D&D 5E Do you Consider Flavor Text to be part of Raw?

[prosfilaes]

Assumptions certainly did change, but not just about play, about the players. At some point, the publishers of D&D could no longer assume that the players were as steeped in the fantasy literature cited in the 1e DMG appendix as the designers and I think they realized that. They could no longer just assume everyone had read the same books. Some players were coming to D&D first rather than the literature first. D&D had to provide its own context more and more rather than refer to one out there due to fantasy cultural literacy.

Eh. From what I've heard, during the high part of the D&D craze, middle school students were playing D&D; I bet many of them hadn't read more than a handful of adult books at all. And it's easy to pick on elements of Appendix N that nobody was ever reading; Worldcat says that The Shadow People had one English edition, in 1969, and is held by 24 libraries in the US and Canada. I would actually bet that more people had fantasy literacy in Gygax's canon now, with the mass popularity of Lovecraft and Tolkien and Conan and mass availability of many of those authors due to Amazon and free electronic texts, then did in 1979.

 

[aramis erak]

I don't consider height, weight, or appearance to be "fluff". I consider it to be "minimally engaged mechanical content."

I made use, as a DM, of height, last night. The gnome took cover behind a fallen drake, while the half dragon only got 1/2 cover due to being over a head taller than his opponents, and considerably wider.
And the fallen human behind him couldn't be targeted by the archers, because his fallen form blocked their shots..

Oh, and weight - weight matters when trying to lift other PC's and/or carry them.

 

[Hussar]

Show me a group where the flavor text doesn't matter at all and I'll show you a group playing a miniatures war game or tactical skirmish game.

Or, consider this: What if all the flavor text were changed? What if a "sword" was a flexible segmented metal weapon with serrated edges? What if "orcs" were anthropomorphic armadillos and "dragons" were giant insectoids and "elves" were made of clear plastic? What if "wizards" cast "spells" by interfacing with a global satellite defense system that manipulates quantum foam to pull in "magic" effects from alternate realities? Would you still be playing D&D? I would argue that at some point, you would not be playing D&D any more. Even the most outrageous settings (Dark Sun, Planescape, Spelljammer) were still chock-full of D&D flavor and fluff text, just with a twist.

So to some extent the flavor does matter, it's just a question of how much.

So long as everyone at the table knows that swords mean chain swords, what difference does it make?

However, the question isn't whether or not fluff matter, but, rather, is the fluff that is written in official D&D books considered part of the rules as written. [MENTION=50658]Rem[/MENTION]althalis in the other thread talked about Game as Written which, I think, means fluff+RAW. So, it's important that orcs worship Gruumsh or fireballs shoot pea sized balls of light. To me, that's never really mattered. I might use the flavour included in the books or I might go with something completely different and I don't worry for a moment about how that will affect play.

Put it this way, I would be very reluctant to remove the d20 skill system from D&D and add in a Jenga tower. It would be a difficult thing to do, IMO. But, I would have not a moments hesitation making dwarves 9 feet tall and purple.

 

[Remathilis]

I thought on this, and yes. Though like everything, its a matter of degrees.

For example, if I create a world where there are no races beyond human, but no other rules change, is it RAW? Technically, yes. However, you've cut a large swath of content out of the PHB as well as changed the expectations of much of the game's material. I'd argue it still a major change, enough that I would hesitate to call it "Abjectiveless D&D" vs. "Homebrewed D&D".

However, a lesser example would be making Elves Lawful-Neutral and resembling Ancient Athenian Democracy in their culture. Its a shift from the flavor text for sure, and it might jar someone who expects Tolkien-elves, but your still much closer to RAW than the above example (This would even be true if you made your own subrace of elves). Of course, a radical change (like make elves small, bearded toymakers from arctic regions) or wholesale changes (replacing Neo-Vancian with Spellpoints) firmly fall into "houseruled/homebrewed" D&D. So it depends on your definition of "Fluff" I say. Its fine to change WHAT an elf is like (within reason), but banning elves seems like a shade too far, even if it is done for "fluff" reasons. Like a lot of things, its a matter of give-and-take.

Of course, lots of classic D&D settings might not jive with this definition: by my own standards, Eberron, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, or Dragonlance might not be "D&D" due to how the modify core assumptions, and I'm not going to stand here and tell anyone those settings are not D&D. However, I think the idea of "abjectiveless D&D" vs. "Flavored D&D" is a crucial distinction; I might tell my friends we're playing a new D&D game and they might expect generic core-rules D&D up to the very moment I pull out the Dark Sun box set. So "D&D", as a generic concept, constitutes its own unique flavor that other worlds and homebrews change as needed. I also think its a great disservice to try to constantly force both the core rules to be generic enough to accept any sort of flavoring without hassles AND to make the core so overpowering it changes the nature of settings and worlds trying to flavor it. A kobold should hang with dragons and worship Kurtulmak in lieu of a better, more specific idea.

I've been trying to coin (so far unsuccessfully) the term "Game as Written" to define both the mechanical "rules" unchanged and the use of the default core "fluff" that goes along with it. The stuff that if I told you "I just played D&D" you'd assume was true based on the core rules expectations. This might not be the best terminology though, and save for "Adjectiveless D&D" (vs. "Eberron D&D", "Dark Sun D&D" or "Forgotten Realms D&D") I'm at a loss to explain using just the core rules + the small amount needed to make them function (a map or adventure setting, for example).

TL;DR answer: depends on what's changing.

 

[Remathilis]

So long as everyone at the table knows that swords mean chain swords, what difference does it make?

However, the question isn't whether or not fluff matter, but, rather, is the fluff that is written in official D&D books considered part of the rules as written. [MENTION=50658]Remalthilis[/MENTION] in the other thread talked about Game as Written which, I think, means fluff+RAW. So, it's important that orcs worship Gruumsh or fireballs shoot pea sized balls of light. To me, that's never really mattered. I might use the flavour included in the books or I might go with something completely different and I don't worry for a moment about how that will affect play.

Put it this way, I would be very reluctant to remove the d20 skill system from D&D and add in a Jenga tower. It would be a difficult thing to do, IMO. But, I would have not a moments hesitation making dwarves 9 feet tall and purple.

Bear in mind, I didn't say it was important, I merely questioned how many people actually USED it. Changing it doesn't make it bad or wrong, it merely makes it different. It was merely wondering who actually did use it wholesale.

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=50658]Remithilis[/mention]- sorry, but, what does "abjectiveless" mean?

Just a nitpick here, but, switching out Vancian for Spellpoint casting isn't really a flavour change. It's a mechanical one (although it does carry flavour implications as well) primarily.

It kind of hit home to me recently in a conversation I was having about Battletech. I've recently gotten back into Btech after a very extended hiatus. But, even back in the day, while I really enjoyed Btech, the Battletech Universe was barely a blip on my radar. I used a few of the maps and maybe borrowed this or that from the flavour text - the existence of Houses, for example. But as far as the BTU (Battletech Universe) went, I simply didn't care. In the conversation I was having, we were talking about the old Saturday morning cartoon Battletech. I commented that I rather enjoyed the cartoon - I thought it captured Btech pretty well and the conceit where they went into a different style of animation (very CG) when the Clan mechs were fighting to differentiate the different tech levels was, IMO, very well done. The stories were pretty cool and I liked the show.

The other guy loathed it with a passion. Absolutely hated it. I asked why and he said that it was because the cartoon contradicted so much of the BTU. And, after doing a bit of reading, it certainly did. The TV show might have nominally been in the BTU, but, really, it was it's own thing.

However, since I tend to think of flavour elements as largely disposable, it never even registered on me that there was a major difference. I simply didn't care. It had giant robots duking it out with BFG's. It had mercenaries and whatnot. It was Btech enough for me.

And that's largely how I view D&D. Flavour elements are disposable AFAIC. I might use them, if I want to, or I might eject them as the case may be. I'm pretty reluctant to start futzing about with the mechanical parts of D&D, but flavour? Meh, that's whatever I want it to be.

 

[Remathilis]

[MENTION=50658]Remathilis[/mention]- sorry, but, what does "abjectiveless" mean?

Just a nitpick here, but, switching out Vancian for Spellpoint casting isn't really a flavour change. It's a mechanical one (although it does carry flavour implications as well) primarily.

And that's largely how I view D&D. Flavour elements are disposable AFAIC. I might use them, if I want to, or I might eject them as the case may be. I'm pretty reluctant to start futzing about with the mechanical parts of D&D, but flavour? Meh, that's whatever I want it to be.

Grrr Typos... Adjectiveless (without an adjective to modify it). Its used in comic books to reference a main series (Spider Man, X-Men) vs. a spin-off series (Superior Spider Man, Xtreme X-Men). I'm using it to differentiate from the fluff of the core-books vs. the fluff of a specific setting (such as Dark Sun or Eberron).

And while Vancian to Spellpoint is more of a rules change, (and kinda a bad example) changing the magic system could qualify as a fluff change as well, depending on how you describe the ritual of memorizing and casting a spell. Certainly, swapping out the eight schools of magic for the five elements of Magic: The Gathering would radically change the concept of magic in the world.

But that get's me back to my point: At what point does D&D stop resembling D&D. Its easy to say kobolds worship Mask and not Kurtulmak, and fairly easy to remove their draconic fetish, but what happens when you make kobolds 10 feet tall? Or give them three arms? Or make them LG? Or make them CR 15 (with appropriate stats)? At a certain point, they become Kobolds-in-Name-Only. (KINO) That leads to a certain dissonance of expectation; you tell me there is a dozen kobolds in an abandoned mine, and I think fractional CR little trappy buggers and you think hulking tri-armed pacifists, we're going to had a serious problem.

So is it? Yes and no. Which is why I suggested an "Adjectiveless" monicker to describe D&D that uses the core rule assumptions as is.

 

[Hussar]

I dunno. If I give D&D the Savage Worlds treatment, which has been done, keeping virtually all the D&D flavour but completely replacing the mechanics, if asked, I'd say I was playing Savage Worlds.

OTOH, if I completely rewrite the flavour of D&D, a la, say, Santiago, if asked, I'd still say I'm playing D&D. When people with three hundred page house rule documents can still claim to be playing D&D with a straight face, I'd say "Playing D&D" is a pretty broad umbrella.