Rulebook Tone: Casual or Professional?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Which do you prefer? Something like this:

The Basic Mechanic
Whenever you attempt an action which has some chance of failure, you roll a ten-sided die (d10), and compare the result to your rank in the relevant Ability or Skill. If your roll is equal to or less than your rank, you succeed. This roll is known as a check.

Flourishes and Fumbles
When it comes time to roll, there are successes, and then there are successes. For every 3 points by which your d10 roll is less than your Rank, your result has one Flourish. For every 3 points by which your roll exceeds your Rank, the result is one Fumble. Flourishes and Fumbles are not quite the same things as successes and failures— instead, they're representations of how much you succeeded, or how badly you failed.

For the sake of speed, Stars might wish to make a note of what rolls for what skills give Flourishes and what rolls give Fumbles. For example, a Star might record a Chemistry skill in the following way: Chemistry 7 (1,4, 10)

or

Most tabletop RPGs have pages and pages of rules and mechanics. I'd be lying if I said that STaRS doesn't, but at least half of 'em boil down to two simple sentences:

When your character takes an action with a chance of failure, pick an Ability and roll a d10. If the result is less than your Ability, you succeed.

This roll is known as a check.

Mind you, not all successes— or failures!-- are equal. For every three points by which your roll is less than your Ability, you score one Flourish. For every three points by which your roll is more than your Ability, you score a Fumble. Flourishes and Fumbles don't always matter, but they serve to give you an idea of just how well or how badly you did. The more Flourishes, the better.

[rt_tlp]

First. By a longshot. Just make sure the sentences are syntactically correct and not overly complex in order to make it easy to parse.

Edit: Also, the sentence with "there are successes and there are successes" is a good example of something that's hard to parse. Because it takes you a while to expand upon that concept, it sounds like a typo for a significant amount of time. I'd simplify it to somethign along the lines of "you will always succeed at the goal, but there may be additional consequences depending on your roll."

[Craft (Cheese)]

I think the 4.0 version flows better, but not due to any differences in tone: I wouldn't really call the 3.5 version "professional in tone", it just has a bunch of superfluous words.

[Yora]

Reading new rules is hard enough as it is. I really don't want to have separate the the junk and the padding from the content before trying to decrypt how the rules are supposed to work.

It's a different thing with setting books like Planescape, though.

[jindra34]

I think the 4.0 version flows better, but not due to any differences in tone: I wouldn't really call the 3.5 version "professional in tone", it just has a bunch of superfluous words.

I kinda agree here. The 3.5 is formatted in a more clear way, but is written in a highly legalistic manner, which gets very bad as you go on. My advise: Go simple, clear and short. And try to maintain some degree of formality, the writing is closer to an essay or instruction booklet than either a legal document or personal communication.

[Grinner]

Second. Just edit out that first sentence. It feels a bit too personal for being just casual.

The first one delineates the procedure more precisely, but I have to force myself to read it. The second says pretty much the same thing, just less verbosely.

[AttilaTheGeek]

Definitely the first. It tells me what I need to know without bothering around with casual conversation. It's more straight and to the point.

[Totally Guy]

I prefer the second.

I like to hear the author's voice. You still ought to have the section titles present.

[rt_tlp]

I feel like I should add a thought.

There's something to be said for how the book is being used. I think the casual tone makes it easier to sit down and read in one sitting, yes, but that's not what a rulebook should be about. It should be concise and clear. Extraneous sentences and colloquialisms only leave room for possible misinterpretation, and when someone wants to find "what's that rule about pushing heavy objects?" they don't want to go shuffling through a paragraph of fluffy friendliness, because that's detracting from the time they coul spend being friendly with their table.

The second one might make it easier to read through for those less mechanically inclined, but the point of the rulebook isn't to be read through.

[Grinner]

I feel like I should add a thought.

There's something to be said for how the book is being used. I think the casual tone makes it easier to sit down and read in one sitting, yes, but that's not what a rulebook should be about. It should be concise and clear. Extraneous sentences and colloquialisms only leave room for possible misinterpretation, and when someone wants to find "what's that rule about pushing heavy objects?" they don't want to go shuffling through a paragraph of fluffy friendliness, because that's detracting from the time they coul spend being friendly with their table.

The second one might make it easier to read through for those less mechanically inclined, but the point of the rulebook isn't to be read through.

STaRS means "Simple Tabletop Roleplaying System". If we were talking about GURPS or D&D 3.5, where there's a rule for resolving every conceivable scenario, I might be inclined to agree with you. From what I've gathered though, the system is meant to be played fast and loose, so that style is inappropriate.

[rt_tlp]

STaRS means "Simple Tabletop Roleplaying System". If we were talking about GURPS or D&D 3.5, where there's a rule for resolving every conceivable scenario, I might be inclined to agree with you. From what I've gathered though, the system is meant to be played fast and loose, so that style is inappropriate.

While I understand the concept, I think it only makes my point even more valid.

A rules-lite system should definitely encourage ease-of-play. If you DO have a rules-relevant question (and that WILL happen, even in the most rules-lite systems) you should be able to get a hold of it instantly and not have to hunt.

[Grod_The_Giant]

STaRS means "Simple Tabletop Roleplaying System". If we were talking about GURPS or D&D 3.5, where there's a rule for resolving every conceivable scenario, I might be inclined to agree with you. From what I've gathered though, the system is meant to be played fast and loose, so that style is inappropriate.

This. There are only a handful of real rules, and pretty much all of them outside of damage basically say "yep, it's an ability check."

[Xefas]

I prefer the second.

I like to hear the author's voice. You still ought to have the section titles present.

This.

And not just for my own enjoyment. It's a lot easier to snag tertiary geeks into roleplaying when you have a book that reads like it was written by a person, and that speaks to them like people, rather than an instruction manual that speaks to them like a wall.

[Grinner]

While I understand the concept, I think it only makes my point even more valid.

A rules-lite system should definitely encourage ease-of-play. If you DO have a rules-relevant question (and that WILL happen, even in the most rules-lite systems) you should be able to get a hold of it instantly and not have to hunt.

I disagree, as there's not much information to parse. I can imagine the biggest question with the system would be "What Ability do I roll against?", and that should be discussed within the group.

Precise wording is good for rules lawyers. This is not a game for rules lawyers.

[Grod_The_Giant]

EDIT: forgot to add in formatting when I copied from Word. Key terms are being marked with underlines, and key rules get bold and italic text. Maybe even a different font.

[rt_tlp]

I disagree, as there's not much information to parse. I can imagine the biggest question with the system would be "What Ability do I roll against?", and that should be discussed within the group.

Precise wording is good for rules lawyers. This is not a game for rules lawyers.

Well my limited(read also: none) knowledge of the actual system doesn't allow me to really make my point any further, so I will abstain on that point.

That said, reading through them again, the 4.0 rules (as quoted in this post) definitely straddle the line between "casual" and "awkward attempt at conversation" in a few places. If the "casual" method is the end result, you should pull back a tiny bit from that line.

Edit: clarity

[valadil]

Two thoughts.

The tone of the book will carry into the game. I would expect more rules lawyering in a game that defined its rules in legalese. Use the book's tone to communicate to the players what sort of game they should play.

This is unrelated, but I would also use the language of the rules as a litmus test of their complexity. Can a conversational tone explain the rules succinctly? Or do you need a professional tone? I find that any time I write rules that read like a magic card, the rule is too complex and should be toned down.

[Friv]

Valadil really covered it, but I would say that, having just been reading Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, a casual tone can work absolute wonders as far as sucking people in.

[Water_Bear]

I wouldn't mind the second if it had a sidebar or table with all of the rules alongside it. Knowing why the designers made the choices they did and how the game is supposed to play is useful, but 90% of the time you really just need to know how things work without wading through the prose.

[Scow2]

Aside from the first sentence, the second one is much more clear and concise on the rules, with no Not-English obfuscation.

[NichG]

In general I agree with those who have said that the first is not just formal, it reads like dense legalese and doesn't really do formal correctly.

That said, I still prefer the second in general. To resolve people's comments about 'its hard to find the rules' (I don't actually think it is here, but...) you can just have a simple sidebar or table that summarizes the important rules in brief, while the text not only says what the rules are but explains the why of them.

Putting aside that the second is more inspiring and fun to read (and really, thats what we're getting into new games for at the end of the day - things that make us go 'I want to run that!'). That means that it may function less well as a reference, but it functions much better as a hook to get new players into the game.

That said, it depends a lot on the system. I think that the more informal text works extremely well for very fluff-driven materials (not rules-lite per se, just materials that are extremely strongly tied to a given setting or feel). Examples would be Exalted, any of the TV Show: The RPG or Book Series: The RPG style of sourcebooks, any of the D&D setting books (Eberron, Planescape, Dragonlance, etc). That way the book is serving the dual purpose of telling the players/GM what they need to know but also giving a feel for nuances of the setting: how people talk, how people think, are people happy, sad, silly, dour, happy-go-lucky, etc.

For something like GURPS or other setting-neutral things I think its less useful to be conversational in the rules, because there isn't that 'give a feel for the setting' aspect of it. But I would still strongly avoid legalese-style writing. Basically its pedantic, tedious and hard to read. Instead, give a few sentences explaining why a particular rule is in place and what it is intended to do.

D&D has this sort of problem where there's RAW and RAI, and no one really knows what RAI truly is aside from being a D&D historian who studies the actual designers. I think its basically true that you'll never write a system that should be run RAW - there are always flaws, typos, things that didn't work as you intended, etc. So the alternative is to put the intent in the text, so when something breaks people have an idea of how to go about fixing it.

[Hanuman]

Option C, Chewy

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=235790

[1337 b4k4]

The second version by far, but Water Bear is right, it's important to have the rules in a table or other simplified quick reference form as well. Yes it means duplicating things, but part of rules writing is as noted setting a tone and encouraging players to read and play. As people, we use rules two different ways, we use them to inform and educate and we use them to reference and jog memories. They require two different forms of presentation.

[erikun]

I prefer the more casual (conversational) tone when discussing how a rule applies or the details on how it works. However, simple english should be used for the rule explanation itself. The rule should be clear, obvious, easy to understand.

Your professional wording (more like legalese, really) spends three paragrahps and ten sentences explaining a concept that should only half that, at least in my view. If I was going to write it, I'd use something like this.

Spoiler

Show

The Basic Mechanic of the system is to roll a ten-sided die (d10) and compare the result with the rank of an Ability or Skill. A result equal to or less than the rank is a success. A result greater than the rank is a failure.

Flourishes and Fumbles occur with much higher and much lower rolls. One flourish occurs for every 3 points the result is below the rank. One fumble occurs for every 3 points the result is above the rank.

From there, you'd probably want to switch to conversational tone to explain in brief what successes and failures mean, along with examples of what flourishes and fumbles can do (along with when you will get into flourishes/fumbles in more detail). Keywords that people are going to want to look up are Capitalized Underline Boldface at the beginning of a paragraph, making them easy to find. Other important terms are italized underline to make them stand out.

You'll probably also notice that there are a few other "keywords" I used repeatedly, even though I didn't highlight them as such. First, I referred to the value of the d10 as "the result" and continued to call it that throughout both paragraphs: The repetition is to make the meaning of the phrase clear without highlighting it or creating a new paragraph for it. This is also to avoid what happened with your first example, where you went from "the result" to "your roll" to "This roll" to "your d10 roll" to "your roll" again.

[Wulfram]

Professional for actual rules text. Casual for asides, examples and other stuff.

Though of the two options presented I'd probably prefer to take the second and remove the excess mateyness, rather than go with the first option.

[Ceiling_Squid]

I used to prefer the first in my RPGs.

As time has gone on, though, I'm starting to warm up more to the second approach. I prefer a rulebook that communicates the spirit of the game. Authorial voice is something I can appreciate.

And it's not like it's hard to parse or understand the rules in the second passage. In fact, the warmer presentation makes them easier to absorb, in my opinion. I had to read the 1st passage a couple times, or at least take my time on different sentences, to properly understand it. The more formal tone made me uncertain about potential technicalities in the rules I might be missing.

Then again, I guess I find myself gravitating towards rules-lite systems anyway where a less-formal tone in rulebooks is permissible, and encouraged. Savage Worlds has been doing that to me lately.