Game writers, stop being lazy about “you.” I’m looking at all of you who write board game rules, card game rules, and tabletop RPG rules.
What needs to stop is indiscriminate use of the word “you” as a pronoun that means “the person I, the writer, am imagining at this moment.”
If you’ve ever in your life read more than three game rulebooks, you’ve seen sentences like this:
When it’s your turn, you draw a card.
That’s a fantastic rule if it only applies to the person reading the rulebook, but presumably it applies to all the game’s players. So, better to write:
Each player draws a card on his or her turn.
Or, if you happen to roll with a singular “they” (which I don’t tend to, but it’s defensible):
Each player draws a card on their turn.
Or, perhaps best of all (but perhaps not, depending on whether the rules in question sometimes require a given player to draw a variable number of cards, in which case this could be disastrously misleading):
Players draw cards on their turns.
Pedantic?
In the example above, I’ll grant that it might be so. I don’t think happen to think that it is, but I’ll grant you a “might.”
Where it becomes a real problem is when there are different classes of players to whom the rules apply differently, and the writer makes an assumption about which class of player is reading a given passage of rules, but does not actually communicate that assumption.
The classic situation in an RPG manual is where the two classes of player are (a) players and (b) gamemaster, and the text jumps all over between calling the gamemaster “you” and calling the players “you” without doing anything to signal which are which.
Let’s return to this:
On your turn, you draw a card.
Imagine that as an instruction in an RPG rulebook. It’s easy to imagine a lazy writer meaning either of these critically different things:
On his turn, the gamemaster draws a card.
On their turns, both the players and the gamemaster draw a card.
Although context might lend a clue (Does the rule appear in a clearly defined “gamemaster” section of the rulebook? Does the header add anything meaningful?) there’s no doubt that a clearer rule is better than an ambiguous one. (Setting aside the game of Eight-card Non-traditional Mao.)
Keep this in mind, also: “Multiple classes of players” also arise in games without variable player roles. There are often (by which I mean either “usually” or “always”) wildly different rules that apply to the player taking his or her turn than to the rest of the players, for example.
So take care with “you,” please.
This hits close to home for me, as the game I’m working on right now does two non-traditional things for RPGs: it addresses the reader directly and parts of it are intended to be read aloud. Thinking about (and specifying) who the text was addressed to helped with the problem you describe.
The difference between you-the-player and you-the-character is also often important, and usually worth distinguishing. “If you draw the ‘Jump’ card, this means you can safely jump from the streets to rooftop-level, and visa-versa” No I can’t! My character might be able to, but my character isn’t drawing cards.
I see your point, but I don’t agree. In many cases, it is *not* necessary to specify which character you are talking about, and in that cases repeated use of “this character” is dreadfully boring to read, whereas “you” is both shorter and more dynamic. For example, a long-list of PC traits might repeat the phrase “the character is XX” or “the character must XX” … snooze. I’d much rather read “You are XX” or “You must XX”, and if necessary, the description can say “You must be XX to have this trait.” (Or whatever).
This post is amusing in conjunction with the instruction box for comments, which informs me that “You can skip to the end and leave a response” and “You can use these tags.”
Doesn’t anyone use style guides anymore? Putting an editorial style guide together can be a real bear, but once the framework is in place, writers at least know how to address the customer.
Infomorph, I’d be with you if the choice between accurate and boring was either/or, and if there were no other synonyms for “character” than “you.”
Charlequin, how does confusion about an ambiguous “you” arise in the context of a website where the readers bring with them exactly one personality? I’m not against second person, I’m against confusing instructions in games.
W.D., I’ve written comprehensive style guides at the last four publishers where I’ve had any editorial authority. It helps. Some of the writers you give it to even read it. And some of those writers even pay attention to it!
Over use of “you” goes along with many other stylistic ticks that are supposed to make text more “exciting” or “accessible” to the average reader. The problem is they can also render the text unclear, and in some cases painful to read.
Some personal bugbears include fake paragraphing in newspapers, and using the present tense when describing history. Examples are left as an exercise, since they’re depressingly easy to find.
Cheers,
Graham
In my job as a journalist, I use a style guide every day, and it helps. Most local style guides begin with something like the article above: An editor gets annoyed at a repeated mistake, sends it out to the staff, and you (meaning the person receiving the e-mail, which could be me) add it to the list of things not to write.
ME
I’ve written a dozen or more rulebooks at my old job, and we always used second person because we thought it was simpler and more conversational. Like a tutor or demo guy was showing you the game.
However, your point is good, and I’m going to check out our current rule books to see how we’re doing that. What I get out of your comments is that, like every other editing decision, you should ask if it’s appropriate to use all that “you.”
We also have written rules for a two-player game that has since become a team game and multiplayer “many vs. one” game, so that makes it all complicated as well.
I thought you were going to talk about the fiction bits. We have single-player scenarios in which the texts constantly talk to “you” because we don’t know exactly what kind of character “you” are when you’re playing the game.
Anyway, thanks for the thought. I’ll throw this in the box of stuff to worry about when editing.