Do you like fiction in your gaming books?

[der_kluge]

My opinion is that books with lots of flavor text (a.k.a. Mongoose) use that as an excuse to get to 96 pages. It's what happens when the authors write the book shooting for 96 pages, end up with 86 pages of rules, and art, and need about 10 more pages worth of *crap* to fill the book up.

That's "flavor" text.

There's also "Descriptive Text". See S&SS's Hollowfaust, for example. FULL of just descriptive babble that just goes on and on about the city, the history, the politics, etc., etc., et. al. When done in small doses is necessary, but I think S&SS tends to take descriptive text to the extreme. I'm a DM first and foremost, and if I can't come up with an original place, and an interesting story, then something is wrong. What I need are facts that help me streamline the process. I don't care what happened 1,000 years ago, or what the family tree of the king is. Those things I could make up, and probably never come into play anyway. What I need to know is what loot the burgomeister has and what his stats are, because the Assassin in my group was hired to kill him.

 

[birdboy2000]

Personally I like good amounts of flavor text, but not stories in the gaming books. I often buy DnD based books(And watch anime based off that sort of thing) to help bring the world to life.

 

[Elaer]

Col, far be it from me to disagree, but I must assert that Shadowrun, particularly the last Seattle Sourcebook, uses flavor text to the maximum effect.

Two reasons for this: first, the book is supposed to describe a city that has been detailed extensively in past products, in a way that's new and useful. Really, the only thing I want from that book is the tone and feel of the city, and about three other famous bars other than the Club Penumbra to send the runners too occassionally. I got those bars (but if on more SR3 adventure takes place in Dante's Inferno, I'll move to Seattle to set up the club myself) but more importantly, I got lots of tone for the setting, a good feel for how people talk there. Shadowrun is one of those games where you can really get into the language and feel of it, because cyberpunk is a relatively modern phenomenon.

Second, my players will read the Shadowrun flavor text, and in 2002, 17 years after Neuromancer was published, I'm lucky if my players have seen Blade Runner and don't laugh at Philip K Dick's name.

SR has flavor text and rules text, and they don't usually intertwine them. Personally, that's the way I prefer it, but I know that many disagree.

Just my two cents, thanks

 

[Corinth]

DEATH TO FICTION IN GAMING BOOKS!

This is one of my big ol' pet peeves.

RPG rulebooks and supplements are works of non-fiction. Specifically, they are techincal manuals which exist to impart objective information from the writer to the reader so that the reader may make use of the item (product, service, etc.) addressed. If I want to read fiction, then I'll go get that sort of book.