gimme back my narration

[Quantarum]

One of my players is a wizard and decided from the moment we started playing 4E that her spells all manifested as a flaming blue/white psuedo dragon. When she flung a magic missile, it flew from here arms and attacked dissipating into sparks that reformed on her arm. When she cast mage hand it flew over and picked up the object. When she cast flaming sphere it swells up and rolls into a ball. One of the other players commented "It's like you've made up you're own class."
An unfettered imagination is a powerful thing.

-Q.

 

[darjr]

Quantarum, that is the cool. I'm going to steal it.

Did she change the descriptions up front or on the fly? Does it influence what powers she picks? Do you have issues with the side affects? Like how some have issues with the light caused by righteous brand.

I really like this aspect of powers. I like how it almost begs some players to customize them.

 

[Tigerbunny]

...her spells all manifested as a flaming blue/white psuedo dragon. ... One of the other players commented "It's like you've made up you're own class."

That's beautiful!

 

[Hussar]

I'll object to that. To my eye, the whole "flavor text vs. rule text" is both recent and unwelcome. In Classic D&D the whole work was just "rules". There may have been parts easier to change and parts harder to change, but there was no "fence" between them, and any description had potential side-effects you could use to your immediate advantage in-game.

The problem was, this was more a bug than a feature. The whole "creative use for spells" typically meant that you were rule lawyering your way into getting more bang for the buck. Like using Spider Climb to pick pockets, for example. Who needs a thief? Low level spell, 100% effective. Yay wizard.

Which wasn't a horribly bad thing when wizards had so few spells per day.

But, that's not true anymore.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

One of my players is a wizard and decided from the moment we started playing 4E that her spells all manifested as a flaming blue/white psuedo dragon. When she flung a magic missile, it flew from here arms and attacked dissipating into sparks that reformed on her arm. When she cast mage hand it flew over and picked up the object. When she cast flaming sphere it swells up and rolls into a ball. One of the other players commented "It's like you've made up you're own class."
An unfettered imagination is a powerful thing.

-Q.

Nicely done.

The wife and I have been doing such things since first edition. It really makes the game come to life.

The strength of divorcing mechanics from flavor (or SFX) is exactly what the other players commented on. Every character can be "his own class" even if the numbers are almost identical.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm not trying to be snarky, I just honestly don't for one second see how reflavoring the fluff is any more difficult than making it up from the get-go.

For me, things like this just exacerbate the story/mechanics divide. If they don't give me any text, I can make up a story that fits the mechanics. If they give me text, if I have to make up a different story, I feel like I should've chosen a different power.

It's the same reason you re-name "thief" to "rogue," ultimately. The title and description carry some character flavor, but I want to choose a title and description that already match my character flavor, regardless of the mechanics.

It's not the biggest of problems, but like MR pointed out, you're forced to re-think the assumptions, and that's not always something that people want to bother to do. Addition (when there is no flavor) is always easier than subtraction (where you have to take out the flavor that exists).

 

[Mouseferatu]

Addition (when there is no flavor) is always easier than subtraction (where you have to take out the flavor that exists).

See, I couldn't disagree more strongly. To me, an RPG book without flavor is a textbook, nothing more. The purpose of a D&D book should be to inspire the imagination at least as much as it provides solid rules. I'd much rather flavor and inspiration even when I have to change some of it--because I can use the parts I'm not changing, and because it might inspire something else--than a bland list of mechanics with no soul to it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

To me, an RPG book without flavor is a textbook, nothing more. The purpose of a D&D book should be to inspire the imagination at least as much as it provides solid rules.

I 100% agree with this.

The ideal is flavor that you want to play.

But adding flavor to nothing is still easier than replacing the flavor that's there.

As a writer, by adding flavor, you're making a choice: "This is the kind of character you should be playing!" That choice adds a lot to the game, but it also makes it a bit more exclusive -- if you want to change the flavor, it's more mental work.

It's not a huge amount of work, but it's still something that a lot of people would avoid. They'd either play the suggested character, or not choose that particular ability.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I 100% agree with this.

The ideal is flavor that you want to play.

Problem is, there's no such thing as flavor that appeals to 100% of the audience. So by definition, any flavor is going to be flavor that someone replaces.

Since the only alternative to that is no flavor at all, I'm more than happy to deal with flavor I may not use some of the time.

But adding flavor to nothing is still easier than replacing the flavor that's there.

Not in my experience. I'm not saying the people who feel that way are "wrong," but neither is their experience any more objective than mine. Once again, it's a question of not being able to please everyone.

As a writer, by adding flavor, you're making a choice: "This is the kind of character you should be playing!" That choice adds a lot to the game, but it also makes it a bit more exclusive -- if you want to change the flavor, it's more mental work.

I actually think it's possible to write a game to be too generic and too open. If the trade-off for making a game more flavorful is also to make it a little more restrictive, I say bring on the restrictions. Obviously, that can be taken way too far, but I don't think it's inherently a bad road to start down.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Problem is, there's no such thing as flavor that appeals to 100% of the audience. So by definition, any flavor is going to be flavor that someone replaces.

Since the only alternative to that is no flavor at all, I'm more than happy to deal with flavor I may not use some of the time.

It is very true that there is no flavor that satisfies everyone, but "no flavor" isn't the only alternative.

Consider what the "builds" do on certain powers. Now, replace the build with, say, an archetype concept. For the OP, if you're worshiping Avandra, perhaps there is a power that is 90% similar to this branding wrath, but is slightly different, and with a different name and different flavor. So YOU don't have to do the work.

That's only one solution, and I'm sure there are more (and better ones, that might require less page count!).

The ultimate goal is so you don't have to sacrifice the flavor of the power for this keen new ability, and you don't have to not take the power because the flavor doesn't match.

It's much more rewarding than "suck it up and change the flavor," at least for me.

Not in my experience. I'm not saying the people who feel that way are "wrong," but neither is their experience any more objective than mine. Once again, it's a question of not being able to please everyone.

Sure. I'm just saying that that particular extreme satisfies others better. Really just stating the obvious: different ways of doing things would avoid different criticisms.

I actually think it's possible to write a game to be too generic and too open. If the trade-off for making a game more flavorful is also to make it a little more restrictive, I say bring on the restrictions. Obviously, that can be taken way too far, but I don't think it's inherently a bad road to start down.

I agree, I just also understand the OP's frustrations (and share them, to varying degrees).

One shouldn't have to change the flavor to meet their character concept. And that problem can be solved, to varying degrees, in ways other than just getting rid of flavor entirely.

Here's just a handful of seeds:

#1: Define the character narrowly. Don't permit, say, clerics, to be anything other than one thing (servants of a god of wrath and compassion, say). Later, release variants (a cleric who whorships a goddess of freedom and chaos, for instance). This way, every archetype you do, you do completely -- you don't have a dissonance between archetype and character abilities because one defines the other. The disadvantage is that you're less flexible within each definition. A cleric can't handle the job of a goddess of freedom and chaos -- it's not equipped for it, it states it blatantly, and if you want to play one, your options are to create a new one, to re-fluff something that's close, or wait for the official one.

#2: Define the character broadly. All cleric's abilities are as "generic" as Cure Light Wounds. The archetype is one drawn with huge brushstrokes, so that you can fit a lot of different kinds of characters under this umbrella. If a cleric is a "servant of divinity," every power should reflect that, and nothing should really reflect any specific servant of divinity. A god who isn't angry or powerful doesn't have a cleric, or every god has anger in them, or whatever. The disadvantage of this is that you loose the evocative flavor of a specific cleric. All clerics kind of look and play the same.

#3: Define broadly, but modify narrowly. All the abilities are like "Channel Divinity." They give you some foundation that applies to a broad archetype, and then, as you advance, you have the option to modify it for your specific archetype. This is like the "build-esque" thing I described above.

4e currently kind of mixes, matches, and tries a few different things at once. Sometimes, there is a failure (like the OP presented) and something has to give. But 4e doesn't take one track and stick with it.

Which may be the smart way to go. They can give you an "almost-Avandra-cleric, if you change a few things" right now, but make sure to support it fully in a supplement. Versus giving you nothing, or giving you something very nonspecific, or giving you a wall of different options.