I actually feel that pathfinder’s writing for their classes does a pretty good job of bridging the gap between abstract and natural language. You have a few tools that help you quickly wrap your head around an entire class: the class progression table with class features and the class features each having their own header. But in each of those class feature headings is an in-world explanation of the justification. Granted, even 4e powers had “flavor text” that was frequently ignored, but I think some degree of using headers to divide units of information about a class can go a long way to helping people quickly understand what their class does.
Is it that it takes that long to read the Class description? What about if the abilities all had a proper name or term that was bolded (as some currently are)?
It may be my own experiences with technical documents, but I tend to favor things you’re going to need to read and occasionally re-read being as clear as possible.
On the one hand, sometimes the prosaic writing is great for getting inspired for what a particular character COULD be like. On the other hand, sometimes I’ve already determined this PC, henchman, or NPC is Class X and I just need to confirm exactly how one of their features works or when they get it.
I don’t necessarily think ACKs should be re-written, absolutely the way it was originally written is a big part of the reason I decided to start playing. But if there was a document that took the rules and distilled it down to the bare essentials (as often happens in 3rd edition SRDs), I would probably use that document for working through my game, and point some of my players to it.
I have players who don’t have the time or inclination to go over the rulebook with a fine-toothed comb and also check in on the forums. They play other games in other systems, and often get blindsided by something and say “Oh! I had no idea I could do that”.
Come to think of it, I think the mental cache thrashing of switching between editions contributes to a lot of our problems. It took several reads for us to realize divine casters have their entire list available as a repetoire at casting time. It was such a large list, we assumed it was meant to be prepared from like in 3.x/PF
There is an SRD being worked on. I bet between everyone on the forum and the Autarchs we can add in informational bullets like that where needed - that’d be the perfect place to do it.
The repertoire point is a good one; the cleric’s entry is in no way as spelled out as the Mage one.
May look like:
Mage
- Can cast a number of spells per day equal to the class progression of spells
- Has a repertoire equal to that progression plus INT bonus per level
Cleric
- Can cast a number of spells per day equal to the class progression
- Divine Spell Repertoire is predefined by the class - see the cleric’s divine repertoire (here)
or something to that effect.
I understand. My other question was missed, so I’ll ask it again: what about making sure every ability had a proper name that was bolded in the text (e.g. like battlefield prowess), followed by its description?
Sorry, I saw that question but never directly addresses it. The bolding is much better than no bolding, but in terms of quickly assessing what a class does, it doesn’t compare to having a class table with the name of each feature at the level you gain it, and somewhere in the class description there’s a header with the same name. That’s just more clear and easier to reference.
Of course, I could completely understand if, for some people, those big headers break up the flow too much as compared to a string of paragraphs that are essentially telling you the story of what it means to be a fighter, a mage, or a zaharan ruinguard. I do not, by any means, think my preferences for clarity are the right answer for ACKs the way they are for pathfinder. Just like when I brought up 13th age, that is a VERY different animal in how they present their book, and ACKs is and SHOULD be very different from that, but some ideas are strong enough to warrant consideration.
So to summarize (for clarity 
), bolded in paragraph is good for ease of reading, but not as good as paragraph headers.
I understand. Not particularly where I’d want to see ACKS go, but that’s totally subjective. I do think the (hopefully) forthcoming SRD will address a lot of your needs.
I’ve been using the text documents posted by Caphenid to great effect, but the lack of formatting makes reading some blocks of text a bit difficult. Is the plan for it to be hyperlinked as well?
I could be completely wrong about this, but my understanding was that it would eventually be a hyper-linked version hosted here on the site.
I think you’re right about that; the github is just the raw version 1 text or whatever.
I would love to see the classes formatted in AT LEAST a 3rd edition style, in my opinion. I think that could strike the balance between “natural language” rules-in-the-world stuff and actually being easy to reference and use.
A book in the style of D@W:Campaigns for the peacetime domain management side of things, with everything that’s been developed on the boards, would be great.
I… don’t know that I’d actually use this. One of the things that gets me with some of the domain houserules/proposed rules I’ve been seeing recently is that they add substantially more complexity that I’m really looking for. Ultimately, I think there may be a disconnect between player-groups who view domain play in-and-of itself as worthwhile, and those who wish to use it more as an enabler / context-provider for adventures. On the flip side, I suppose part of the problem with domain play as it stands for the Context crowd (ie, my former group) is that Paperwork To Excitement Ratio is fairly high; were I to propose further rules for peacetime domain play, I think that would be the focus of my efforts, rather than realism.
I’d also like to see more macro-scale world-enginey material; generating personalities for neighboring rulers and vassals, fomenting or combatting conspiracies among the nobility, arranging marriages, and so forth, as well as Oriental Adventures-style random event charts. One of the things that bothers me about the Vagaries tables is that they’re very flat and quite random in comparison with an OA-style system, where one major event is determined for the year and the rest are (typically) related to that event, either foreshadowing or following from.
Some Clarification (or further obfuscation):
Its going to be a while before I have the time to work on it further.
It will be hyperlinked when its put on the site, the txt is basically just a simple master to work from.
It will likely not be in 3rd edition style (unless someone else wants to do it) since I don’t play 3rd ed. (Nothing against it)
Anybody who wants to help clean-up/improve the SRD can certainly do so though, thats why I stuck it on github.
I basically agree with this. My paperwork tolerance is pretty high when I feel like I’m getting something out of it, but there also comes a point where I’d rather just do something simple and abstract that produces roughly the same end result.
I don’t remember the OA tables, but I was a bit disappointed in the Vagaries tables because random events happen even when you’re not recruiting, on campaign, or in battle.
Charles DM:
“Also, IMO, a good set of Judge’s tables can overcome some of the cross-referencing mentioned above. (Preferably part of a Judge’s Screen, perhaps with Thrice-Hidden Secrets of ACKS included, nudge, nudge …)”
There are generic screens available that can be filled with printed-out pages (I know there’s one for Savage Worlds). So all Autarch would really need to do make a 6-page pdf (3 for the players’ side, three for the Judge’s side).
“The integrated economics and how - it - just - works. But how do you sell “Economics!” as sexy when it comes to the game? I really have no idea. You either like that kind of thing, or you have no problem with infinite Cantrips (Just kidding! Sort of…).”
The economics system was a real draw-card for me, but then I actually am an economist, so I’m not really typical.
Yeah, I use one of those myself. I actually prefer game-specific cardstock screens from an aesthetic point-of-view, but in terms of practicality, these customizable screens are great.
They’re especially helpful for small publishers that may not have the wherewithal to do a full production of a screen, but could manage to publish a 6-page (or even a 3-page) pdf.
I’m waiting for the Auran Empire book so I can have an all-ACKS-covers timeline screen on the backside.
Player’s Companion (beginning) → ACKS (conquering) → D@W (early domain) → Auran Empire (late domain).
Buy a colour laser printer → Google Michael C. Hayes → Profit?
Dude. Duuuuuuuude.
(EDIT: Overly vague. Just thought that was an awesome idea.)