Not happy with Wizard's lack of fluff.

[ForeverSlayer]

The other day I sat down with the Tiefling's Handbook and I wanted to read up on the tiefling empire Bael Turath and learn all I can about it because I have an upcoming campaign planned. It will be an all Tiefling Campaign where each tiefling in the group has the blood of a ruling house and will eventually raise Bael Turath from the ashes of destruction.

Well I sit down and I start reading, the more I read the more interested I am getting and the more excited I get. I don't know if it was the Forgotten Realms that spoiled me, but the Tiefling Handbook left me hanging. It was essentially reading the back of a novel that you are thinking about buying only to find out that there are no pages inside.

I guess this is a rant, but I am getting a little tired of the "come up with the rest yourself" theme that 4th edition as taken on. Sure I like to come up with my own stuff, but there are times when I like to take what a great author has envisioned and take that and sometimes change it around to fit a personal agenda, or to sometimes use it as is.

When I first heard about Tieflings having an empire and such I was a bit disappointed because I was use to the old school Tieflings that were rare and no two tieflings were alike. But as I started reading about them I was really astounded at how cool they were.

I feel like I have been a little cheated because I pay all this money for the books, but I continue to be left hanging due to the lack of fluff.

What is your opinion?

 

[Shin Okada]

Hmm. I love "make up your own fluff" style of 4e. I like to create our own fluffs with my friends.

A detailed world setting could be good to read but .... for these years, I am having problems with such books.

Not all the members have their time to read such a big world book before (or between) our games. So, some of them cannot share the most part of the pre-generated knowledge and images about that world. RPG is about sharing the image and feeling of the same world with your friends. So I have decided to minimize the pre-determined details of the world, and instead developing them during the actual game sessions (or pre-game discussions with our friends).

 

[Fridayknight]

Just a quick reminder (im no admin so you can just ignore me) but the title makes it seem like you are talking about the class wizard.

 

[Budalic]

I like current direction. Too much fluff, and we'll end up with Golden Wyvern Adepts again.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

I'm not quite sure what the OP is trying to say. On the one hand you say you are really excited -- "Well I sit down and I start reading, the more I read the more interested I am getting and the more excited I get." -- and on the other you say you are disappointed.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like you think the Tiefling Handbook has good mechanical stuff, and maybe some good fluff about tieflings as individuals, but not enough about tiefling civilizations and specifically about Bael Turath. Is that accurate?

 

[hutchback]

I've been pleased with the fluff that WotC has been publishing. Overarching themes rather than precise details are much more useful to me as a DM.

When fluff is overly specific it becomes its own kind of crunch. Bogged down and overly restrictive. Everyone has such a clear understanding of the setting, race, deity, etc. that you find players constantly saying "A Dwarf would never do that." "There is no militia Luskan." "That King never had any daughters." and so on.

When players know all that there is to know, it can force the DM to play against archetypes too frequently, which I find trifling.

 

[Teemu]

I've thought there's a good amount of fluff available. Maybe not in the books aimed at players, but the DM stuff like Draconomicons and the Planar books and so on have lots of it.

 

[Zaukrie]

Goodman Games has a very nice Tiefling book you can get in PDF if you want more fluff.

In general, I think there good be more fluff, without it being "crunch fluff" as someone said above. However, I usually found the old fluff to be better reading than useful in play.

So, while I love reading the old style fluff, it rarely came into play. However, I feel that while the designers understood/stand that, they have erred a little to far to the other extreme at times, and that a little more fluff could be good.

 

[OchreJelly]

This issue sort of cuts both ways. With too much fluff you have the old Forgotten Realms "Problem" where the world is already pretty well carved out with less room for the DM to make changes. And even if they do makes changes, other player subject-matter-experts may be upset by such cannon changes. I personally have never seen this, but I have heard that this has been an issue at some tables.

With too little fluff, a DM may have just too little to work with. Likewise it can make for some pretty dry reading.

For me, I feel like they have bridged the line pretty adequately for 4E. In fact the designers for MM3 have taken some of the lack of fluff criticism to heart and provided more fluff for that particular MM.

 

[MrMyth]

I think there is a proper place for all things. In this case, I totally get the concern at hand - I like having open-ended fluff in the PHB and similar products, but a book all about Tieflings would be the perfect place to really explore their history.

I think there is very good fluff in a lot of places - especially the planar and monster books - but since there isn't any books about the core setting itself, it is hard to find a place that merits detailed fluff of it. Which is usually fine, but when the opportunity is there - as with this book - and they miss it, that is a shame.