Good Fluff, Bad Fluff [re: Flying off the shelves]

[JPL]

I recently sat down to write my first d20 product, and I was amazed at how difficult this writing stuff actually is. I just don't have the knack.

Writing rules can be like instructions, like a technical manual --- keep it simple and clear and you're done. Trying to evoke a certain flavor in the "fluff" writing...now that's tricky.

What works well around the table is often pretty weak when it's committed to paper.

 

[Psion]

Games Workshop also has some decent stuff -- I've kept several issues of White Dwarf that have really good "history" articles in them that are fascinating to read, and if anything, there seems to be more of them lately. And I don't even play Warhammer or 40k...

That's a very good example. I got off the Warhammer treadmill and sold off my armies, but kept some codexes because they are so freakin' cool and are good idea mines.

 

[Psion]

I should state here that I am not on this thread about busting the chops of existing writers. I mean, I think there are a lot of talented writers out there who have made their way into the industry, but they just don't have the background and experience yet to churn out sparkling flavor text.

And one suspects that many who do move on to other fields because they pay more per word.

 

[Pramas]

And one suspects that many who do move on to other fields because they pay more per word.

Or pay at all. Some of my published freelance work I never saw a dime for.

 

[Desdichado]

Or pay at all. Some of my published freelance work I never saw a dime for.

That's a good point -- writers that are talented at this kind of thing can really only be in it for love of the hobby, since it certainly isn't for the money.

 

[Terwox]

Feng Shui isn't d20 -- but if you want to see a very entertaining book that covers rules and flavor at the same time... well, check out what people could be doing. I think if robin laws wrote something for d20 (has he?) I'd probably just buy it... well, the first time at least, but hey!

 

[der_kluge]

I think the point about Shadowrun is well taken. I enjoyed the "fluff" stuff in those books as much as the crunch. It really added a lot. And I think that that's the challenge with the fluff - it has to add just enough to spark an idea, or solidify the rules, but not to belabor the point.

Planescape got this right on, so did Ravenloft.

I think Al-Qadim tried, but it had too much fluff in some of the boxed sets, and not enough crunch.

I think there are really two kinds of fluff. The first kind is what Shadowrun and Planescape had - bits of information here and there that added to the rules, made them seem real; made the environment seem real.

The second type is what should be avoid, and that is belabored rules about the government, political, economic, et al., about the setting. Al-Qadim really had too much of this second type in some of the boxed sets, specifically the City of Delights boxed set. I can remember reading through page after page of rules about the local court systems, and the judicial process in that book, that added absolutely nothing to my game, and indeed made a fun game even more complex, because now I had to keep track of customs and laws if I wanted it to be true to the system. Al-Qadim was perfect with the first book, and then slower started sucking more and more as each book came out that bogged down the setting further and further. They tried to get too detailed into the setting, and WoTC "boxed setted" it to death. Planescape didn't have this problem because the world was so expansive that they writers could only write fluff in broad, sweeping strokes, so it never got into all that boring detail. And that ended up being Planescape's saving grace.

I'm rambling, but I think the bottom line is that fluff should be just enough to provide a good picture of a setting to someone, but not so much that it causes the reader to alter their perception, or force him or her to make changes so that it integrates into their own personal setting easily.

For example, a lot of fluff in Bluffside is campaign generic, and doesn't require much work on the GM's part to include in their own game. Some of it, like the specific races, or the specific gods require a bit more work. Too much of the latter, and most people probably would have rejected it outright at the shear amount of work it would have taken to integrate the product.

 

[jeffh]

Very cool thread. My own anecdote on this goes something like this:

I have, over the last two years and change, become somewhat resistant to fluff in d20 supplements based on disdain for most of the ones I had. Then I started reading through some old, fairly fluffy Dark Sun supplements and was riveted . Book of the Righteous had a similar, though less powerful effect. I guess I just didn't know when I was seeing bad fluff until I had reminded myself what there was out there to compare it to. Made me want to run a Dark Sun campaign!

Actually one of the crunchiest supplements I've seen lately also seems to have reasonable fluff from what I've read so far (just dug in today). It does make a point of not going too far with the fluff, though. I am referring to Steven Palmer Petersen's Second World Sourcebook. So there are a few flexible writers out there.

I also enjoy the old Gaz series for Mystara but I do find that I end up wanting to take notes, or ignoring a whole third of a page at a time. They're well-written and make the world seem reasonably real but do suffer from the excess of detail some here have mentioned.

 

[mmadsen]

I think there are really two kinds of fluff. The first kind is what Shadowrun and Planescape had - bits of information here and there that added to the rules, made them seem real; made the environment seem real.

The second type is what should be avoid, and that is belabored rules about the government, political, economic, et al., about the setting.

Well said, die_kluge. Ideally, the audience doesn't even know it's getting exposition fed to it...

 

[Mytholder]

This made me realize that when it comes to fluff/flavor, most of the current stable of d20 writers quite simply aren't up to the task. Many of them came from the background of beign good DMs. Good DMs may be good designers, but they aren't necessarily good writers.

I think a lot of writers are still feeling their way. D20 is really, really odd in some ways. Before the advent of the 3rd party D20 market, every D&D book was either written for a specific world (Realms, Dark Sun etc) or was pretty much pure rules (Player's Option, Complete Handbooks etc). Now we've got books which aren't just pure rules, but also aren't tied into any one setting. You're writing fluff for the world of Generica, for some platonic ideal of the vanilla D&D game.

I'm not denying that some writers are more comfortable with crunch than with fluff...but the percieved restrictions do make tricky even for those who are, er, fluffy by nature.