BrooklynKnight
First Post
i thoght all this came from the Forgotten Rums spoofy article SKR wrote that used Crunch and Creamy
No more "fluff"!!! [A rant and a request]
- Thread starter Mouseferatu
- Start date
frankthedm
First Post
I like the term fluff. It is nice and negative as it should be when a company pads a 50 page rulebook to 200 pages with dreary prose; which become worthless if you decide not to use the setting.
Last edited:
MerakSpielman
First Post
frankthedm said:
Some books, though, are intended to be fluff. The Kalamar Campaign Setting is almost 100% fluff. They put all the cruch in the Kalamar PH. I'm not sure about the Atlas.
Hey people, is the Kalamar Atlas crunch or fluff?
Psion
Adventurer
Some of you must have really been tweaked that Paizo used fluff and crunch in an ad for dragon.
I personally don't mind the term (makes me think of graham crackers and marshmallows. Mmmmm...) But you really have to admit that the terms are sort of loaded. I really don't think ranting about it is going to change the common vernacular any more than rants by computer enthusiasts that the term "hacker" has been appropriated to describe their more criminal counterparts.
As where the judgement of vapidness in non-rules content might have came from... well, not to be mean, but I think that some vestiges of the industry earned it. Elsewise, you wouldn't see comments like frankthedm's here.
I still remember when I first read "Book of Taverns" for the ennies. I was really impressed. It seemed to me that writing of that quality -- well written and inspiring -- was really not that common in RPGs, or d20. If more books were up to the standard of Book of Taverns, I don't think that the RPG audience would have been so eager to adopt a term that implied lack of value.
Further, many of us are fans of literature, and regularly pay 3-6 times what we do for a novel on RPG books. Though there certainly is a talent to writing non-mechanical text, it generally doesn't have to be playtested or double-checked against rules standards, like skill point totals, balance, etc.. There really is a lot less man-hours that go into a paragraph of text than there is a stat-block than there is a paragraph of text. This being the case, it is easy to see where the perception that publishers who deliver more flavor text than rules material are trying to "pad" there books came from.
Edit: Disclaimer - no, I am not anti-non-mechanical text. I am "anti-non-useful-non-mechanical text". I am reminded of a discussion on the MotP, in which I really didn't recognize that it had what I call "fluff". Everything in there is useful to me and gives me ideas, without droning on as if the author was a frustrated wannabe novelist. Similarly with the scarred lands specific text in R&R.
My grammar teacher in JHS once advised that essays should be like a girl's skirt: short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover the subject. To me, bad flavor text or "fluff" violates this in the former direction.
I personally don't mind the term (makes me think of graham crackers and marshmallows. Mmmmm...) But you really have to admit that the terms are sort of loaded. I really don't think ranting about it is going to change the common vernacular any more than rants by computer enthusiasts that the term "hacker" has been appropriated to describe their more criminal counterparts.
As where the judgement of vapidness in non-rules content might have came from... well, not to be mean, but I think that some vestiges of the industry earned it. Elsewise, you wouldn't see comments like frankthedm's here.
I still remember when I first read "Book of Taverns" for the ennies. I was really impressed. It seemed to me that writing of that quality -- well written and inspiring -- was really not that common in RPGs, or d20. If more books were up to the standard of Book of Taverns, I don't think that the RPG audience would have been so eager to adopt a term that implied lack of value.
Further, many of us are fans of literature, and regularly pay 3-6 times what we do for a novel on RPG books. Though there certainly is a talent to writing non-mechanical text, it generally doesn't have to be playtested or double-checked against rules standards, like skill point totals, balance, etc.. There really is a lot less man-hours that go into a paragraph of text than there is a stat-block than there is a paragraph of text. This being the case, it is easy to see where the perception that publishers who deliver more flavor text than rules material are trying to "pad" there books came from.
Edit: Disclaimer - no, I am not anti-non-mechanical text. I am "anti-non-useful-non-mechanical text". I am reminded of a discussion on the MotP, in which I really didn't recognize that it had what I call "fluff". Everything in there is useful to me and gives me ideas, without droning on as if the author was a frustrated wannabe novelist. Similarly with the scarred lands specific text in R&R.
My grammar teacher in JHS once advised that essays should be like a girl's skirt: short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover the subject. To me, bad flavor text or "fluff" violates this in the former direction.
Last edited:
Gez
First Post
As a replacement for munchkin, I suggest "grosbill" (also written grobill sometimes), or "bigbill", if you prefer. Munchkinism becomes grosbillism. Apply for both characters, players, and monsters or items. Both a noun and an adjective.
As a replacement for fluff, I can propose, in addition to flavor, mood, ambiance, desc(riptive/ription), etc.
As a replacement for fluff, I can propose, in addition to flavor, mood, ambiance, desc(riptive/ription), etc.
WizarDru
Adventurer
I LOVE FLUFF.
I mean, who wouldn't? And for the record, Fluff first appeared on store shelves after World War I, and Fluffernutter as a concoction has been around since at least the early 1950s.
Loved it as a kid...could never eat it as an adult.
As for the rules versus non-rules material, I think it's a difficult argument. The two things don't exist in a vacuum, sealed away from each other hermetically. Rules are good...but most crunch is little more than variations on a theme in the majority of d20 supplements I've seen. ("Oh look, another direct damage spell! I've never seen one of those before.") Some rules are truly innovative, and others are interesting, and reinforce a particular design ethic. The Midnight campaign setting, is a perfect example of fluff and crunch working together to create a setting. There isn't a statistic or rule for "defeated as a society, and despondent as individuals who've give up all hope"...it's "fluff", a described RP feature of the setting. But it's integral to the setting, all the same. Inidividual mechanics reinforce the idea, but it's the descriptive text that determines what's actually going on.
Oh, and joe....MMS:WE isn't ALL "fluff"...you've got some OGC in there in the form of your market/trading simulator. It's only 97% fluff.
I mean, who wouldn't? And for the record, Fluff first appeared on store shelves after World War I, and Fluffernutter as a concoction has been around since at least the early 1950s.
Loved it as a kid...could never eat it as an adult.
As for the rules versus non-rules material, I think it's a difficult argument. The two things don't exist in a vacuum, sealed away from each other hermetically. Rules are good...but most crunch is little more than variations on a theme in the majority of d20 supplements I've seen. ("Oh look, another direct damage spell! I've never seen one of those before.") Some rules are truly innovative, and others are interesting, and reinforce a particular design ethic. The Midnight campaign setting, is a perfect example of fluff and crunch working together to create a setting. There isn't a statistic or rule for "defeated as a society, and despondent as individuals who've give up all hope"...it's "fluff", a described RP feature of the setting. But it's integral to the setting, all the same. Inidividual mechanics reinforce the idea, but it's the descriptive text that determines what's actually going on.
Oh, and joe....MMS:WE isn't ALL "fluff"...you've got some OGC in there in the form of your market/trading simulator. It's only 97% fluff.
Last edited:
Estlor said:
Fluff and crunch is already talked about.
"Is broken" should be obvious, something that doesn't work right.
"Got the shaft" refers to Phineas Gage back in 1848. He survived an iron shaft blown through his head. 3'7", 13.5 lbs, 1.25 inches across. Right through the skull. Messed him up real good. If it doesn't refer to Phineas it should.
"Munchkin".. um... irritating little whiney creatures?
"Monte Hall" came from a game show that gave away large numbers of prizes.. I've always refered to it as a game that has more treasure than usual.
Phineas Gage and Monte Hall both have several websites dedicated to their memory.
Similar Threads
