No more "fluff"!!! [A rant and a request]

[Vigilance]

As someone who writes books heavily slanted to the crunch side of things, Id like to offer a defense of crunch heavy books as I see it.

First let me say arguing over what we call things isnt usually productive. The point of comminication is to communicate, and using fluff and crunch, regardless of connotation, gets the message across most efficiently. When I say crunch or fluff, you might wince, but you know what I mean. Nuff said on that.

Now to my point. I prefer crunch, I think crunch is the most portable element of a d20 game book, and thus the most valuable the largest group of people. If I write a book that is full of setting and flavor and mystique, people have to like it enough to stop their current campaign.

Crunch allows homebrew campaigns to use the majority of my books, without interruption of the current flow of the campaign.

I prefer these books myself as a consumer, which affects what I write. I dont need anyone's books to tell me how to build my world or run my game. Do the grunt work for me, and let me create.

I tend to give other DMs the benefit of the doubt on this subject. I think all of you running games dont need me to tell you how to run your games, and for every "brilliant" idea of mine you will want to incorporate, there will be 3 to 4 that you dont like or just dont fit your style that you will have to ignore or work around.

In short, I think crunch-heavy products are more valuable to the largest number of games which is why I write them.

Chuck

 

[d4]

I dislike the (apparent) trend among some RPers (not accusing any specific person of any specific thing) of dismissing non-mechanical stuff as useless, and I feel that this particular choice of terms is a symptom of that, even if many people using it don't think of it that way.

what if we really do find it useless? then is it OK to call it "fluff"?

i agree that dismissing anything out of hand as useless is stupid, but if i've read the "flavor" or "narrative" or whatever you want to call it, and i still find it useless, then i'm going to describe it as such.

and j.b., we must have different definitions of the terms, because IMO both MMS books are almost all "crunch".

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Well, I intend to use all three terms.

'Flavor' meaning non-rules information that is useful for the setting and background material.
'Fluff' meaning non-useful material, for example if I buy a book on poisons and find a two page diatribe on the drow... when I don't even use drow! Or a badly written fiction piece that does not support the material that I have purchased.
'Crunch' being the rules material.

I do and have purchased material that contains nothing but 'flavor'.
Books of fluff just annoy me. (Do we really need another gothic, angsty story about the self pitying unlife of a vampire?) And books of nothing but crunch can get awfully boring while reading them.

The Auld Grump, you got your flavor in my crunch!

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, I intend to use all three terms.

'Flavor' meaning non-rules information that is useful for the setting and background material.
'Fluff' meaning non-useful material, for example if I buy a book on poisons and find a two page diatribe on the drow... when I don't even use drow! Or a badly written fiction piece that does not support the material that I have purchased.
'Crunch' being the rules material.

Perfect. I have no problem with the word "fluff" if it really is used for fluff.

 

[LightPhoenix]

what if we really do find it useless? then is it OK to call it "fluff"

And to run with that, the reason the term may be a problem simply because it's based on something subjective - our own opinions. Taken strictly as a negatively connotated word, any two people's opinion on what does or does not constitute fluff is likely to differ. However, even with a more neutral connotation, the term can differ widely between any two people as to what it "flavor" and what is "fluff".

 

[FireLance]

[Aside]How would you like your omelette - fluffy or crunchy?[/Aside]

I prefer to use the terms "flavor" and "mechanics" myself, but I have no problem with either "fluff" or "crunch".

Fundamentally, though, I see no conflict between the two. In fact, flavor and mechanics must often go hand in hand. Consider the most basic of mechanics, the attack roll: roll d20 and add your BAB, your Strength modifier and your other modifiers. Any flavor here? Well, what about the following:

1. In this setting, there is an element of chance (the d20 roll). Characters do not always automatically succeed or fail.

2. In this setting, characters do not have an equal chance of succeeding at all tasks. Some succeed more often because they have more skill than others (BAB).

3. In this setting, strong characters have a better chance to hit others in combat.

4. In this setting, there are other ways to improve your ability to hit in combat apart from skill and strength (size, equipment, circumstances, etc).

All these may be obvious, intuitive and flavor-wise, quite bland, but a bland flavor is different from the absence of flavor.

Now, consider the following bit of flavor: Legolas is able to fire arrows at his opponents while descending a flight of stairs on a shield. Without the mechanics to back up this bit of flavor, DMs are basically left to decide what it means and what happens when a PC tries to replicate the same stunt. Does Legolas simply have an extremely hight Balance modifier? Does he have the Shield Surfing feat? Does he have a level in the Shield Surfer prestige class? Is he able to do it because he is an elf, and a non-elven PC who tries it will not be able to succeed? Flavor without mechanics leads to inconsistent application. Even so, this is less of a problem as long as every DM is internally consistent and everyone remembers rule 0.

Fundamentally, different people will have different needs with respect to flavor and mechanics. Some aren't comfortable tinkering with mechanics and will want more rules. Others are looking for inspiration and want more flavor. And some want a little of both.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I only noticed these terms enter general usage after SKR's parable/rant which used the terms. I think it is a shame that they have been picked up and used so widely since then (at least on ENworld) because I don't think they add anything to any discussion.

I agree with Mouse that there is a strongly implied value judgement to the term fluff, principally that it lacks substance.

I'd love to see people use something more descriptive again and stop being lazy in their descriptions. Perhaps in the future I'll make sure that when I want to use one word terms I'll try something like rules/mechanics vs backstory/setting

e.g. One of the things that I liked about Relics and Rituals was that each of the spells had a paragraph or two of backstory to complement the rules for the spell.

I purchased the Forgotten Realms campaign setting even though I'll never use it, because I was interested to see what they included. I like some of the new spells, and there were whole sections of setting information which appealed to me, even though there was a little too much backstory for my liking.

 

[BryonD]

Nope. No relation to my work at all. Just something that's been slowly building after months if not longer of seeing the terms in use, and seeing other people react to it.

I don't particularly feel that I'm "thin-skinned." It's not as though I'm taking some sort of personal offense at this. I just think it's a poorly chosen, misleading term that could be replaced by something a lot clearer. I dislike the (apparent) trend among some RPers (not accusing any specific person of any specific thing) of dismissing non-mechanical stuff as useless, and I feel that this particular choice of terms is a symptom of that, even if many people using it don't think of it that way.

But of course, you don't need my permission to continue using "fluff," if that's what you want to do. Trust me, I'm not "thin-skinned" enough to take it personally.

OK, well, like I said, we must really travel in different circles.

There have been threads here in the past on whether people prefer fluff or crunch. A lot of people say they like them equally or even prefer fluff. Did YOU think that those people were saying that they prefer USELESS stuff?

Seriously, can you explain to me how anyone (newbie or otherwise) could read statements from people advocating fluff and not immediately conclude from the context that the term MUST have a non-negative meaning.

I do not know anything about SCUBA diving. If I go to a SCUBA board and post a "rant" that I dislike them using lingo that I can not immediately understand (be it new words or modified usage of existing words), the reasonable response from them is going to be to blow me off as a thin skinned whiner.

The only connection I can see between your complaint and language usage as I experience it is that fluff is used as filler more often than other elements. But being USED AS filler DOES NOT mean IT IS filler.

Art is not filler, but it can and has been used as filler.

Crunch is not filler, but it can and has been used as filler.

Fluff is not filler, but it can and has been used as filler.

Wide margins and blank space... Well that is just filler.

Anyway, even if you got your wish and the word went away (which is about as likely as it is that Henry will get his wish and Munchkin will go away) I really do not think it would matter. Say we start using the word "flavor". Well, six months or a year from now people who like flavor in their products are going to start complaining about people using the term "flavor" as a means of expressing negative opinion.

In my totally personal and may not hold up to scientific scrutiny assessment, there is a significantly larger market for mechanical product than there is for non-mechanical product. This puts people who do prefer non-mechanical on some degree of defensive. There will always be some tension between groups wanting publishers to cater to their preference. It is not the kind of thing that people are going to take to the streets with torches and pitchforks over. But they will start getting sensitive about use of language. It is simply human nature. Any term meaning "non-mechanical" is going to wind up understood the same as "fluff", dictionaries not withstanding.

The Book of the Righteous is Great. The crunch in that book is quite good. But it is the fluff that is awesome. The fluff in the Book of the Righteous is among the most useful material I own.

There is nothing remotely oxymoronic about that statement.

 

[rounser]

Seriously, can you explain to me how anyone (newbie or otherwise) could read statements from people advocating fluff and not immediately conclude from the context that the term MUST have a non-negative meaning.

Wow, that's a fine hair you've split there.

Of course the term's negative. It literally implies trivial, disposable, useless, timewasting...that's what advocates have got to "build on", or rather, that's the uphill battle that you seem to want them to keep waging. Proving that "fluff" isn't fluff.

And...given a moments thought, you must understand that the language helps control how people think. One of the tools of propaganda is to use the language as a means of changing or influencing people's opinions with the perjorative and negative, no doubt an objective of those who chose the terms "fluff" and "crunch" - and you seem to want to hold onto that.

 

[BryonD]

Wow, that's a fine hair you've split there.

Of course the term's negative. It literally implies trivial, disposable, useless, timewasting...that's what advocates have got to "build on", or rather, that's the uphill battle that you seem to want them to keep waging. Proving that "fluff" isn't fluff.

Ok, so when people say they LIKE fluff what do you think they are saying they like?

I have already established that the use of the term fluff does not equate to filler. Simply restating the false claim does not make a functional rebuttal.