How Many of You Ignore New Cruch?

[Darrin Drader]

So I'm curious, how many of you, when you pick up a new 3rd party campaign setting, are looking more for ideas and background materials or new rules content. Do you want an interesting new world or ideas you can scavenge for your homebrew, or are you looking for new rules crunch to enhance your characters? In other words, how many of you do not use the new crunch in the D20 campaign settings that you buy.

If you do not buy campaign settings, please do not bother replying. I am well aware that there are people who don't buy these types of books and I see no reason to pullute this thread with white noise.

 

[Berandor]

Well, that's a difficult question for me. I answered "both". However, I buy campaign settings for the fluff. I don't expect any crunch in it.
Now, most campaign settings I have, I won't use. I'll choose one and play there, for example FR. Now, the fluff content doesn't always work with the chosen setting. giant rulers, fallen godlings, steam-powered trains or an accepted slaving theocracy might not necessarily fit into my Realms without contradicting too many other factors.
That's when I scavenge the settings for crunch; I look for ideas that intrigued me and how they were exectued rules-wise. So I might lift a Prestige Class, or a creature type, or even a new magic system from these books and give them new "fluff" to go with it.

So from the setting I end up playing in, I want fluff. From all other settings, crunch.

 

[Roudi]

Any setting supplement with just crunch and no flavour isn't much of a setting supplement, I find. On the flipside, a pure-fluff setting supplement, while nice, deserves some crunch to give in-game life to whatever makes the setting unique. If I buy or write a setting, I expect to see both.

 

[Turjan]

For me, the interesting new world and new ideas are the most important aspects of a campaign setting. I think that a bit of crunch is necessary in order to make some interesting ideas or conflicts work; that's why I voted "both". However, crunch should not be predominant in a setting book but just serve as a bit of spice to make the setting more tasty.

It's a different thing if a setting explicitly wants to change something about game mechanics (think of AU or Blue Rose; both have separate setting books, though), but I don't think that this was meant in the question.

 

[Crothian]

Both. What I like to see is the setting fleshed out and the new rules or rules tweaks that help set the setting. The rules though need to serve the setting and can't just be changed for the heck of which does seem to happen.

 

[ssampier]

Definately both. Settings books are going to have some history (that influences the present) so fluff is necessary. It is nice to have some useful stats*, unique feats, and prestige classes**, so crunch is nice, too.

For supplement books, those can be a mixed bag. You usually will ignore the fluff part of the book, but crunch can be dreadfully boring to read (DM, not player, perspective). Of course I ignore 90% of the supplement books anyway, so mostly I'm not their intended target.

* the king's cousin's, sister's, former roomate doesn't count

** the prestige class should be balanced out of game (meta), but also makes sense in a living world (no bands of "invincible warriors").

 

[MerricB]

Darrin, perhaps you should edit the title of the thread?

Add something about this only being about Campaign Settings - it gives the wrong impression when viewed from the main forum.

In my case, there's only one new campaign setting in the past 10 years that has interested me... it is called Eberron. That's because of a combination of good crunch and good flavour.

Cheers!

 

[Davelozzi]

Like Berandor, I voted both, but only because my answer isn't really listed. I don't ignore crunch, I sometimes enjoy it, but without a doubt I'm more interested in the setting development when I buy a new campaign or supplement.

 

[Nifft]

Some settings require a lot of crunch -- Midnight, for example. I love and use that crunch.

Some settings just don't require a lot of crunch -- the F'n Realms, for example. That kind of gratuitous crunch I can, and do, ignore.

-- N

 

[Olive]

I buy CS for rules mostly. I homebrew, but occasionally by a CS. I look at the ideas, but most of them I don't rip off for fluff. I have other sources for that.