"It does what it says it does"
The debate over natural language in rpgs has been around longer than I've been playing them, some like it, some don't . One of the chief points in this is that most people's introduction to the style is through 5th Edition DnD , which attempts the style…badly (see for instance the difference between an attack with a weapon and a weapon attack) and it is that I want to focus on. Because, setting aside taste for immersion and such (I personally love me some gameyness), the key thing a rule or ability or whatever needs to accomplish is this: Does the thing do what it says it does? This feels obvious in some ways. Of course you want your rules to be comprehensible. What I think is neat is the different ways that happens, depending on your design goals, so I'd like to take us all on a tour to see how different design paradigms handle this idea. Pathfinder 2E: Reach for the Sky Pathfinder is the RPG equivalent of perfectly cutting a piece of paper. Its so clean. Pathfinde...
.jpeg)
