BSF
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Shemeska said:The 2e monster books are already out there in the desert with the bludgeoned body of the 3e monster books, already putting them in the ground. To continue to use the shovel analogy here.
Really, some of the best flavor text in the various monster manuals in 3e are very nearly a cut and paste job from the 2e material on the same monster. The Slasrath in the 3e Fiend Folio is almost a word for word cut & paste from its 2e source, but the 3e version is shorter and without the in character account of the creature's creation in the laboratory of an Ultroloth.
3e monster books have ecology information and pure flavor text as a seeming afterthought to the rules and listing of abilities. Compare that to the incredibly detailed and much longer and much more in depth ecology information in the 2e monster manuals (especially the later PSMC books, and for the sake of allowing the 3e books light in their shallow grave, we'll keep 'Faces of Evil' out of this for the moment).
3e rules work fine for me, I like them, and from what I understand, 2e rules weren't as balanced etc and the current edition is an upgrade for the most part. But the pendulum has swung too far towards the rules and we're missing out on the soul of the material when the best we're getting of description and flavor text, with rare exception, is a watered down and less detailed version of what we had in 2e.
Part of the issue though is that I am the equivelant of a blasphemer to you Shemeska. I never wanted to play planescape. So all that flavor text just made it harder for me to integrate into my homebrew settings.
There was more flavor in many portions of 2E. Assuming you wanted to use that flavor, everything was cool. But if you were creating your own unique flavor, the included flavor was useless. Or at least less useful.
The complete book of Elves was kind of funny when it wraps up all the elvish races in a massive family tree across multiple game worlds. The "Elven Tree of Evolution". Here is where the nomadic high elves expanded across multiple gaming universes than evolved in the racial subtypes that exist. What's amusing about it, for me, is that the Dark Elves didn't exist in Greyhawk at that point. Despite the fact that they were first introduced in the G series of modules, in the Greyhawk world. So if I want to maintain the 'flavor' of the Complete Book of Elves, I am supposed to retcon that Drow don't exist? Of course not. Nor does the book explicitly say that.
The problem is that a lot of the flavor was being dictated by a game designer that knew nothing about what you wanted to play. It got to the point where some people would buy the books simply to rip the mechanics out and ignore the fluff. Then they would criticize the fluff as being useless and unnecessary padding to up the price of the book. (TSR is just trying to rip us off!)
The question is, where do you draw the line? When do you have too much fluff and too little fluff? I see 3E taking a bit more of a toolkit approach. The fluff is light. Looking back on what sells, it becomes obvious in the 3E world that fluff sourcebooks are less popular. Take a look at Sean K Reynolds' allegory to see what the 'theoretical' pressures are in producing books.
Fluff is a good thing. Some of it can be taken within a setting context just fine. Some of it can be lifted and borrowed across settings. Some of it can't. But when you are talking profits for a business, the fact is people are not buying fluff over crunch, so fluff loses.