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[[A]][[A]][[A]]
Does it hurt your eyes, too? Especially with white text on black?
Can we make it [AAA]?
I agree.
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That's a text placeholder for what will be an actual image in the book (which is itself controversial for other reasons).
The document will have a nice, distinct symbol. Paizo is using their formatting code for the symbol, I imagine. I do agree that it's a bit of an eyesore to put up like that.
That's a text placeholder for what will be an actual image in the book (which is itself controversial for other reasons).
Oh. Ok, that works then. For me, it's just all the [[[]]][]]]][[][][][ going on.
A symbol will remove that issue. Well, depending on what the symbol is, but I'd imagine it'll be better.
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That's a text placeholder for what will be an actual image in the book (which is itself controversial for other reasons).Oh. Ok, that works then. For me, it's just all the [[[]]][]]]][[][][][ going on.
A symbol will remove that issue. Well, depending on what the symbol is, but I'd imagine it'll be better.
It is, considerably. I could make it out when the text was illegible.
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We've been internally using [[AAA]] recently as well, for the text-only non-icon representations.
Icons are bad. [[A]], [[AA]], [[AAA]] would DTRT for the book IMHO.
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What we've seen of the icons, on blurry screenshots etc, suggests that the one to three action symbols will be interlocking rather than separate, so [[A A A]] is probably a more accurate representation of them.
The actual action symbol looks a bit like a diamond shape and a greater than symbol right next to it, emcompassing one side of it, sort of like a rune like this:
♦>
You can see it on the grim reaper monster page shown at the PaizoCon banquet, here, at 1:15:26. I seem to recall it's been shown elsewhere too, maybe even in one of the earlier blogs?
The double action symbol had a second greater than sign shaped thing added.
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Ugh, those symbols sound terrible. Is it so much to ask for the action symbol to just be a circle with a number in it (circle-3 if it takes all three actions on your turn, for instance), and for the reaction symbol to just be a circle with an R in it?
Ugh, those symbols sound terrible. Is it so much to ask for the action symbol to just be a circle with a number in it (circle-3 if it takes all three actions on your turn, for instance), and for the reaction symbol to just be a circle with an R in it?
You can get used to symbols fairly easily. I had the same complaint with FFG star wars games. But after one session I had all the symbols memorized. There's fewer symbols here, so it'll be even easier. We'll all adjust.
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Ugh, those symbols sound terrible. Is it so much to ask for the action symbol to just be a circle with a number in it (circle-3 if it takes all three actions on your turn, for instance), and for the reaction symbol to just be a circle with an R in it?You can get used to symbols fairly easily. I had the same complaint with FFG star wars games. But after one session I had all the symbols memorized. There's fewer symbols here, so it'll be even easier. We'll all adjust.
Except the visually impaired who depend on technology to read books/PDFs/webpages for them, who will be screwed because the technology cannot handle arbitrary icons.
Plus I won't be able to cut-and-paste from a PDF/webpage into a forum post properly.
Plain text is king! May it rule forever and ever!
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Ugh, those symbols sound terrible. Is it so much to ask for the action symbol to just be a circle with a number in it (circle-3 if it takes all three actions on your turn, for instance), and for the reaction symbol to just be a circle with an R in it?You can get used to symbols fairly easily. I had the same complaint with FFG star wars games. But after one session I had all the symbols memorized. There's fewer symbols here, so it'll be even easier. We'll all adjust.Except the visually impaired who depend on technology to read books/PDFs/webpages for them, who will be screwed because the technology cannot handle arbitrary icons.
Plus I won't be able to cut-and-paste from a PDF/webpage into a forum post properly.
Plain text is king! May it rule forever and ever!
Words, please. I know that today programmers love symbols, but a lot of us are old people and love the words, not the symbols.
Consider that we could print/photocopy the pages of the bestiary in black and withe for quick reference. How much readable wold be those symbols after doing that?Or the spells, classes and abilities?
As long as there's some way to get screen readers to read the icon (there has to be a way, how do they handle emoji? I imagine you'd want "☃" to be read as "snowman" or similar), I'm okay with icons as long as there aren't very many different icons.
Like if we get three: Action, Reaction, and Free (action), that's fine but let's not go far beyond that.
I personally find the icons in the bestiaries used in to indicate type, where it lives, etc. to be inscrutable without constantly referring to the legend, so let's please not go that far.
Maybe the icon should be use alongside the words: [AAA] 3 Actions
Hopefully it doesn’t take up too much extra space and blow out the books page count but it would allow the icon for quick glance while also work for electronic readers and those who don’t like to remember icons.
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Maybe the icon should be use alongside the words: [AAA] 3 Actions
Hopefully it doesn’t take up too much extra space and blow out the books page count but it would allow the icon for quick glance while also work for electronic readers and those who don’t like to remember icons.
The icon on the pregen sheet was as easy as counting diamonds. If you can remember how to count, you can tell how many actions the symbols represent.
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Maybe the icon should be use alongside the words: [AAA] 3 Actions
Hopefully it doesn’t take up too much extra space and blow out the books page count but it would allow the icon for quick glance while also work for electronic readers and those who don’t like to remember icons.The icon on the pregen sheet was as easy as counting diamonds. If you can remember how to count, you can tell how many actions the symbols represent.
Having played FFG's Star Wars game, I can tell you that using symbols is generally a complete pain, though PF2 will be less of a pain since they aren't on the dice.
But honestly, since Action and Reaction can just as easily be represented by A and R as with a symbol, I don't see the point in using the latter.
I mean it's just as easy to count A's as it is to count diamonds, but the former is easier to copy-paste and for several programs to read.
Maybe the icon should be use alongside the words: [AAA] 3 Actions
Hopefully it doesn’t take up too much extra space and blow out the books page count but it would allow the icon for quick glance while also work for electronic readers and those who don’t like to remember icons.The icon on the pregen sheet was as easy as counting diamonds. If you can remember how to count, you can tell how many actions the symbols represent.
Having played FFG's Star Wars game, I can tell you that using symbols is generally a complete pain, though PF2 will be less of a pain since they aren't on the dice.
But honestly, since Action and Reaction can just as easily be represented by A and R as with a symbol, I don't see the point in using the latter.
I mean it's just as easy to count A's as it is to count diamonds, but the former is easier to copy-paste and for several programs to read.
The issue as I understand it is that it is harder for the umimpaired eye to distinguish more letters in the middle of a wall of text than these symbols. Paizo has said the symbols have been extremely helpful during their internal playtesting.
But this leaves a pretty big question mark for how the visually impaired will be able to interact with it in various ways.
Maybe the icon should be use alongside the words: [AAA] 3 Actions
Hopefully it doesn’t take up too much extra space and blow out the books page count but it would allow the icon for quick glance while also work for electronic readers and those who don’t like to remember icons.The icon on the pregen sheet was as easy as counting diamonds. If you can remember how to count, you can tell how many actions the symbols represent.
Having played FFG's Star Wars game, I can tell you that using symbols is generally a complete pain, though PF2 will be less of a pain since they aren't on the dice.
But honestly, since Action and Reaction can just as easily be represented by A and R as with a symbol, I don't see the point in using the latter.
I mean it's just as easy to count A's as it is to count diamonds, but the former is easier to copy-paste and for several programs to read.
Having played FFG SW, I can say that it takes all of a single session to get used to the symbols. Even for my players who generally have a tough time with reading, like my wife who has dyslexia. There's only seven of them.
On that same note, we use symbols and combinations of symbols in every day writing. It's called the alphabet. If you can learn the alphabet, then you can learn to use a single new symbol that denotes Action.
We also have non-letter symbols we use all the time, such as . and , as well as &, !, $, #, @, and more.
It's just a matter of literacy, and for those who are playing these types of games, which have a minimum level of literacy requirement, learning a handful of new symbols isn't a even a mild obstacle.
Heck, if you want to complain about having to learn one or two new symbols, then don't ever try to learn Japanese (with it's four different alphabets) or Chinese (with it's thousands of symbols, each one can denotes an full word or even entire concepts).
For those concerned with speach-to-text programs, if those programs can be programmed to recognize other symbols, then they can be programmed to recognize these symbols. Paizo has a history of accommodating the disadvantaged, and I'm sure if they had a request to have these symbols included in a common speach-to-text program, they'd make an effort to assist.
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Having played FFG SW, I can say that it takes all of a single session to get used to the symbols. Even for my players who generally have a tough time with reading, like my wife who has dyslexia. There's only seven of them.
On that same note, we use symbols and combinations of symbols in every day writing. It's called the alphabet. If you can learn the alphabet, then you can learn to use a single new symbol that denotes Action.
We also have non-letter symbols we use all the time, such as . and , as well as &, !, $, #, @, and more.
It's just a matter of literacy, and for those who are playing these types of games, which have a minimum level of literacy requirement, learning a handful of new symbols isn't a even a mild obstacle.
Heck, if you want to complain about having to learn one or two new symbols, then don't ever try to learn Japanese (with it's four different alphabets) or Chinese (with it's thousands of symbols, each one can denotes an full word or even entire concepts).
For those concerned with speach-to-text programs, if those programs can be programmed to recognize other symbols, then they can be programmed to recognize these symbols. Paizo has a history of accommodating the disadvantaged, and I'm sure if they had a request to have these symbols included in a common speach-to-text program, they'd make an effort to assist.
Oh, I got used to them. It was still a pain. It also makes the game terrible to play online since you have to cross-reference dice results (in numbers) with dice symbols. But I got used to that too. Just because I get used to something doesn't make it good. I've gotten used to my glasses, that doesn't mean not needing glasses isn't better.
Now, leaving aside the overall condescending tone of your post, which I find rather cute: I already learned the alphabet, and the alphabet works more than well enough for what Paizo wants to do. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. That's how the saying goes, yes?
And the difference between this game and japanese is: I need to learn the different symbols to learn japanese. Same as I'd need to learn Cyrillic to learn Russian. Same as I had to learn umlauts to learn german.
But guess what? Paizo doesn't need to use these symbols. They can use [A] and [R]. It's less work for them, it's less work for us, it's less work for everybody, and it works just as well as a random squiggly bit, if not better.
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If it isn't broken, don't fix it. That's how the saying goes, yes?
That's a horrible philosophy, and encourages people to never improve - to never find a better way because what they're used to for now works good enough for them.
As Grace Hopper says, "Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, 'We've always done it this way.' I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise." Or the common paraphrase, "The most dangerous phrase in human history is 'We've always done it this way."
That's what "If it ain't broke, done fix it" means. It means never improving.
That's what this argument is: Don't try to improve because I like the way it was, even if it isn't the best.
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If it isn't broken, don't fix it. That's how the saying goes, yes?That's a horrible philosophy, and encourages people to never improve - to never find a better way because what they're used to for now works good enough for them.
As Grace Hopper says, "Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, 'We've always done it this way.' I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise." Or the common paraphrase, "The most dangerous phrase in human history is 'We've always done it this way."
That's what "If it ain't broke, done fix it" means. It means never improving.
That's what this argument is: Don't try to improve because I like the way it was, even if it isn't the best.
By the same token, change for the sake of change isn't always good, as even a cursory glance at experimental firearms development will show you. And some of them weren't even doing it for the sake of change, but trying something new. Something that didn't work.
Just because something has worked for ages doesn't mean it's the best, true. Conversely, it doesn't mean it isn't the best. It could be. Dismissing something because it's old is just as asnine as clinging to it just because it's how it's always been done.
In this case, I don't see how the symbols do anything more worthwile than using [A] and [R] does. And I have had bad experiences with symbol-heavy games, so I'm even more skeptical.
ALso, I bet that your clock, even though it runs counter-clockwise, still has numbers on it? Why? Why not express the time in fractions? Or with hieroglyphs? After all, it's just learning more symbols.
In this case, I don't see how the symbols do anything more worthwile than using [A] and [R] does. And I have had bad experiences with symbol-heavy games, so I'm even more skeptical.
There are several things to take into consideration here. From a utilitarian perspective, "bare" letters are adequate for expressing the action economy. It's legible for most people and text-reading technology can easily parse it.
There are also aesthetic concerns, though, from both Paizo's point and also some visually/reading impaired people's point. As Captain Morgan mentioned above, some people can more easily recognize symbols in a large block of text. Second, Paizo are also interested in developing a specific look to the new edition (a graphic identity/IP), something that helps set it apart from other games and at the same time conveys some of the information in a graphically concise manner.If they can do that in a manner that either is readable by electronic readers (doubtful as it'll be graphics, unless they develop a specific font, which then won't have the same graphic "quality") or combine it with regular text in a manner that doesn't seem redundant/intrude too much in combination with the graphics, then both "parties" can be satisfied.
Personally I think a book full of [A][A][A] or [AAA] text would be too boring and it would be more disturbing and make e.g. statblocks more annoying to read. But I also think it's important to make sure everyone is catered to. And I don't want an abundance of different symbols (I can't remember the Bestiary symbols either), but just a few, clearly identifiable symbols.
It'll be interesting to see what they come up with.
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If they can do that in a manner that either is readable by electronic readers (doubtful as it'll be graphics, unless they develop a specific font, which then won't have the same graphic "quality") or combine it with regular text in a manner that doesn't seem redundant/intrude too much in combination with the graphics, then both "parties" can be satisfied.
You can add alt-text to images in PDFs. That's what screen readers pick up to give a description of an image. However, doing so may or may not be difficult depending on Paizo's design/publishing process.
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Maybe the icon should be use alongside the words: [AAA] 3 Actions
Hopefully it doesn’t take up too much extra space and blow out the books page count but it would allow the icon for quick glance while also work for electronic readers and those who don’t like to remember icons.The icon on the pregen sheet was as easy as counting diamonds. If you can remember how to count, you can tell how many actions the symbols represent.
Having played FFG's Star Wars game, I can tell you that using symbols is generally a complete pain, though PF2 will be less of a pain since they aren't on the dice.
But honestly, since Action and Reaction can just as easily be represented by A and R as with a symbol, I don't see the point in using the latter.
I mean it's just as easy to count A's as it is to count diamonds, but the former is easier to copy-paste and for several programs to read.
The issue as I understand it is that it is harder for the umimpaired eye to distinguish more letters in the middle of a wall of text than these symbols. Paizo has said the symbols have been extremely helpful during their internal playtesting.
But this leaves a pretty big question mark for how the visually impaired will be able to interact with it in various ways.
It is equally bad if you have to search symbols or letters in the middle of a wall of text. Even if the symbol is clear you need to check the text to see why the symbols are there and not in another point of the wall of text.
If instead the symbols/letters are in a clear, constant position, in a well organized presentation of the abilities using icons probably will have a limited advantage.
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Icons are bad. [[A]], [[AA]], [[AAA]] would DTRT for the book IMHO.
Icons are superior for people with dyslexia, and makes the book easier for English Language Learners to decode independently.
That isn’t to say that the icons that the current game has are perfect, but there’s a reason they say a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Icons are bad. [[A]], [[AA]], [[AAA]] would DTRT for the book IMHO.Icons are superior for people with dyslexia, and makes the book easier for English Language Learners to decode independently.
That isn’t to say that the icons that the current game has are perfect, but there’s a reason they say a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Good points. I admit I was thinking of the less-subtly visually impaired only (i.e. the ones reliant on technology to read at all).
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How do you read? Not trying to be an a!*%%%$ here, but if you can't make out symbols, which are generally a bit larger and more distinctive than Latin letters, how do you actually read words?Ugh, those symbols sound terrible. Is it so much to ask for the action symbol to just be a circle with a number in it (circle-3 if it takes all three actions on your turn, for instance), and for the reaction symbol to just be a circle with an R in it?Yeah, no daft, semi "universal" symbols", please: "...say, honey, is that a dog humping a frisbee?"
That's me, with my eye conditions.
It depends on the symbols as well as the background they are on. I have to admit I tend to have problems with many of those in the bestiaries because they seem muddled on the background they are on. I have to reference more than a few times to get what they are.
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I feel like the best reason for icons is how much space it potentially buys you in future book, since it allows you to replace instances of "As a standard action, you may do [foo]" with "[A]: [Foo]". Or "As a full found action, you may [bar]" with "[A][A][A]: [bar]."
So I don't think it's going to go away as it will make formatting future books (particularly really space limited ones like player companions) a lot easier.
I feel like the best reason for icons is how much space it potentially buys you in future book, since it allows you to replace instances of "As a standard action, you may do [foo]" with "[A]: [Foo]". Or "As a full found action, you may [bar]" with "[A][A][A]: [bar]."
So I don't think it's going to go away as it will make formatting future books (particularly really space limited ones like player companions) a lot easier.
It's also good for in game use, at least at my games, because we have a ruling that in order to make use of a feat, class feature or similar thing, you need the full text of that ability at hand. If the full text is just [[A]]: [One or maybe two sentences], that's a lot less to write, and a lot clearer to read, even if it's scribbled on an index card, as I tend to do.
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It's also good for in game use, at least at my games, because we have a ruling that in order to make use of a feat, class feature or similar thing, you need the full text of that ability at hand. If the full text is just [[A]]: [One or maybe two sentences], that's a lot less to write, and a lot clearer to read, even if it's scribbled on an index card, as I tend to do.I feel like the best reason for icons is how much space it potentially buys you in future book, since it allows you to replace instances of "As a standard action, you may do [foo]" with "[A]: [Foo]". Or "As a full found action, you may [bar]" with "[A][A][A]: [bar]."
So I don't think it's going to go away as it will make formatting future books (particularly really space limited ones like player companions) a lot easier.
You still don't need actual icons to save all that space though. It could literally just be a black bar with white text that says "Action:" or "3 Actions:" or "Reaction:" with the rest of the text following inline. That is still immediately easy to see in a large block of text, it copies directly from PDF to a forum post, and it is visible to screen readers with no extra labor required.
[[A]][[A]][[A]]
Does it hurt your eyes, too? Especially with white text on black?
Having had the (mis)fortune of working as an iOS developer on projects using Objective-C... I'm quite familiar with the endless square brackets, so I manage it pretty well.
That said, I do think there are enough unicode characters that a symbol can be found to represent what is desired.
These should be easily readable by both human readers with slight impairments, due to appearing to be a graphical symbol, and by screen readers, due to having metadata that has a plain-text name.
For example: ☰ is called Trigram for Heaven which may be a slightly too fanciful name for a symbol, but you get the idea.
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Frankly I'm 100% fine with this design decision.
It seems like it's being done to help make it INSTANTLY apparent how many actions something requires, and defining it with a Universal Symbol (That hopefully ends up looking more like a special font vs an Emoji) in every context will prove useful.
If it Looks like [AAA] or [R] in the book in the regular font I can foresee some serious issues for transcription and copy/editing purposes but as long as you make the actual Icons as Images instead of Font you can probably avoid that.
While visually striking, that option uses a lot more real estate. Using an entire line instead of a single character also means you can't use it inline. Certainly not a problem without a solution, but I'm just trying to say that there is no perfect solution to this, or most UX problems (which this basically is).You still don't need actual icons to save all that space though. It could literally just be a black bar with white text that says "Action:" or "3 Actions:" or "Reaction:" with the rest of the text following inline. That is still immediately easy to see in a large block of text, it copies directly from PDF to a forum post, and it is visible to screen readers with no extra labor required.It's also good for in game use, at least at my games, because we have a ruling that in order to make use of a feat, class feature or similar thing, you need the full text of that ability at hand. If the full text is just [[A]]: [One or maybe two sentences], that's a lot less to write, and a lot clearer to read, even if it's scribbled on an index card, as I tend to do.I feel like the best reason for icons is how much space it potentially buys you in future book, since it allows you to replace instances of "As a standard action, you may do [foo]" with "[A]: [Foo]". Or "As a full found action, you may [bar]" with "[A][A][A]: [bar]."
So I don't think it's going to go away as it will make formatting future books (particularly really space limited ones like player companions) a lot easier.
I wasn't proposing an entire line like the header at the top of the monster entry. Only the actual word "Action:" would be inverted. The rest of the text would start immediately to the right of it.
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special font
I've been pretty quiet on the whole PF2 topic, lurking through all the previews but this is one I feel worth commenting on.
It probably won't happen, but if Paizo is dead-set on using symbols/icons instead of words, I really, really think they should release a public-domain font with those symbols/icons.
My groups use standard statblocks as character sheets. Having to improvise our own equivalent to Paizo's typography means we can't ever produce proper statblocks. The same goes for 3rd-party publisher support. If non-Paizo publishers have to invent their own icons, then they're really not icons.