Crunch Vs. Fluff - where do you stand?

[Raven Crowking]

First off, I admit that (as a DM) I am a rules junkie. If rules for an effect I want don't exist, I'm happy to create them. On the other hand, I'm far more concerned with how the game works than with whether or not everything I do strictly adheres to the rules. For example, when I am designing a creature, I try to hit all the design steps while doing so, but if a stat or bonus is off by one I'm not going to cry about it. (I will fix it if I discover it later, though.) I use a lot of the WotC books, but I use a lot of other publisher's books, too. EnWorld Players' Journal, Bastion Press, the Legends & Lairs series, AEG, and Green Ronin have all offered important additions to my rpg book shelf.

On the other hand, I want my fluff to meet a pretty high standard of internal consistancy. I love telling stories, and I role play participate in story creation, either as a DM or a player. For my money, the current WotC books are far to light fluff.

I don't even like the term "fluff." So, let's call it muscle and bones. The rules system provides the bones, without which the muscle doesn't move. But the story, the descriptions, the characterizations, and the "feel" of a campaign are the muscle. To my mind, muscle is getting shafted right now by too many publishers, a trend that seems to originate in the Core Books themselves.

Your opinions?

 

[CRGreathouse]

I prefer hard rules material.

In the Book of Vile Darkness, I use the sacrifice rules, spells, and many of the monsters. The descriptions of the Lords of Evil, though, are useless to me... I don't have Demogorgon, Graz'zt, et. al. in my campaign. (Instead, I write my own archdemons/devils.)

I've used a few of the domains from the Book of the Righteous. The descriptions of the gods and the myth behind them is useless to me, as I don't use their gods. (Instead, I've made my own pantheon.)

I use spells, monsters, planar traits, and more from the Manual of the Planes. The detailed descriptions of the Outer Planes is useless to me -- I don't have the Great Wheel. (Instead, I've written my own cosmology.)

I've used monsters from the Creature Collection II, but I have to actively work to remove the flavor to make it fit my world -- I'm not running a Scarred Lands game.

In general, the descriptive text isn't useful for me. While I love finding text that works in my campaign, it's very rare in published material.

 

[Kemrain]

Now, while I agree that the Muscle and Bones, to use your terms, are both terribly important in an RPG, I don't think that, in general, publishers are skimping on the Muscle. I don't play a standard DnD game, and to be frank, I don't want most of WotC's fluff on my crunch. I don't feel that WotC should be responsible for the fluff in suppliments that are designed to be rules heavy; the Complete series doesn't need fluff, and I'm interested in it for the structure the crunch provides.
However, in other products, the Fluff and Crunch are both of great importance. Campaign books, for instance, require more fluff than I think WotC is putting into them, and on that front I agree with you. What it comes down to is that I find the publishers should be responsible for most of the Crunch, and a little Fluff, while the Game Master should provide most of the Fluff, and a little Crunch. They're both vitally important, but I'll take a homebrew over a published setting any day, and it shows.

- Kemrain the Home Brewer.

 

[Navar]

I think they should be equal. The class books that SSS put out are a FANTASTIC example of just the right amount of fluff and crunch. I think that they have good magic items, good Prcs, feats, spells, but the orginazations are also great. They have some new feat types and simple magic items, but overall they are just great for everything. I think that fluff and cruch should be equal and I think that SSS's class books are a shining example of perfect equality.

 

[CombatWombat51]

I voted for crunch.

Fluff is very important, and I love it, but none of the members of our group ever get into using someone elses fluff. It's fun to read, but it doesn't come up in the game. We have our own ingrained fluff.

 

[Crothian]

Give me fluff. I like books I can read and use, not maunals of boring rules that have been done a thousand times again.

 

[Terath Ninir]

Crunch, with a side of fluff if it's good. Of course, the crunch has to be good, too. I just like rules. If I didn't like rules, I'd play something simple like BESM.

 

[Kavon]

I'd have to say crunch..
Fluff is nice and all that, but I know I'll never actually use it, since me and my friends, like CombatWombat51, use our own fluff.

And anyway.. If I want to read fluffy stuff, I can always just read a nice fantasy novel..

 

[PallidPatience]

Crunch is good, from a DMing standpoint, because it gives one an example (at the least) of how to handle a particular situation in-game. Fluff is good, from the same standpoint, because it gives examples of different kinds of flavors for different kinds of games. More examples are always good (especially if you learn as I do, from being shown how to do something once then, with that example to follow, go back and do it on your own). At the very least, you can see how they did it, what their mistakes were, and how to fix them in your own campaign, and that's a beautiful thing.

 

[Prothall]

I used to flavor crunch a lot more in my early DMing days, though I do so less and less. However, I have a situation similar to one above: I rarely find things that can go into my home game.
Wholesale, that is. I recently got the Manual of the Planes as a gift; at first, I was a touch disappointed at the heaps of fluff. But - ahah! - it is good fluff, and just generic enough that you can mix, match, and puree to your heart's content. That, and the crunch in that book seems superior from my perspective, except for the limited CR range of the monsters.
That said, I love the Ultimate series Equipment book and wish there were more like it. I'm also very interested in unusual mechanics because I am the sort that thinks I might design a game. So, here's my stance then: I like strange or micro-management crunch, and semi-generic or systematic fluff.