Mearls' Chicken or the Egg: Should Fluff Control Crunch, or the Other Way Around?

[Raven Crowking]

You guys are really stretching this. So just to be clear... if you use the "Shifty" ability to facilitate tactics you attribute to trickery and deception(even though everything you've come up with could also be attributed to the kobolds just being fast and jittery.) then it gives the kobold the flavor and fluff of being tricky and deceptive... Uhm, ok but nothing in and of the power itself (without you purposefully setting up tricky or deceptive situations to use "Shiifty" in) gives one this flavor or fluff and that is what is being argued. The power "Shifty", in and of itself, does not give the DM fluff about kobolds. It gives him an abstract mechanic he can interpret or skin in numerous ways but it tells us nothing about kobolds in the game world... unless we start adding stuff to support our interpretation of what said power is suppose to represent.

This.

With the caveat that, depending upon your personal tastes, this isn't necessarily a problem, for you.


RC

 

[TarionzCousin]

Fluff + Crunch = ?

Flunch?
Cruff?

I think the game really requires both to work best.

However, if I had to choose only one, I would take fluff (chocolate).

 

[Doug McCrae]

Hit is a better example of a word defined differently by D&D than it is in real life. A hit that does no damage because the target is armoured is a common result to have described in combat. In D&D, a hit does damage, and hitting doesn't mean you've actually hit, but that you've actually done some damage.

Damage is also a good example. In 1e a character that takes 10 hit points of damage may have only taken 4 points of actual physical damage, the rest being 'damage' to luck, skill, divine protection, fatigue, etc. So damage doesn't always mean damage.

'Armor class' could also be questioned as it can be improved by factors that are not armor of any kind, such as dexterity bonus.

 

[pemerton]

the very two sentences in "Goblin Society" (3.5e MM p133) reads "Goblins are tribal. Their leaders are generally the biggest, strongest, or sometimes the smartest of the group." So that would be heirarchies right there.

I had in mind the discussion, in the 4e MM, of the relationships between hobgoblins, goblins and bugbears, including that hobgoblins may have bred the latter two species, which once served in a hobgoblin empire that fell to fey inteference. There is actually quite a bit of history packed in there!

There is much less information available for the majority of creatures - see "Hag", "Githyanki", "Halfling", or the like.

Well, halflings get a write up in the PHB which probably makes too much MM discussion redundant.

Here is what I learn from the Githyanki entry (I've paraphrased away some of the detail and repetition):

The githyanki and the githzerai were once a single race enslaved by mind flayers, who split into two races after winning their freedom a long time ago. Githyanki attack mind flayers on sight, and they are equally cruel toward their githzerai kin.

Githyanki live in the Astral Sea, which they sail the in astral ships. Their cities are built upon nameless and forgotten dead entities. Tu’narath is the largest githyanki city. It is built atop the body of a dead god adrift in the Astral Sea. It isruled by Vlaakith, the githyanki lich queen, who has ruled supreme for over a thousand years. The githyanki revere the lich-queen as the stepmother of their race.

Githyanki don’t have families; from birth they belong to military training groups called cadres. They are xenophobic and militaristic, and set out to conquer everything in their path. A githyanki lavishes more care on her weapon than her fellows.

Githyanki have a pact with red dragons, which sometimes agree to allow githyanki to ride upon them.​

The only thing I noticed in the 3.5 MM that is missing from the above is (i) the express remark that, like dwarves, githyanki are masters of crafting, and (ii) the demographic note that 20% of a githyanki fortress's population is non-combatant. The 3.5 MM doesn't give the name of the Lich-Queen, nor of the largest city. Nor does it mention that the fortresses and cities are built on dead gods and the like. Nor does it mention sailing in astral ships.

I don't really see how this entry shows the 4e MM to be sparse in its lore.

Hags do get a bit more of a spartan entry, but I'm not sure it's lacking. Here's what I learned about hags from the 3.5 MM:

Hags are horrible, ugly and evil. They use dark magic and knowledge of fell things, and do evil for its own sake. They also plot and scheme for power and malevolent ends, and may serve more powerful evil beings. From time to time a trio of hags gathers as a covey.​

And here's what I learned from the 4e MM:

Hags are cruel and dangerous fey, living manifestations of nature’s ugliness. They are wise in the ways of dark magic and curses, and often know dark rituals that allow them to scry distant places, see into the future, manipulate the weather, or place curses on those who anger them. They like to collect treasure and will often impart knowledge
or free captives in exchange for valuable items.

Hags are miserable and conniving, and seek to destroy those who are content in life. They gather in small groups called covens, thereby combining their ritual knowledge. Most hags are petty tyrants, who prefer to bully weaker monsters and foment wicked schemes against mortals unfortunate enough to live close by, but they sometimes serve more powerful evil beings as advisors and soothsayers.​

I'm not seeing a big contrast here. Both tell me what I could probably already guess, namely, that hags play the same sort of role in the game as the witches in Macbeth.

So I stand by my earlier claim - as far as Gygax's AD&D, Basic/Expert and 3E are concerned, 4e's MM does not signal any signficant drop in the quantity of lore/flavour, either overall, or for a range of typical monsters.

Personally, I think it actually gives more useful lore, because knowing the history and mythic orientation of the monster better helps me craft a compelling situation for my players than does knowing demographics or details of diet. But this further claim is a playstyle issue - eg for those running exploration-heavy sandboxes, demographics and diet may be more useful than they are for me.

 

[pemerton]

You guys are really stretching this. So just to be clear... if you use the "Shifty" ability to facilitate tactics you attribute to trickery and deception(even though everything you've come up with could also be attributed to the kobolds just being fast and jittery.) then it gives the kobold the flavor and fluff of being tricky and deceptive...

I genuinely don't understand.

The question is

Does the 4e MM give a GM enough lore/flavour to run a kobold?​

The suggested answer is

Yes, because (i) the flavour text talks about being sneaky, ambushing, tricky, swarming, running away etc; (ii) they have a power called Shifty, and the word "shifty" suggests being sneaky, tricky, etc; and (iii) when you run a kobold using that power according to the rules of the game, you'll find that your kobold is good at being sneaky (shift, attack, move back to cover, stealth check) and tricky (move, attack, shift away) and swarming (shift, shift to flank, attack) and running away (shift then double run).​

But you then object:

Uhm, ok but nothing in and of the power itself (without you purposefully setting up tricky or deceptive situations to use "Shiifty" in) gives one this flavor or fluff and that is what is being argued

The power "Shifty", in and of itself, does not give the DM fluff about kobolds. It gives him an abstract mechanic he can interpret or skin in numerous ways but it tells us nothing about kobolds in the game world... unless we start adding stuff to support our interpretation of what said power is suppose to represent.

As far as I can see, this objection is nothing but

A GM is free to ignore the flavour text, and its high degree of concordance with the mechanical consequences of using the Shifty power, and describe a kobold as jittery or quick instead (perhaps like a quickling).​

Well, yes. A GM who ignores the flavour text won't find it much help in working out how to run a kobold. But why would a GM who wants to run a kobold ignore the flavour text?

Or maybe I've misunderstood you. Maybe you're saying that, if a GM runs an encounter with kobolds, and uses the Shifty power in the course of that encounter, the players won't notice it, and won't get a sense that the kobolds are sneaky and tricky and extremely annoying as a result. Do you have actual play experience in mind here?

As I said, I don't really see what the problem is. The MM isn't an abstract thesis on the essence of kobolds. And the fiction is not some eternal and total composite of all the flavour text plus all the mechanics all run simultaneously in some abstract fashion. The purpose of NPC and monster flavour text isn't anything like that - it's to help a GM know how to characterise and run her monsters. Has any GM ever read the MM entry on kobolds and not known what she might do with them?

You just side-stepped around it.

In a game where terms do not need to mean what they mean in normal parlance, why would the GM assume that normal parlance need apply? If PC powers work regardless of whether or not the description makes sense in context, so long as the end effect can be made sense of, why would this be any different for monsters? Is there a quote to that effect, anywhere?

No, there's no quote to that effect. But, as with Imaro, I don't understand what you think the problem is, or why such a quote is needed.

If a GM wants to know what kobolds are like, Why would she ignore the fact that their most distinctive power is called Shifty, and that the likely consequence of its use in play is that kobolds will be able to do the sorts of things called out in their flavour text, like be sneaky and tricky and tending to swarm and then run away?

The GM doesn't need rules that tell her that she must play kobolds this way - because she is, of course, free not to. All she needs to do is read the flavour and the stat block and notice an overwhelmingly salient suggestion as to how she might run her kobolds.

As I've already said, I'm not sure what you see the problem to be. Is it that sometimes, a GM might have a kobold use its Shifty power, but the best explanation for what is going on in the fiction is not that it is being a shifty kobold? Yes, that might happen, although off the top of my head I'm not coming up with an example. But that seems irrelevant to the problem of the GM not knowing how to flavour her kobolds. It would be a problem of narration that may come up during the course of play, whereas flavouring kobolds is a problem of scenario design and general scene-setting and characterisation of NPCs/monsters. The only time the narration issue will undermine the characterisation issue is if most of the time, the use of Shifty can't be explained/understood in terms of shiftiness. Does anyone think this is at all likely?

 

[Mark CMG]

I genuinely don't understand.

The question is

Does the 4e MM give a GM enough lore/flavour to run a kobold?​

The suggested answer is

Yes, because (i) the flavour text talks about being sneaky, ambushing, tricky, swarming, running away etc; (ii) they have a power called Shifty, and the word "shifty" suggests being sneaky, tricky, etc; and (iii) when you run a kobold using that power according to the rules of the game, you'll find that your kobold is good at being sneaky (shift, attack, move back to cover, stealth check) and tricky (move, attack, shift away) and swarming (shift, shift to flank, attack) and running away (shift then double run).​

Simply to run a kobold for combat? If that's all there is to the text of whatever game system you might be running, then it certainly seems like enough for someone who has played D&D or a similar game for some time, already knows what a kobold is, what it looks like, how it generally lives, etc. Again, to run it for combat for a player group that doesn't care what it looks like or asks too many RPing questions, then I agree that should be more than enough.

 

[Pentius]

Simply to run a kobold for combat? If that's all there is to the text of whatever game system you might be running, then it certainly seems like enough for someone who has played D&D or a similar game for some time, already knows what a kobold is, what it looks like, how it generally lives, etc. Again, to run it for combat for a player group that doesn't care what it looks like or asks too many RPing questions, then I agree that should be more than enough.

But the players who want to know what a kobold is, what it looks like, and how it generally lives aren't exactly left cold. The above answer was strictly in reference to the Shifty power and it's combat applications. The rest of the kobold entry notes where kobolds live(in the same regions as dragons, often near a dragon's lair. A safe distance away, but close enough to bring sacrificial offerings), it notes what they look like(two full color pictures), it mentions religion(they worship dragons as gods, though they are usually ignored in return), and also the cultural importance of traps(that they are used to capture both their own prey and sacrifices for their dragon 'gods').

 

[Imaro]

I genuinely don't understand.

The question is

Does the 4e MM give a GM enough lore/flavour to run a kobold?
​

The suggested answer is

Yes, because (i) the flavour text talks about being sneaky, ambushing, tricky, swarming, running away etc; (ii) they have a power called Shifty, and the word "shifty" suggests being sneaky, tricky, etc; and (iii) when you run a kobold using that power according to the rules of the game, you'll find that your kobold is good at being sneaky (shift, attack, move back to cover, stealth check) and tricky (move, attack, shift away) and swarming (shift, shift to flank, attack) and running away (shift then double run).
​

But you then object:

As far as I can see, this objection is nothing but

A GM is free to ignore the flavour text, and its high degree of concordance with the mechanical consequences of using the Shifty power, and describe a kobold as jittery or quick instead (perhaps like a quickling).
​

Well, yes. A GM who ignores the flavour text won't find it much help in working out how to run a kobold. But why would a GM who wants to run a kobold ignore the flavour text?

Or maybe I've misunderstood you. Maybe you're saying that, if a GM runs an encounter with kobolds, and uses the Shifty power in the course of that encounter, the players won't notice it, and won't get a sense that the kobolds are sneaky and tricky and extremely annoying as a result. Do you have actual play experience in mind here?

As I said, I don't really see what the problem is. The MM isn't an abstract thesis on the essence of kobolds. And the fiction is not some eternal and total composite of all the flavour text plus all the mechanics all run simultaneously in some abstract fashion. The purpose of NPC and monster flavour text isn't anything like that - it's to help a GM know how to characterise and run her monsters. Has any GM ever read the MM entry on kobolds and not known what she might do with them?

The problem is that you don't know or understand what question is being discussed. Neonchameleon made a claim about the 4e powers and deriving fluff from them which I objected to (so it has nothing to do with the general amount of kobold fluff in the MM regardless of how many people want this to be the argument.). I'm not going to go back and quote it because I feel like before jumping into the thread with paragraphs of text, one should understand what they are posting about... thus, if you were really trying to understand the argument I am making... you would have read what I was replying to, but you didn't.

Also for the record there is no fluff for the shifty power in MM1... it is plain and simple mechanics.

 

[Mark CMG]

But the players who want to know what a kobold is, what it looks like, and how it generally lives aren't exactly left cold. The above answer was strictly in reference to the Shifty power and it's combat applications. The rest of the kobold entry notes where kobolds live(in the same regions as dragons, often near a dragon's lair. A safe distance away, but close enough to bring sacrificial offerings), it notes what they look like(two full color pictures), it mentions religion(they worship dragons as gods, though they are usually ignored in return), and also the cultural importance of traps(that they are used to capture both their own prey and sacrifices for their dragon 'gods').

Maybe this thread has circled around itself but I'm not sure I see what the problem is then.

 

[Pentius]

The problem is that you don't know or understand what question is being discussed. Neonchameleon made a claim about the 4e powers and deriving fluff from them which I objected to (so it has nothing to do with the general amount of kobold fluff in the MM regardless of how many people want this to be the argument.). I'm not going to go back and quote it because I feel like before jumping into the thread with paragraphs of text, one should understand what they are posting about... thus, if you were really trying to understand the argument I am making... you would have read what I was replying to, but you didn't.

Also for the record there is no fluff for the shifty power in MM1... it is plain and simple mechanics.

Actually, neonchameleon was himself replying to an accusation that the 4e MM was sparse in flavor. His rebuttal was the flavor is very much present, but is supplied differently than in previous editions. Deriving flavor from monster powers, as well as Shifty specifically, was but one example of the flavor he spoke of. So, given that this actually IS about how much fluff is in the 4e MM, the amount of fluff in the 4e MM is at the heart of the issue.