I am trying to be honest about my perception. If you think my opinion is wrong, just say so. No reason to accuse me of trying to exaggerate or whatnot. You don't know me.
I've repeatedly said that I think your opinion is wrong. And I think it's fair to say that you're exagerating a minor issue, or rather, an issue that all products face. Every DM adapts to some degree, all products must take that into account to some degree.
I feel like I'm having a hard time understanding. You're saying I have an unlimited ability to write fluff without making a product incompatible?
No, I am saying it is false that you have limited ability to write your own fluff without making the product incompatible.
The ability to write your own fluff without making the product incompatable is not limited, it is in fact quite substantial. I am not saying that it is unlimited, and by suggesting that you are being deliberatly obtuse.
When you originally used the term 'limited' you most certainly did not mean it as 'not unlimited'. You meant that there was only a small degree of fluff a writer could create, as indicated by your broader argument. This assertion is false.
You can write plenty of fluff for an adventure without running into the problem that you described, to the point where the problem you described is a minor issue at best, or more accuratly, the issue of adapting modules is ever-present and no more problematic for 3pp creators than other creators.
A setting is not .... you can insert your own mini setting? The more you make your mini setting "interesting" the more likely it is your adventure loses the ability to be just dropped in to any campaign.
This is simply not true.
It doesn't matter how interesting I make a module based around a murder mystery, it's not going to be incompatable with FR or eberron unless I include major elements that conflict with those settings.
It doesn't matter how cool and interesting the background of a spooky family in a module is, that spooky family can still exist in Oerth or Krynn or wherever with few problems, unless they're activly clashing with the setting. For instance, a group of people who can spontaniously create water and iron would not fit in Dark Sun- but that's how far you'd have to go to really get the kind of clash you're suggesting.
Sure, mood is an issue, but not as much as people may claim. And there is planety of space for different moods and subgenres in most generic settings. You can run a horror adventure in Krynn, you can run a romance subplot on Athas. A decent campaign tends to vary the mood anyway- doing so is an asset to the game.
The whole point of the PoL adventure is that the surroundings are bland (from a writing point of view).
Rubbish.
Every town has dangerous woods and strange hills and distant perilous mountains. The more you detail these places, the less your customers are able to pickup and run the adventure in their home campaigns.
That simply isn't true. Most settings have wilderness, and most make it pretty dangerous. Even the ones who don't can use a pol adventure, and the pol ones can still make use of the majority of adventures that are, for instance, set in a city, or a town, or on a trade route, or in the woods, in a desert, ect, ect.
If you detail a forest, that doesn't prevent people from picking up your product. After all, there's plenty of room for forests! and plenty of wilderness areas described in existing 4e WOTC products and modules.
The most pol assumes is that there aren't any overly large kingdoms or nation-states, but there are still city-states and cities of reasonable size.
