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[steeldragons]

If the definition of "Engage" is creating an immersive experience. If a core book were, and I'm not saying this is the case, nothing but crunch - is there an engaging experience?

It seems to me that you have to at least has some story and world flavor in order to even attempt to "engage" someone.

Am I missing a component of engagement when it comes to Crunch?

I am in agreement with [MENTION=32536]TwinBahamut[/MENTION] that is could be. As TB says, "depending on the person".

Despite a well thought out reason (that rules/crunch for a game are necessary), I do disagree, however, that it would be/provide an immersive "engaging" experience for the majority of the target audience.

No matter how much or how little one takes the crunch into account for one's game, the crunch itself is not engaging...unless you are one of those people who likes fiddling with the math and the numbers.

I think Jon has the right of it, that some kind of flavor needs to be presented to spark the imagination and desire to play moreso than the crunch. My imagination is not going to spark because I have a well presented/thought out page of mechanics telling me how to swing my sword and how much damage it does and what I can add as a bonus to that damage. There's no imagination there, no creativity, just a bunch of numbers to tell me/solidify the abstraction of the scene.

Some of the abstraction needs to be presented, in story v. game form, to make the mind wander and wonder. So, yes, I see story and flavor as essential to generating an immersive/engaging experience with the material.

But, again, that's me...and so I suppose my counter-position to TwinBahamut is no more or better than "it depends on the person."

That said, it would seem that, unfortunately, again, this is an element where that golden "middle of the road" is necessary...and naturally, that amounts to "you can't make all people happy all of the time." Somewill claim/complain that it is too fluffy/flavor oriented without enough crunch where they'd want it. And, some will complain there is too much crunch and mechanics without enough flavor to engage them. But all you can try to do is get close to the middle.

As with, well just about every thing/topic concerning 5e, it will really just depend on who's viewing the product and what resonates, personally, with them as "Engaging."

Good luck.
--SD

 

[Arytiss]

If the definition of "Engage" is creating an immersive experience. If a core book were, and I'm not saying this is the case, nothing but crunch - is there an engaging experience?

Personally, I would say not. I feel that there would have to be something other than the rules, the "crunch" as it were to assist in the engagement of the reader.

However, as a caveat, I'm speaking as one not overly amazed by crunch - deeming it of secondary importance in the creation of a game, and in drawing my attention to a game.

It seems to me that you have to at least has some story and world flavor in order to even attempt to "engage" someone.

I had a roughly three hour conversation along the lines of this topic with a friend a couple of months ago that that was essentially the conclusion we came to. In many ways, the game is the story that is told by it. Any representation of the game therefore needs to have, not only the capability for telling the story, but the ability to display a part of the story in itself.

To take an example fairly distantly removed from D&D, I'm sure that almost everyone on these boards has likely heard of Paranoia, and that any mention of it would be quickly followed by accusations of treason, etc. Paranoia is a game fairly light on the crunch, but the books manage to engage players through the story and flavour of the setting. It's that setting, the story told by Paranoia, that enables readers and players to engage so closely with the game.

Closer to home, I'll mention some of the D&D books that grace my collection. It's smaller than most, but that's because I'm pickier about what I get.

With 4th edition, two of my favourite books were the Race guides. They were short, and didn't have a huge amount of crunch, but the fluff, the flavour was what drew me to them, enabling me to develop the story of my Dragonborn paladin much further than I might have done without them. The crunch that they contained served (for the most part)to further re-enforce the fluffy nature of the text.

From 3.x, my preferred book was, by far, the Tome of Magic. This book was a dramatic shift in terms of presentation from the other texts in the 3.x line-up, and despite the crunch being woefully constructed, the fluff was what I found appealing from it - both in terms of the liberal text discussing the powers that were discussed, and the art style, which changed for each section to fit with what class/power was being talked about.

Finally, 2nd ed. I have a significant portion of the Planescape line sitting on my shelves. As with the mention of Paranoia I made, these books engage the players, not through the crunch of the setting, but through the story it tells, and the stories it enables you to tell. The narrative style of the text quickly draws the reader in, helping him to visualise the nature of the setting, and backing this up with DiTerlizzi unique artwork (a feature which many fans of the setting feel is one of the largest draws) - These are also the books I cherish the most in my RPG collection, because I can keep re-engaging with them and feel the same sense of wonder that I did the first time I read them.

Not sure how well I've put forward my ideas here, but hopefully it serves to clarify some of what I was saying. Though some would quite probably feel that a Core work should deal primarily with consumption, rather than engagement. I would agree that consumption is important, a core book has to be easy to read after all, without the necessary fluff to back it up it becomes just a bunch of numbers. - something I don't find at all engaging.

 

[Jon Schindehette]

Great feedback on the crunch = engagement question.

I'm the RP (role-player) in the term RPG. Crunch has little appeal to me...even when I'm doing the DM thing. I'm about story...

Even in the characters I create, you can see that. I'm the kind of guy that picks and "intent" for my characters and lives it to the hilt. Example - I have a burly half-orc barbarian in my 3E game. The guiding principle about this guy was he was all about hitting. Period. Every choice I made for powers, equipment, story centered around hitting - hitting harder, faster, more often. I could care less about defense and never backed down from anything. Even my choices in armor centered around - how it allowed me to hit.

As you can guess, the personality that developed around this guy was one about rash decisions and dealing with the consequences that came about from them.

Now, while I ended up having to create an excel spread sheet to help me deal with the math of all the add-ons and temporary effects - I could care less about the min/maxing of the character. So much so, that I had to run around with a cleric in my hip pocket to deal with my inability to hold onto hit points for very long.

So as you can guess, I get "engaged" by the stuff that brings the game to life for me. Like you guys have said, everyone gets engaged in a different manner, and by different things. This was very valuable information for me, and helps me cast off a few preconceived perceptions.

Thanks!!

 

[steeldragons]

You are most welcome, Mr. Schindehette. (assuming, I hope, that I was part of the "great feedback").

Of course, for the purpose of the art...perhaps, this speaks to the necessity that art not only appear on the "fluffy" pages (like race and class and spell descriptions), but be represented in an "in use/mid-comic book panel" kind of way, in the "crunchy" portions, as well.

[Though I still would very much like to see some "comic/cartoony kind of stuff in the crunchy bits...to reenforce the "game/story" element of D&D vs. "thith ith theriouth bithnezz" which, I feel justifies, for many, the "rules lawyering", min-maxing, and extreme "exception" taken by some at the idea of DM decision/fiat/adjudication.]

Just a thought. do with it as you will.

Cheers and, again, good luck. I do not envy your position (ok, maybe I envy it a lil' bit. lol. It's gotta be hella fun! But you have your work cut out for you...and I, for one, thoroughly appreciate it.)
--SD

 

[Quickleaf]

When I think of how consume, engage, and even cherish can work together synergistically and overlap, I was very impressed by Heroes of the Feywild.

For example, the skald bard gets these little perks like "well received" which just capture the spirit of the bard class so well. It's barely a page or two of material but it's technically crunch (albeit of the fluffy sort) that evokes story.

Another example, at the end of the book is a lifepath / choose your own adventure approach to making your character's background. Each decision you make also informs you of the setting and provides a bit of simple story-appropriate crunch.

When I think or the right ratio of story to crunch for a player supplement, I think Heroes of the Feywild comes pretty close to perfect. And some of the art really supported this, telling a progressive story of a group of "iconic" fey heroes, with scenes showing the popularity of a bard or hinting at the majesty of hamadryad, for example.

 

[Klaus]

Another example, at the end of the book is a lifepath / choose your own adventure approach to making your character's background. Each decision you make also informs you of the setting and provides a bit of simple story-appropriate crunch.

As the author of that section of the book, this makes me very, very happy!

Another way that makes crunch "engageable":

Arcane Power introduced the Ensnaring Swordmage, which was a defender that teleported marked foes to him (instead of tepeorting to the foes, like the Assault Swordmage). Recently, an article expanded on the Ensnaring Swordmage with several powers that included the effect of teleporting an enemy to you and giving you benefits against such foes.

I immediately envisioned a witch-hunter type of character (Solomon Kane-style hat and all), who pursued supernatural enemies and always prevented them from escaping. So the crunch sparked the fluff in my mind, leading to the "engagement".

 

[Hussar]

I HEART life path character creation.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Well then I'll rephrase to that that it certainly seems like Wizards is lacking the funds for it. Could all just be disinformation though, considering they're owned by one of the biggest toy companies in the world, I'd think that'd make it even easier.

I suspect that it's not that WotC can't afford to do it... it's that no one has paid them to be allowed to do it.

After all... most companies don't create and then sell all the ancillary junk that we see with the branding on it. Instead, the companies that make doodads, or plushies, or calendars, or mugs, or tee-shirts, or whatever, pay a licensing fee to the company to let them use the branding on the item they want to make.

If we don't see D&D branded pencil boxes... it's because the company that makes pencil boxes hasn't paid a licensing fee to do so. And that tends to mean either the brand isn't worth producing, the licensing fee is too high, or the brand just isn't available to licensees.

 

[Sunseeker]

I suspect that it's not that WotC can't afford to do it... it's that no one has paid them to be allowed to do it.

After all... most companies don't create and then sell all the ancillary junk that we see with the branding on it. Instead, the companies that make doodads, or plushies, or calendars, or mugs, or tee-shirts, or whatever, pay a licensing fee to the company to let them use the branding on the item they want to make.

If we don't see D&D branded pencil boxes... it's because the company that makes pencil boxes hasn't paid a licensing fee to do so. And that tends to mean either the brand isn't worth producing, the licensing fee is too high, or the brand just isn't available to licensees.

That's a good point regarding licensing that I hadn't considered. I know gaming companies are very protective of their licenses, so I wouldn't be surprised if Wizards was a little strict or on the expensive side.

 

[Klaus]

That's a good point regarding licensing that I hadn't considered. I know gaming companies are very protective of their licenses, so I wouldn't be surprised if Wizards was a little strict or on the expensive side.

To expand on "licensing doodads": there is a licensing expo each year in, IIRC, New York, where all the media giants put their brands on display and doodad-manufacturers from around the world choose which brands they want to associate their doodads with.

So, if you're a toy manufacturer that makes toy helicopters, you might decide that "hey, this Batman character seems appropriate" and purchase the licensing rights to slap some Batman stickers on your toy helicopter so you can sell a Batcopter toy.