Mechanics or story?

[Glyfair]

I know there are long arduous discussions about the balance of mechanics ("crunch") and flavor ("fluff") in RPG books. However, I'm curious what people feel they need most.

Assume that from now on all RPG books will either be all mechanics (spells, classes, rules, etc) or all story oriented (campaign settings, NPCs without stats, adventure ideas, etc). At most the books would have tiny elements of the other (the absolute minimum). Which would you find yourself buying most?

Do you feel you can do stories on your own and would rather spend money on mechanics? Are you the opposite, great at creating rules or improvising them on the fly and would rather have story elements to use or for inspiration?

 

[jdrakeh]

Neither! Seriously. If I had to choose between one extreme or the other, I'd choose another hobby.

 

[The Green Adam]

Story definitely. I can always make up my own rules. Well, I can make up my own stories too but with a regular source of ideas I can play forever. On a site related Star Trek gaming the question arouse, "What is the single most useful book for the Star Trek RPG?". Most people named one rulebook or sourcebook or another. I said The Star Trek Encyclopedia, which is not a game product. It lists everything from ever episode of the show and nothing generate ideas like that. Most of my campaigns are inspired by ideas or images I see in artbooks, on the internet or similar non-game sources.

 

[Kvantum]

Mechanics. Story I can write, but it's balanced mechanics I have problems with.

 

[GreatLemur]

I'm a crunch customer. I come up with my own fluff. I'm never satisfied with other peoples story and flavor, anyway.

 

[Stalker0]

I like crunch presented with a bit of flavor. Most story ideas I can go with, I just want a little flavor to get the juices flowing.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Crunch is hard, fluff is easy. That said, fluff is more enjoyable to read, and good for ideas, so I'd buy both.

 

[DragonLancer]

For me, fluff is more important. I don't have a need for more mechanics and game stuff when story and setting material will do me better.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Both. Maybe more crunch, but it wouldn't be a big difference.

I'm never satisfied with other peoples story and flavor, anyway.

Your DMs must hate you!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Neither! Seriously. If I had to choose between one extreme or the other, I'd choose another hobby.

Same here.

I'm not a game designer, so I don't want to write my own rules, and avoid doing so unless I have to. (I know enough about rules to see some obvious busted rules, but that's life-in-RPGs, right?)

On the other hand, I'm not going to buy endless splatbooks either. A setting like Eberron takes a midway point, leaning towards flavor and story; outside of the ECS, I could ignore the crunch from the other books and still enjoy the flavor. However, I wouldn't play Eberron if there weren't any core "crunch" rules available.