Designing for Pathfinder: Searching for the Right Words

After designing just a handful of items and monsters for the Pathfinder RPG, I've noticed that when it comes to rules and mechanics, finding just the right words can be challenging. Not only that, rules and mechanics are exactly what you want to get right when you're writing materials for a game. Of course, you want your creative writing to be polished, too, but you can leave a little to the reader's imagination in an item's or creature's description.

saving throws: against or versus?

Search to improve your writing

Choosing the right words for rules text is less of a challenge for experienced designers with a solid mastery of the rules and a strong familiarity with the game's norms and standards. For the journeymen, myself included, one great way to find the right words is to search Paizo's PRD and d20pfsrd.com for some keywords and phrases that are similar to what you're trying to get across, and then analyze the results.

This is true whether you've already written something and simply want to compare it with existing materials of a similar nature, or are struggling to produce or recall the right words. Even if you don't use what you find, you'll likely come across something in the results that helps you find the right words to say what you want to say. If you have all the books you need, and can quickly locate passages relevant to what you're writing, that's a nice bonus, but nothing beats the speed and filtering capabilities of searching with a computer.