Clint, you have been talking about rewriting the rulebook. Well I've come across one passage that badly needs to be rewritten. It's unclear, contradictory, contains bad grammar and it's unnecessarily long. It's the last paragraph on page 19 and concerns stealth.
Allow me to dissect this paragraph sentence by sentence:
"A character will get the benefit of the stealth only during the attempt to fulfil his own missions."
1) Why "the stealth"? Is there more than one kind? No. Then "stealth" on its own is better.
2) It uses the word "only" but, in the 3rd sentence of the sama para, it says, "stealth can also come into play when..." which contradicts "only." "Only" means one, but "also" means more than one. Therefore "only" should be deleted.
3) "the attempt": does a character only get one attempt (singular) to fulfil his missions (plural)? Of course not, so this should be changed to "attempts" (plural). And why "missions"? Why not "orders"? Making the above changes we have:
"A character will get the benefit of stealth during attempts to fulfil his own orders." This is both shorter and clearer but still misleading, as it states the character "will" ie definitely, get the benefit. Experienced players know this doesn't -always- happen. "will get the benefit" should be changed to "will get some benefit" which is more accurate. It should really read "will get a random amount of benefit from stealth" but I guess that gives too much away.
"To reflect the reality that a character will not be stealthy all of the time, the stealth of a character will not be considered when other characters are trying to affect them - only when the character is attempting to fulfil his own orders."
1) "the stealth of a character will not be considered when..." is contradicted by the third sentence. It needs to be amended, perhaps substituting "may not" for "will not" or inserting "always" after "not."
2) The last phrase, beginning "only when..." is an almost word for word duplication of the first sentence. As such it's unnecessary and should be deleted. There is also that word "only" which is contradicted in the following sentence.
"Stealth can also come into play when a character is actively trying to avoid death/capture after combat, when guarding a character or location, when a 'scout for characters' order is issued, or when trying to escape while being held hostage."
1) Note the third word "also" which contradicts the "only" in the previous sentences.
2) Why is the phrase "when guarding..." included here? Isn't that covered by "during the attempt to fulfil his own missions" in sentence 1? If so that phrase is unnecessary and should be deleted. If OTOH guarding is affected by stealth differently to other agent orders, this needs to be clarified.
3) "When a 'scout for characters' order is issued": does this mean when the character issues such an order his stealth comes into play, or when such an order is issued which might affect him, his stealth comes into play? Logically it is the latter, but it's not clear from this phrase. Add after the word "issued", "which might affect him."
4) "When trying to escape while being held hostage" is clumsy. Substitute: "when a hostage and trying to escape." That's clearer and only 7 words instead of 8.
Here is the offending paragraph rewritten:
A character will get some benefit from stealth during attempts to fulfil his own orders. To reflect the 'reality' that a character will not be stealthy all the time, the stealth of a character will not always be considered when other characters are trying to affect him. Stealth can also come into play when a character is actively trying to avoid capture/death after combat, when a 'scout for characters' order is issued which might affect him, or when a hostage and trying to escape.
Isn't that better?
Richard.
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