowing connected data to migrate off-page. Information too-sparse (single-column!) OR too-dense (tiny-font!) is off-putting.

In all of it, to be an effective communicator, you have to understand how people comfortably absorb information and account for it if you can. All the while knowing you can't please everybody. As an author, I think the most important thing is to please yourself while not shirking from doing the hard work (or you'll never have any pride in the final product).

 

[The1True]

As an author, I think the most important thing is to please yourself while not shirking from doing the hard work (or you'll never have any pride in the final product).

On this we are agreed. And I think Bryce has been going out of his way in the last year to praise even bad writers for at least having a good time and having the balls to put their work out there (as long as it's not cynical shovelware).

 

[squeen]

Sure. Self-pleasing work. You can say that and we all nod. But that's not really an exemplar to emulate, its more of a get-me-out-of-jail statement. Competition pushes us to be better than we would otherwise be in isolation. We learn from others, We steal good ideas. We innovate when chance drops a new idea in our laps (if we're paying attention). We strive to be better. Progress is possible.

All the rules-of-thumb and notions about craft go in the plain-looking "How To" pickle-jar.

Your personal satisfaction goes in the mysterious and unanswerable "Why Do It?" cauldron.

Sorry to be such a hard-ass, but otherwise it starts to feel like "everyone gets a medal" thinking. Not so. Some things are "generally accepted" to better than others to most people---even in something so subjective as a game publication. Like the man tried to show in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (and I believe), "quality" is real---to which I'll append: and is usually commensurate with level-of-effort.

 

[The1True]

we're having a non-argument buddy

 

[squeen]

I enjoyed it!

 

[Osrnoob]

On the shovelware
before squeen non-argue
beyond the 1True
-osrnoob

 

[The1True]

On the shovelware
before squeen non-argue
beyond the the1true
-osrnoob

I can't...I don't even

 

[squeen]

I sense a deeper meaning....but it eludes me. True art.

 

[Beoric]

And speaking of bullets...there are other tricks in technical writing that help convey information better than long descriptive paragraphs. Bullets are the over-used, lowest-common-denominator, easy-cheese, PowerPoint crap-mechanic (my fringe opinion), but in general graphics (drawings, flow charts, tables, etc.) can be more efficient for a certain type of information transfer than just prose. Again, there's a lot of skill needed there too--to make good graphics so that a picture (or table) is worth a thousand words and not just, say, 1.4 words. Folks sometimes call that skill "layout", and also throw their hands up in the air rather than bother to learn it too. To me, it's just another communication conduit that when done well is invaluable.

I like bullets as a DM-facing replacement for boxed text, describing a limited number of things that the PCs are likely to see first. But they still have to be well written.

As someone who does not deal with flowcharts on a regular basis I find them less helpful than, say, an engineer might. At least, they take a bit of effort for me to decipher. Similarly, when it makes the most sense for me to use a flowchart in a presentation, I find my audience can only follow it if I use animations to guide the viewer's eye through the chart, which is obviously impractical for a gaming supplement.

I also find charts or graphics that are dense with information to be no more accessible than a wall of text; graphics also need to be terse and evocative in their own way.

Like a mountain spring
Terse prose and simple graphics
Give inspiration

 

[squeen]

So good @Beoric. I am in 100% agreement with the exception of boxed-text-to-bullets as the default list replacement. I think paragraph-breaks (or commas) can do it just as well and leading with them in every key would be inviting more bullet-abuse. They are like opium: they have a medicinal use, but one must be disciplined!

 

[EOTB]

The discussion regarding "what is evocative" is good, but there's other aspects to tetramorph's post, such as what it is the module should attempt to convey evocatively.

I think this gets down to why OD&D is, for most people, a transition ruleset; and, for some people, the only ruleset that hits their sweet spot.

What the OP asks for is the equivalent of a songwriter in the music industry - someone who comes up with the basic melody and a simple arrangement for a musician to put into final form. The songwriter gets an upfront payment and also a royalty, but generally anonymity as well.

Most people spending the time to create a published product (as opposed to the playable adventure material that is the creative prerequisite for a published product) don't want to be background song writers, they want to put out final form music albums. It's a rare breed who's willing to withhold the full flower of their creativity in order to facilitate someone else's. There's already no real money in it; take ego gratification out of it also and the bottom drops out of the market.

I'd note this dynamic has been endemic to OD&D since the earliest days. Steve Perrin didn't settle for developing the Perrin Conventions for his own table, he circulated them so that others would apply his creativity, then finalized it in a new differently-branded game. Same with Tunnels and Trolls.

And this is what the hobby wanted. They wanted fully-realized creativity because more people want to play D&D than have the time to meet the demands of OD&D. (This isn't a mark against OD&D.)

We see it again in the 2009-20014 OSR, where OD&D was at its apex in terms of scene dominance, but that primarily was used to take it a specific step further into more fully realized derivatives. I think OD&D's natural cycle is to be elevated when more current fully fleshed out versions of D&D are rejected to a degree that stripping the house back to its foundations for a rebuild is generally desired.

But it is step one of a rebuild. Note that most of the people exploring OD&D in 2012 are on a different, more fleshed out version of the game in 2021.

But those are rulesets so we get back to adventure modules. I will say this: I think the hobby needs a cadre of good songwriters who don't sell a specific performance of their melody. It's a niche few are filling, and I think Tetramorph could be good at it.

But filling that role is best done with the understanding it is a niche, and not where the natural equilibrium of the hobby lies. For those that prefer the basic melody, only, they're going to have to develop the same skills as a cover band who can strip out the basic structure of a song from a full rendition, to give it their own spin. Because otherwise there will be little product.

To provide specific feedback, I'd ask whether Guy Fullerton's adventures are in the goldilocks zone or not. Those are about the most portable adventures I can think of, and Bryce loved them. So if those are in an acceptable range I think that's a good model for "creativity aid". If those are too fully realized for what Tetramorph is aiming for, then I'd be interested in seeing what that is but I don't have much practical advice.

 

[Beoric]

I don't think that your songwriter analogy is incompatible with terse, evocative prose. Ideally, for me, the language should include words that spark my imagination; they do not, however, have to spark my imagination in the same way that they sparked the writer's imagination.

Because I run a setting with nontraditional D&D elements, I actually prefer it if a module does not have too specific a vision, because it can make it difficult to adapt. To extend your analogy, I prefer to do my own arrangement.