Crunch vs. fluff in supplements

[Psion]

Psion, could you talk more about "good fluff" vs. "bad fluff"? I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Heh, well, this is likely to be at least somewhat subjective, and I accept that there is a large audience of folks who lap of the exact sort of stuff I disdain (casts rueful look at some World and Darkness and Aeonverse books on my shelf), but I think I can offer a few glimpses of what motivate me here.

Fluff is a large area, as I take it to mean "anything that's not crunch". But let me boil down some of the major areas I feel make fluff bad: talent, style, brevity/clarity, and pertinence.

Talent should be the most straightforward. Game writing is a poorly paid segment of writing. This means that a lot of people who write for gaming do it out of love. And many of those perhaps love their ideas a bit too much. The upshot is that I don't see a lot of quality writing in gaming products; many writers aren't quite there yet when it comes to writing in a clear, engaging manner. Many have little or no literary education or experience.

Style - again, very much a taste thing, but certain sorts of writing I don't want to see unless it is fantastic, pertinent, or both. I don't like extended in character dialogs or disguised novellas/graphic novels entrained in a gaming book (rueful glance RETURNS to my White Wolf shelf.)

Clarity and brevity. Gaming products are to game with. When you start talking about things that are commonly regarded as fluff like world histories, character backgrounds and the like, a major reason for this text existing is to inform me. Yet in many books (big culprit here: setting books, though adventures can go this way, too), extricating the point from the text is a task. That's unfortunate.

There are times when there are facts about a setting, location, or NPC are dry. That's okay. But if that's the case, just put it in a table or similar place that's easy to find. Dressing it up in florid text just makes it hard to find.

Pertinence. This ties in to the style thing to some extent. I want fluff that informs play. Trivia can be cute and used for plot points, but it really should be limited. Things that help me are things that help me decide how to play a PC/NPC, gives me ideas, or helps me set the mood for a game.

There's my quick 2 coppers on the issue.