How do you feel about Fluff in your Crunch?

[BeauNiddle]

Who complained this? Not I. I complained that they were using the presence of Greyhawk as the implied setting as an excuse to not publish a Greyhawk supplement. I didn't want all sorts of fluff in the core books. Look at the organization that is appended to the Complete Arcane Warmage as a sidebar. Perfect example of how fluff should work. Here's the mechanical part with generic fluff ("warmages study at martial schools where they learn magic"), here's the more specific fluff that you can keep or throw away (a particular warmage school based in a Greyhawk location).

I complained that. Reading the red book OD&D my mind was afire with possibilities. Reading 1st ed / 2nd ed books (it was a friends library and thus mixed up) my mind was afire with possibilities.

Reading 3rd ed I had to struggle to make it through the books and I was bored out my skull.

That said the 3rd ed sessions I've had have been the most fun gaming so I'm glad I put the effort in.

The thing to consider is somebody new to the game. Their uncle / friend / etc. buys them this odd new book and they start reading it. If the game is too survive they need to be grabbed by the book alone and want to run this new thing they've found. If the game relies on existing players finding new people and showing them the possibility of the rules then our beloved game will stagnate or die out.

Of course the question is: Is the fluff they are adding the fluff that sets people minds afire with possibility or is it just silly words that serve no purpose?

 

[Najo]

I complained that. Reading the red book OD&D my mind was afire with possibilities. Reading 1st ed / 2nd ed books (it was a friends library and thus mixed up) my mind was afire with possibilities.

Reading 3rd ed I had to struggle to make it through the books and I was bored out my skull.

That said the 3rd ed sessions I've had have been the most fun gaming so I'm glad I put the effort in.

The thing to consider is somebody new to the game. Their uncle / friend / etc. buys them this odd new book and they start reading it. If the game is too survive they need to be grabbed by the book alone and want to run this new thing they've found. If the game relies on existing players finding new people and showing them the possibility of the rules then our beloved game will stagnate or die out.

Of course the question is: Is the fluff they are adding the fluff that sets people minds afire with possibility or is it just silly words that serve no purpose?

The original D&D products before 3.0 didn't have to compete with computer games and movies like they do now. I think for that purpose they should include fluff. I think the fluffy should be interesting and exciting side bars that can be read casually and added into the game if you want to add it. Do not force it on players who do not want it by tying it into the game mechanics with no way to easily remove it.

The players and DMs who do not want fluff in their crunch either a) hate the fluff or b) have their own fluff that is so important to them, this attempt to put fluff into the game steps on their own fluff. Some people don't think this is a big deal. I personally feel that WOTC has come along and thrown paint on my painting I didn't want there.

This is not the same thing as core rules that give me mechanics for fighters, clerics, wizards etc.. D&D has always been that, and as the settings for D&D show, D&D can adapt to alot of worlds. Once you start forcing fluff onto my world, it is insulting and violating to my hard work.

I also think that some of the work coming from 4e is silly. Golden Wyvern and Lightning Panther Strike are silly to me. It is not my thing. By moving away from Shape Spell and Lightning Strike, they are now dividing their customer base by adding colorful adjectives which some will like and some won't. As the poll shows, most of us prefer not to have this. WOTC should listen or I think this will be the first division of the player base that occurs.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That's not true. For instance, when they removed all the wizardly names like Mordenkainen from spells, most people said that WotC was doing a good move.

You are confusing the core books with supplements: part of the gamers (but probably the minority anyway) complained that there were too many crunch-heavy supplements and wanted some fluff-heavy books for a change.

I guess we should remove "most" from these sentences, because I don't think any of us has the real numbers.

Personally, I am a very much into the mechanic aspects of a game. I believe I don't need the fluff in my core rulebook. I might be a "young gamer" compared to many on this board, but I play long enough to see beyond any type of fluff. If the fluff doesn't fit, but the mechanic does, away goes the fluff. Done.

But what is about people that new to the game? If all they see are mechanical terms (feats and spells only given a reference number, bland class names), how will they react?
Some of them won't care. But some of them will be put off, thinking that the game feels more like a mathematical excercise then something imaginative. (Some might not be put off by this, but will neglect the fluff aspects their whole gamer career, possibly leading to the typical elitist reactions of gamers with a "fluffy" game "Ah, typical D&D power-gamer")
If players have to buy 4-5 books (crunchy core rulebooks + fluffy setting book + 1st level module) to get all they need to play the game, will they really want that?

So, I voted I don't care. Because I, personally, for my own interests, don't care.
I still think it's probably better to have fluff in the core rule books.

Now, do I like the "fluffy" parts I have read so far. I'd say I have mixed feelings. Honestly, "Dragon's tail cut" doesn't sound so bad. Neither does Emerald Frost. Not to my ears at least. Golden Wyvern? Well, "Wyvern" is stupid. Maybe I'd have preferred, silver, too.
Bonecrusher Zombie? Well, if it's not a normal Zombie, but still some kind of Zombie, fine.
Could it be better? I guess so. Could it be worse? Absolutely.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

I want an option that reads:

I like fluff, but not this fluff. This fluff is awful.

I want that option too. I like evocative spell names. The names we've heard so far aren't evocative; they sound boring and formulaic. How telling is it that a few lines of Javascript can accurately parody all the names we've heard so far.

I also demand that all game mechanics names actually tell the reader something about what it does. What the heck is a "golden wyvern adept"? If it was called something like "Eve of the Tornado Adept" that would be much better, because that at least would serve as a handy description of the feat's effect: it creates areas of calm and safety in the middle of spell area effects. I loved Bo9S, but every time someone used a maneuver, everyone else in the room asked "what does that one do again?"