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

[TwoSix]

The 4e MM has the least amount of description and flavor text of any core monster book in D&D across any edition of the game. It's sparse to the point I thought the first page I looked at had a printer error that left the flavor text out.

While leaving out most monster flavor text was definitely an error of judgment by the 4e team, the Monster Vaults have done an excellent job attempting to rectify the mistake.

It still doesn't bring back the Great Wheel, though. Sorry.

 

[pemerton]

The 4e MM has the least amount of description and flavor text of any core monster book in D&D across any edition of the game.

This isn't true. The MM is no sparser than the 1st ed AD&D one, or the Basic/Expert monster sections. Off the top of my head, I get a history of the Abyss, history and sociology of goblinoids, context for sphinxes, in the entry on spiders I learn that Lolth was once a god of fate, etc, etc. The AD&D MM gives me some tribal names for orcs and hobgoblins, and some hints about the nine hells that Ed Greenwood built on, but not a lot more. B/X gives less. 2nd ed I don't know. I don't remember a lot of lore in the 3E MM.

(I'm counting the Lore entries as part of the 4e flavour text. And also allowing that the full colour pictures obviate the need for basic physical descriptions.)

 

[KidSnide]

I reject entirely that 3e was in any way "simulationist." From the very start of third edition, the advertisement was "back to the dungeon." Later advertisement was built around rolling dice and killing monsters socially rather then playing a computer game alone. 3e at no point advertised itself as being a simulation of anything. The mechanics agree - the entire economic system collapses on a dime, the skills scale in such a way that a low level half elf can dominate the entire world with diplomacy, and the crafting rules are at best weird and obtuse. These flaws don't paint 3e as a bad system, but as a focused one - one focused on it's exact tagline: back to the dungeon.

I strongly suspect that this is based on a difference in definition of "simulationist." 3e is a simulationist game (in the colloquial sense of the word, no Forge-speak here) because the rules attempt to describe the operation of the world in a substantial amount of detail. For example, 3e provides a mechanism to describe how farmers increase in power as they gain more experience. In comparison, 4e makes little effort to describe the world in the rules: e.g., a monster could have different statistics, depending on who fights it; an NPC can change stats if it shifts from enemy to companion.

Where 3e falls down as a simulation (and, I suspect, why you don't think it is a simulation) is that the world generated by the simulation is extremely wonky and doesn't make a lot of sense, for all the reasons you describe. I don't think this makes the game less simulationist. The game has all these mechanisms for simulation, even if taking them to their full logical extreme might not be the best use for the system.

-KS

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think it is an either/or question. There are lots of approaches to design. Some involve giving priority to one of the two options you laid out, some dont give them any consideration at all, others balance the two. Personally i lime to start with the fluff or the feel of a game first---this game is all about gritty realistic combat, or this is all about intrigue and rp. I just find it easier to design mechanics with specific flavor goals in mind.

 

[Shemeska]

While leaving out most monster flavor text was definitely an error of judgment by the 4e team, the Monster Vaults have done an excellent job attempting to rectify the mistake.

It still doesn't bring back the Great Wheel, though. Sorry.

If they've realized their error, that's a good thing (I haven't looked at the Monster Vaults). Of course, them putting more flavor in doesn't do much for me since by and large* in the areas that I pay attention to (the planes) I haven't liked the flavor that they've come up with for 4e (all PoL all the time, even in settings that had the Great Wheel or had their own cosmology).

*the exception being pretty much anything that Rob Schwalb has written

 

[MrMyth]

It's the bloody vibe of the 4E books which are so irritating, and which you here rightly reference under 'expected gameplay style', because they try to tell you that ease of houseruling is exactly not the case (is not possible, and is not a desideratum). It's really schizophrenic - WotC gave us one of the best rulesets ever to customize, and then went off a screed how you're better off not touching the rules (DMG 1) and better off not even creating a dungeon but downloading them from DDI (DM Kit, 2010 - seriously, they cut all sections which explain how to create monsters, traps, or dungeons).

I'll admit to being distinctly unimpressed with the DM Kit. But then - it was also explicitly aimed at newcomers to the game, so I understand why they wanted it as simple as possible. I think it was a bad call on their part, especially after the excellence of the DMG1 and DMG2, but I get why they went in that direction.

I'm not sure where the DMG1 advocates against playing around with the system. The sections on improvisation and house-ruling don't seem to indicate that sort of advice at all, at least to me.

 

[delericho]

This isn't true. The MM is no sparser than the 1st ed AD&D one, or the Basic/Expert monster sections... 2nd ed I don't know. I don't remember a lot of lore in the 3E MM.

The 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium had a lot of lore in it - far more than any other version. Unfortunately, the folder format was a disaster. This was later replaced with the Monstrous Manual, which had the same amount of lore, and was in full colour. Probably the best 'base' monster book D&D has ever had.

The 3e MM had more lore than the 4e one in almost every entry. However, it wasn't so easily accessible. The 4e version also had the major advantage of multiple different stat-blocks for many of the monsters, which was both new to the edition (for the 'base' book anyway - 3e MMIV did the same), and a very good move.

(I'm counting the Lore entries as part of the 4e flavour text. And also allowing that the full colour pictures obviate the need for basic physical descriptions.)

I agree on the former, but not the latter. IMO, a picture is essential for every monster entry (an area where the 3.0e MM fell down), but not sufficient - there should be a good physical description as well.

 

[Pentius]

Both and neither. The fluff should absolutely influence the mechanics, while the mechanical framework will also necessarily constrain the fluff.

Ideally, the game should be constructed with mechanics that are as flexible as possible, allowing the designers to then describe whatever fluff they want, and be able to convert that to a mechanical representation. (This may cause some problems if, for example, they want to write an adventure featuring 1st level PCs vs a Great Wyrm...)

In reality, of course, there are limits to how far these things can stretch, and there needs to be some sort of compromise.

Ultimately, I would argue that the over-riding design goal for a new edition of D&D should be "feels like D&D". What I don't necessarily agree with is that that automatically requires the game retain, for example, Vancian magic, especially as the only option for magic. The 3e Sorcerer/Wizard split, for example, was at least an attempt to be a bit more broad in what the system can handle; it was a noble attempt, even if it ultimately fell short.

After the core system has been released, I would also argue that the mechanics should then be considered primary over the fluff; if there's something that the mechanics simply can't stretch to accomodate, it should probably be removed from the fluff of the game. That said, with the ability to add new classes, spells, monsters, rituals, and even whole new power sources (perhaps with their own mechanics), there's a whole lot of flexibility available there!

I largely agree with this post, with one real reservation. I don't think "Feels like D&D" should be an over-riding design goal. It's just way too subjective and personal. Nods to it along the way are fine, but it should be secondary, in my opinion, to the other considerations of design.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The 4e MM has the least amount of description and flavor text of any core monster book in D&D across any edition of the game. It's sparse to the point I thought the first page I looked at had a printer error that left the flavor text out.

The 4e MM1 has a lot more in there than it appears on a superficial reading - you just need to know how to read it. Elements like shifty tell me how the monsters move and how to differentiate them in ways you just don't get in older monster manuals. The types of monster tell me how they organise, the specific rather than general magic and powers tells me what they consider valuable and how they approach the world.

In short when it comes to telling me how the monsters they've printed think and behave the 4e MM1 in my opinion beats the 2e Monstrous Manual with its size of bands and %lair chances. That's loads of flavour mostly in the statblocks. Mechanics used properly are raw concentrated flavour and despite being the weakest of the MMs even in this respect, compared to previous editions the 4e MM is dripping with the stuff.

Where it fails is telling me why I should care about the monsters. And more recent monster manuals (especially Monster Vault and Threats to the Nentir Vale) are much better at this.

 

[billd91]

I largely agree with this post, with one real reservation. I don't think "Feels like D&D" should be an over-riding design goal. It's just way too subjective and personal. Nods to it along the way are fine, but it should be secondary, in my opinion, to the other considerations of design.

I would say that this would be true for UnNamed RPG A. But not for an edition of D&D. If you want to design without the baggage of being D&D, you should set out to design a different game and not try to call it D&D.