How do you feel about Fluff in your Crunch?

[Simia Saturnalia]

I'd say there are much better games for medieval European fantasy gaming than D&D. WFRP 2e, for example, is excellent. D&D's always been great at yahoo over-the-top dragon-nad-punching freakout kitchen sinkery, so I figure embrace the strengths.

YMMV.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I much prefer Crunch in my Fluff.

The core rules, IMHO, should have no fluff at all beyond your standard generic fantasy fluff (dwarves live in mountains and are grumpy). The Campaign Setting books should contain the Fluff and a healthy dose of Crunch too so as to gear the core rules to the setting.

Midnight is the perfect example. All of the races are completely re-statted or dropped entirely and all magic using classes in the core rules are dumped and replaced with classes better suited to the setting. Even the core rules magic system is dumped in favor of a spell point system.

I personally wouldn't mind seeing WOTC go the path of White Wolf and publishing an inexpensive core rule book with no classes or races but then filling in that information in the Campaign Setting guides. With the space saved by omitting the classes, races, and generic setting info perhaps there could be a single rule book for both Dungeon Masters AND Players.

 

[Goken100]

Haven't you guys heard that song by Loverboy? "Fluff and Crunch in D&D just don't splice!"

 

[ruleslawyer]

I sorta wish there was an option for "fluff is fine, as long as it tells me what the feat does."

Specifically, I'm thinking of GWA here. I can't imagine why the feat wasn't just called "Spell Shaping" or "Exclude Allies" or the like... unless the PHB also contains detailed descriptions of Golden Wyvern, Emerald Frost, etc. schools a la Tome of Battle, in which case we're talking what is IMHO a serious waste of space for a core rulebook.

 

[Li Shenron]

If there is no default setting, then there should be no default fluffy names.

I like fluffy names in a specific setting (see Rokugan for example), but I prefer if we design them ourselves.

 

[The Merciful]

People complained endlessly that 3e's core books were bland and boring. Absolutely no flavour. Well, be careful what you wish for. You wanted flavor in your core books, now you got it in spades.

Well, I do feel the "flavourful" names to be rather bland. A bit like a condescending adult acting hip to a teen, or blabbering to a child. More flavor, less silliness.

 

[Bishmon]

I hate fluff tied into crunch, so I chose the second option, despite how silly I found it to be. I mean, it's a bit melodramatic to say that hated fluff is going to ruin my campaign.

 

[an_idol_mind]

I don't mind exotic-sounding names, so long as they don't strike me as lame. I like Acid Arrow. I'm fine with Melf's Acid Arrow. Red Gorilla Plasma Bolt is a turn off, because it's dumb.

Disclaimer: There is no such thing as Red Gorilla Plasma Bolt. I was using it as an extreme example, nothing more. It will not be in 4th edition, and if it is, then someone owes me a royalty check.

 

[billd91]

I voted to put the fluff in the sidebars. I like a little of it to provide an example of how a game can incorporate the rules to make a flavorful experience. But I want my rules to have clarity.
The first purpose of the rules is to communicate, as clearly as possible, how the game is played. The use of fluff should not undermine that purpose.

In a similar vein, the primary purpose of a character sheet or NPC stat block is to store information about that character and communicate it to the reader. As DM, I may have dozens of NPCs to deal with and so I prefer clarity and reasonable brevity in my stat blocks. Overly flavorful names of feats and powers that do not imply their effects are an obstacle to me running a game smoothly. There were already too many of them out there in 3E and 3.5 due to proliferation. I don't want to see the core rules do it too much right from the start in 4E.

 

[billd91]

Disclaimer: There is no such thing as Red Gorilla Plasma Bolt. I was using it as an extreme example, nothing more. It will not be in 4th edition, and if it is, then someone owes me a royalty check.

But it would be awesome in a pulpy or 4-color style hero campaign... particularly if fired by a red gorilla of some sort.