And then maybe check the conclusion that follows to see whether it’s worth reading the rest of the post. So, if you want the tl dr version: skip down to a quick and dirty bit about how to abbreviate a monster stat block. But I couldn’t leave the main analysis out: the idea of user interface design in RPGs. Hence my conclusion at the end, after I rant and rage and nitpick and after I say “okay, here’s a quick and dirty way to abbreviate a stat block.” I was going to chop out huge portions of this and leave the ideas unsaid and unanalyzed, but I can’t bring myself to do it. But I think there’s a big problem underlying my analysis. And then looking at the historical way it’s been handled. It’s me looking at a specific design problem and nitpicking the hell out of it. Because this article is mostly just Random Bulls$&%. And that’s also why, ultimately, I put the minotaur on it. And that’s why this article got so big and so complicated. But, the other side of that is that I won’t just throw up an idea or a solution without thinking through that idea. I’ve always promised that I wouldn’t ask people to read a rant about a problem without offering a potential solution. Because something bigger came out of this. I was writing a thing based on a simple question: can you abbreviate a 5E stat block enough to make it possible to include monster stats inline in the adventure text.
