Reply #18: That is not the point

[nadinbrzezinski]

I work in the gaming industry, producing ROle Playing Books and we started seeing this ahead of the curve

When Dungeons and Dragons started production values were far more invested in good, clear concise language that was not dumbed down, and not in art... it is not as if they wrote a masters or PhD thesis, even if at times you may think so (thaco comes to mind), but they spend quite a bit longer editing and creating something that was interesting to read.

These days... it is 180... glossy paper and cool artwork and the writing has slipped in quality since we need to keep things simple for our readers. Don't get me wrong, it still sells, and sells admirably well, but the original product would not sell... it would be, by modern standards, too complex.

What is more, the novels that came with many of the games.

They used to tell complex stories, or dare and do... and Weiss and Hickman are still a joy to read.

These days they are not only thinner but also simpler, with badly realized characters and badly realized plots... and always keyed to product.. so if you have a change in the rules, you will see a series of novels keyed to push the change.

When you ask the people responsible, who used to commission novels that were more or less decent, they say, our market cannot read this material because it is too complex.

Here is a huge secret, the market they are going after are the 15 year old mostly middle class males, but the ones who keep buying those novels are slightly older males, and novels are very poor sellers.

But words like oh "hence," I have used it for years, it is part of my lexicon... as my brother in law pointed out to me, I learned Queens English, not American, California English...

Oh and if you look at the GW novels, written for their games, they are far more concerned about character, and story telling than they are about reflecting game rules.