Easy way to improve 4E 100%

[shieldheart]

Take out all the flavour text. Seriously, some of it is pretty cheesy.

 

[Cadfan]

You say cheesy, I say awesome!

Alright, some of it is pretty cheesy. But some of the cheesiest lines made me laugh.

 

[Masquerade]

D&D should be at least a little cheesy.

 

[pawsplay]

But not too much. D&D is like a fine quesadilla, just oozing around the edges but not dribbling blobs of molten jack onto your slacks.

 

[Farmer42]

But not too much. D&D is like a fine quesadilla, just oozing around the edges but not dribbling blobs of molten jack onto your slacks.

It might just be that I've spent way too much time here in WI, but I have to respectfully disagree. Cheese is best served in large quantities, oozing all over the place and making a general mess of things. It's like the cheese on burger wrappers. A nice cheesy surprise for when you're done with the main course.

The dialog on cheese aside, I have to disagree with the OP. The amount of flavor we have is WotC trying to walk a very thin line. there are plenty of people who are critical of them for not having enough flavor in the 4E core. And what flavor they do publish will be screened by both sides as well. What one person finds cheesy, another will find brilliant. So who do they please?

 

[Krug]

Cheese. Good.

 

[Agamon]

Take out all the flavour text. Seriously, some of it is pretty cheesy.

And then there's people saying there wasn't enough cheese.

Some people just don't like cheese, some people would die happy drowning in it.

 

[Farmer42]

It really is a case of half a dozen of one, six of another. I don't mind the fluff we have, and I really would like more fluff in the MM. I don't mind systems that are entirely crunch, either. I love HERO to death. Thing is, even HERO gives you fluff when dealing with examples.

 

[Blackwind]

But fluff does not necessarily equal cheese. Fluff can be cheesy, yes, but it comes in other flavors as well. Some are complaining that 4E doesn't have enough fluff--my impression was that the OP was complaining that the fluff is too cheesy.

There's also a distinction to be made, IMHO, between fluff that is unintentionally cheesy (because it's poorly written or whatever) and fluff that is cheesy on purpose, like for camp value.

I haven't read the 4E books thoroughly enough to judge, yet... but some of the flavor text does appear to be poorly written, in my opinion.

 

[malraux]

Are talking about the meta-fluff like the history of the tieflings and the recent fall of the human empire, or the descriptive fluff like you conjure forth a wen of iridescent purple energy that flow on the ground toward your foe? Cuz I think the meta-fluff is cliched but not cheezy. And the descriptive fluff is kinda cheezy, but I think that's a good thing. It's hard to take middle aged over weight nerds pretending to be elves seriously, so it fits better to give some cheezy dialog to read rather than "serious" stuff.