Are you a refluffer?

[Barastrondo]

Yes and no, though really "no" only to the idea of playing down stats. I kind of think they mean something, so I do get a little irked with high-Wisdom characters with terrible judgment and willpower, or the like.

Everything else gets palette swaps at the very least and new skins more often than not. No need for a whole new race of sentient beings if "the occasional human with some giantish blood" will work just fine with the goliath stats. If changing all the special effects for an artificer's powers will provide me with a neat necromancer figure, that's what I'm going to do. Shoot, I don't even have militaristic hobgoblins, howling savage orcs, or demon-worshipping gnolls, although I do use hobgoblins, orcs and gnolls all the time.

The Internet is probably the most polarizing place to ask, though. You see the most saturation of new ideas here, where we steal things from each other's games all the time. This is also where you find people willing to say it's heresy if you use orcs that don't have pig snouts like in the 1e MM. At a guess, I'd say most people out there use flavors as written, but aren't married to the concept.

 

[Garthanos]

I stick to what's written if what's written is well,
But if not then I wouldn't, for the not doesn't sell,
And "if as is" is awful, then this is my tale,
"Better refluffed in heaven, than demanded in hell..."

Poetic, power like it I do, an experience point I send from me to you.

 

[jdrakeh]

Refluffer? Really? That's the term you're going to go with?

Yeeeeeeeah. . . I had to re-read the thread title twice, because how I first read it had very little to do with D&D. That said, yeah, I erm. . . re-purpose monster fluff all of the time.

[Edit: On second thought, that doesn't sound much better.]

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I just logged on. I saw that thread title at top of the page and I thought 'I hope I'm first. I hope I'm first.' Alas no.

In answer to the question: yep, I do indeed re-fluff. Re-skin. Change stats. Use non-standard stats. Throw in or out special abilities that fit better/don't fit with what I want.

It's the beauty of the game. Regardless of the ruleset, it's always our own.

 

[Garthanos]

A tangent question what's everyones favorite "skin-job"? - or does that need a new thread.

 

[Hairfoot]

It's times like this I think "fluff" should be filed under "concepts that desperately need a new colloquialism".

Then again, RPGs may get to keep the term simply through redundancy.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Don't be afraid. You're amongst friends. We won't judge

Sorry, I already judged you Kzach. It wasn't pretty.

 

[Fifth Element]

Tee hee.

I refluff constantly. I've used monster stat blocks to represent something completely different. I don't think my players realize how much I do it.

 

[Barastrondo]

Tee hee.

I refluff constantly. I've used monster stat blocks to represent something completely different. I don't think my players realize how much I do it.

What do a giant rat dripping with plague and a cold-radiating ice elemental have in common?

They both used the "dretch" stat block, with a simple tweak of damage type, in my brother's game and my own respectively. I only caught what my brother had done with the plague rat because I'd used the dretch for the ice elemental very recently and recognized the mechanics of its aura.

 

[fuzzlewump]

In my game, the BBEG of the adventurer was a Ankheg refluffed as a paladin of the Silver Flame. Yeah.