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

[Hussar]

When I started this I was thinking more in terms of world flavour to be honest. Sure, fireballs are little missiles. Although, I find the idea of intercepting one to be more of an Internet thing. I mean, would you allow someone to intercept an arrow? What's the difference? To me that's just a theoretical that will not see play very much if at all.

 

[Jester David]

When I started this I was thinking more in terms of world flavour to be honest.

World flavour has changed its purpose over the years.
Back when the game came out the world flavour was to explain what the heck the creatures were. Some may have been somewhat familiar (orc, elf, dwarf) while others had familiar names but were very different than myth (kobold, goblin) and others were completely new (gnoll, mind flayer, beholder). The flavour text explained what those things were and their place in the world.

Even when I got into D&D I had an idea of what things like goblins, kobolds, and gnolls were. To some extent anyway. Because I'd played so many fantasy video games. And kids now should be even more familiar with such popular games as Warcraft more readily available.

Now the flavour text isn't introducing the monsters to brand new people, but explaining how "our kobolds are different".

Sure, fireballs are little missiles. Although, I find the idea of intercepting one to be more of an Internet thing. I mean, would you allow someone to intercept an arrow? What's the difference? To me that's just a theoretical that will not see play very much if at all.

I'm not going to say "no" because you never know what PCs will try. Someone might decide to make a heroic sacrifice or try for that crowning moment of awesome where they shoot the arrow out of the air with another arrow.

But if you get down to it, archery is mechanically just dealing damage from a distance. In terms of game effects the presence or absence of the arrow is irrelevant. You could (and many games do) distill things down to just attacking at range and then flavouring the assault into a spell or hurled axe or shot arrow. So hitting someone with a arrow is flavour.

 

[DammitVictor]

Answered "lemon curry" because yeah, I consider the flavor text and the "fluff" to be part of the Rules-as-Written, which is to say they're something I take into consideration for a brief moment before deciding to do something else.

 

[Jester David]

Okay, story time.
(And because it's a story, I'm totally counting this against my NaNoWriMo word count for the day. Well… depending on how much else I can write today.)

I'm a worldbuilder at heart and love creating fantasy worlds. I've created a half-dozen campaign settings over the years and it's building a world or aspect of a world is typically my project du jour. When 4th Edition was announced I decided to create a new world using the concepts and assumptions of 4e, reimagining one of my older worlds.

When I reimagined the world, I put the bulk of the orcs in one part of the world and the gnolls in another. I didn't think too much about the placement as, at that time, I didn't think of D&D as D&D, just thinking of it a rule set to be tapped. The history and established lore didn't really mean much to me. It was there there, I knew a little bit, and "meh".
The lore in the 4e MM showed me I was wrong in multiple different ways.

I'd never seen gnolls as demonic-inclined, despite them always being referenced as such. That aspect never clicked with me, so I had much more civilized and mercenary gnolls. The earlier art might have been a big part, as my concept of gnolls goes back to Tony DiTerlizzi, and his gnoll in the Monstrous Manual just looked calm and collected. And his orc looked much more like what we'd view as a goblinoid.
The lore in the 4e MM painted gnolls as feral and demonic, and the images of the gnolls really drove that home. Gnolls were not one of the monsters that changed, but the art and emphasis of the flavour changed how I saw them. Reading that lore also reminded me I had neglected to include creatures such as demon lords in my cosmology. It was a reminder of an absence, an idea something I had not considered.
(Oh, and the changes to lore I did like helped me realize that D&D was more than just rules and got me interested in learning the "canon" of the game.)

I'm currently updating that world to 5e, keeping as much of the lore as I can and primarily cleaning the text. And adjusting things based on the actions of my players during my 4e campaign. While reconciling the world with my superior comfort with D&D lore, I realized I had the orcs and gnolls in the wrong places in the world; I'd put orcs in one location because they were the bigger "name" in the time following LotR, but gnolls fit that part of the world so much better. The climate better suited gnolls, the tone required of the region fits them better, and the history of events just worked with gnolls. So I swapped the two races.

Now, there's no reason in my campaign world that orcs couldn't be more feral and savage warriors raiding without cause and purpose across veldts and deserts. It's fine as orc's sunlight sensitivity went away in 4e. And it worked just fine for the campaign I ran. But moving the gnolls to the savanna makes it a better D&D campaign world rather than just a generic fantasy campaign world. It works better for anyone who has played D&D in the past 40 years who might say "hey, aren't orcs nocturnal and/or underdark predators who hate the sun?"
The thing is, my orcs are different. They have a different history and origin than other orcs. However, the reasons they're different is unrelated to their habitat, and putting them in a curious habitat draws attention to that difference and away from the other differences. I want to focus on the intended changes, not the accidental changes.

In that regard, changing the lore should be like changing the rules. It should be done on purpose, for a reason, and with thought given to the benefits and complications resulting from the change. It's significantly easier to change the lore, as it does not affect balance in the game, but it still cannot be done carelessly or on a whim.

There are also player expectations to consider. Ideally, you should communicate to your players the changes between your world and the base D&D settings, but getting that much of an infodump to players is tricky: they're unlikely to read a massive player's guide or spend too much time skimming a wiki. Really, unless your players are experienced gamers who are eminently familiar with D&D lore, you also need to communicate how all monsters in the game - both modified and unmodified - are different from common pop culture representations. The lore in the books is helpful as that's lore you as the DM don't need to write: you can just read the text or pass over an older edition's Monster Manual. Not changing monster lore means you do not have to fight expectations, distribute the changed lore, and can focus on communicating essential information on the world.

 

[ktkenshinx]

The archetypical example of this is height, weight, and other physical characteristics that are described in the flavor. Although those aren't in the statblocks of monsters, they still seem very much RAW to me as they have mechanical impact in the world. But that leads to tricky territory where it might be hard to separate what is "probably" RAW in the flavor from what is almost definitely just fluff.

 

[Hussar]

The archetypical example of this is height, weight, and other physical characteristics that are described in the flavor. Although those aren't in the statblocks of monsters, they still seem very much RAW to me as they have mechanical impact in the world. But that leads to tricky territory where it might be hard to separate what is "probably" RAW in the flavor from what is almost definitely just fluff.

I dunno. Yes, I can see where it might have impact, but, by and large, how much does a Troll weigh isn't going to come up all that often. Never minding something like, "what is the exact length of that wyvern?"

Hus "How much is that efreeti in the window" sar.

 

[pemerton]

When I started this I was thinking more in terms of world flavour to be honest.

That was what I thought.

Sure, fireballs are little missiles. Although, I find the idea of intercepting one to be more of an Internet thing. I mean, would you allow someone to intercept an arrow? What's the difference? To me that's just a theoretical that will not see play very much if at all.

Agreed.

World flavour has changed its purpose over the years.
Back when the game came out the world flavour was to explain what the heck the creatures were.

Hmm. When the game came out there was really very little flavour text for monsters.

From Chainmail, pp 29-30:

HOBBITS: These little chaps have small place in the wargame, but you may want them for the recreation of certain battles. Remember that they are able to blend into the background and so make excelent scouts. . . .

SPRITES (and Pixies): These are also small creatures who have the power to become invisible . . .

DWARVES (and Gnomes): Because their natural habitat is deep under the ground, these stout folk opeate equally well day or night. . . . Gobins and Kobolds are their natural (and most hated) enemies. . . .

GOBLINS (and Kobolds): Goblins and Kobolds see wel in dimness or dark, but they do not like bright light. . . .

ELVES (and Fairies): Armed with deadly bows and magical swords, Elves (and Fairies) are dangerous opponents considering their size and build. . . .

ORCS: Besies reacting to light in the same manner as Goblins do (after all, Orcs are nothing more than over-grown Goblins), Orcs are quarrelsome and factious. According to the best authority, there are at least five kinds (tribes or perhaps clans) of them. These are: 1) Orcs of the (Red) Eye, 2) Orcs of Mordor, 3) Orcs of the Mountains, 4) Orcs of the White Hand, and 5) Isengarders.​

I've elided the wargames rules, but no flavour text.

From Book 2: Monsters & Treasure,pp 7-8, 16:

GOBLINS: These small monsters are described in CHAINMAIL. . . .

KOBOLDS: Treat these monsters as if they were Goblins . . .

ORCS: The number of different tribes of Orcs can be as varies as desired. Once decided upon, simply generate a random number whenever Orcs are encountered, the number generated telling which tribe they belong to, keeping in mind inter-tribal hostiity. . . .

Note that if Orcs are encountered in an area which is part of a regular campaign map their location and tribal affiliation should be recorded, and other Orcs located in the same genera area will be of the same tribe. . . .

Orcs do not like full daylight, reacting as do Goblins. They attack Orcs of different tribe on sight unless they are under command of a stronger monster and can score better than 50% on an obedience check . . .

HOBGOBLINS: These monsters are large and fearless Goblins . . .

PIXIES: Air sprites as described in CHAINMAIL . . .

GNOMES: Slightly smaller than Dwarves, and with longer beards, these creatures usually inhabit the hills and lowland burrows as opposed to the mountainous homes which Dwarves choose. They are more reclusive than their cousins, but in all other respects resemble Dwarves.

DWARVES: Because of their relatively small size [various combat consequences] . . . They are otherwise as outlined in CHAINMAIL.

ELVES: Elves are of two general sorts, those who make their homes in woodlands and those who seek the remote meadowlands. . . . Elves have the ability of moving silently and are nearly invisible in their gray-green cloaks.

[Etc]​

I think assumptions about play changed - from the idea that a group (led by the GM) would make of this stuff what they wanted to, based on their familiarity with existing fantasy, myth and legend, to the idea that part of what was fun about the game was playing in an already-authored canonical setting. You can see the beginning of that change in AD&D, but it really emerges in the mid-80s (look at the different nature of the flavour text in Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures, for instance) and then grows over time.

 

[Jester David]

When the game came out there was really very little flavour text for monsters.

I was mostly referring to 1st Edition. OD&D was pretty bare bones in all respects, not really being written for the uninitiated.

 

[Paraxis]

The archetypical example of this is height, weight, and other physical characteristics that are described in the flavor. Although those aren't in the statblocks of monsters, they still seem very much RAW to me as they have mechanical impact in the world. But that leads to tricky territory where it might be hard to separate what is "probably" RAW in the flavor from what is almost definitely just fluff.

I never make a ruling based on flavor like height, weight, hair color, or whatever. I do however have traps that go off for only medium creatures or bigger, bridges that collapse if more than 3 medium creatures or 1 large creature cross it, tunnels only tiny creatures fit through, etc.

So to me those things you mentioned are pure fluff, but size category is crunch.

 

[pepticburrito]

Reading through This thread they have no mechanical impact, so, I don't really consider them to be rules.

Dungeons and Dragons is a role playing game. The fluff is the point of the game. The mechanics are there to help you get back to role playing faster, they are not the point of the game. It doesn't matter if you're looking at percentage tables, THAC0, or rolling with advantage, the rules are nothing more than an arbitrary table top expression of your character's actions inside the game world.

So yes, the fluff that comes with class choice is more important than the mechanical features the class has. When you sit at my table to play a Warlock, I'm going to ask you what the name of the Patron you're making a deal with. If you were a Cleric before you became a Warlock, there's a good chance taking on a Master in exchange for power is going to piss off your God.

The character is more than a selection of mechanics, it's actually a role play character.