hamiltond Just put a glossary in the back of the book. It worked for Jordan and Herbert.
Well, that is guaranteed to make me not buy your book, because it says you can't be bothered to make the text work well enough on its own ground and you need to prop it up.
I hate that almost as much as I do maps.
I tend to agree that having random sayings and measurements is annoying.
Having explainations worked into the story is great - But, I also like to have a Glossary (Indexed when possible) so that I don't have to try and find a single thing that I am interested in the books, since I don't want to get caught up in trying to re-read the entire book/series for it.
Makes me forget what I was looking for, and why.
As for maps, I love them. But then I love making and building my own Worlds as a DM.
While reading the books this is mostly because if the Writer tells us in one place that the Character or Party is near “
Randomville” and then the Writer turns around and has the Person/Group being chased across the Planes - and the map says
Randomville is in the middle of a large “Forested Hills” region, this peeves me off!!!
As for measurements, so long as there is some
consistency to what the Writer is doing, I'm ok.
I mean what exactly did “3 hours as the crow flies” mean?
What, did someone (a scientist) watch a crow flying from one place to the next and time it – and then get someone else (another scientist) to do the same with a crow in another area – and they both came up with the same amount of time?
- Or, did this mean that it would take that long to walk/ride there if you could go
over the terrain like a bird?
Even in “Urban/Modern settings”, if the Writer is using Imperial instead of Standard – or God Help Me the Writer switches back and forth – it can throw me off.
I tend to end up rounding things off in US Standard. Thinks like Meters = Yards, even though I know that a meter is 3'3” and a bit; and it takes
about 3 Kilometers to make a Mile.
I mean, why is a US Mile 5,280 feet? Why not stop at 5,000, which would work for your everyday average person?
That way, when someone says "It's a quarter mile over that way." The person can quickly think "That's 1,250 feet."
Although to this day, I can see a Sign that says "Next Mile 3/4 miles away" and not try to figure out how many feet that is (3,960). while I'm driving!!!
So long as it's consistant -
Close Enough works for me.