Living Document: Design Notes
One of my major goals with Paths Not Taken is to simplify the writing. Pathfinder 1e inherited a great deal of awkward wording from the (Revised) System Reference Document. I’d like to make it easier.
In no particular order, and I expect this list to grow, here are some standards I’ll be applying.
- There is a great deal of ‘third person’ writing. Many game entities describe rules and the like for a (iconic characters notwithstanding) ‘unknown’ character. For example, in a class description, each feature has “a <class> can” type language.
- Replace this with ‘second person’ writing. ‘You can’.
- There is an immense amount of repetitive text. This adds work to the reader, when they try to compare things. For example, the ‘spells’ feature in many classes is almost the same, but they have differences embedded in the text.
- Define abilities once, then the things that grant that ability can define when and how it is granted. This will make it easy to keep shared definitions consistent. Also, it will greatly shorten text in other places to just what is specific to that place.
- If need be, clear definition of ‘ability’ and ‘grant’ can make it easy to incorporate the definitions into other places. I can make a ‘rogue class definition’ that is abbreviated to just the necessary text… and one that copies the ability definitions to make a ‘complete’ version.
- Favor active voice over passive voice.
- Describe the default action or consequence. Then how it can be mitigated or avoided, and what that means.
- Many prerequisites, especially those that refer to class features, are connected to the class features.
- Change prerequisites to use the underlying abilities described above. I just care that you have evasion. I don’t care if you got it from the rogue class, the ranger class, or because you’re a familiar. [Okay, technically a familiar has improved evasion, not evasion, but I’ll accept it as equivalent.]
There will be more to come.