Now is the time to write the best fluff you've ever written

[Ry]

With recent events focusing so much on game rules, I wanted to throw this idea out there: The non-edition specific fluff - dwarven cultural notes, elven hymns to the fallen, the drums of orcish warhunt - these are the things that can enrich our games regardless of edition.

 

[Ry]

This isn't to say that it's time to write inert crap that no player in their right mind would ever read. I'm saying that it's time to write the elven hymn that the players will see elves singing after the death of an elven NPC the players knew, and which will be a thread of sound they can follow as they try to navigate the ethereal prison where his soul is trapped. Everything important about a quest is essentially fluff.

 

[Ulric]

I've had a thing for fluff heavy stuff for a while. Yes, rules and stats are nice (and necessary), but because I use house rules most the time anyway--our own mix of 1e and 3e...don't ask--I like more fluffy products. Also, in my mind, that's where we see the real creativity for the authors.

I'm looking forward to more books and products with, let's say, about an 80/20 ratio of fluff to crunch.

This really will be the wave of the future, especially if, as we are being told, one of the biggest detriments to getting new players into D&D is the overly complicated rules and the learning curve associated with those rules.

Crunch simplification is good, which, of course, means more fluff.

I'm all for it.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Are you talking as a product, or that we should be writing in our own games? The latter I agree with. The former sadly doesn't sell. I think gamers can be as individualistic, picky and clannish about their fluff as their crunch.

But yeah, I'm working on more of that for at least my new gameworld. I think that stuff is great!

 

[jdrakeh]

With recent events focusing so much on game rules, I wanted to throw this idea out there: The non-edition specific fluff - dwarven cultural notes, elven hymns to the fallen, the drums of orcish warhunt - these are the things that can enrich our games regardless of edition.

I've been working on a HUGE, largely fluff, campaign setting for a while. Parts of it can be seen in the Indie RPG Award-nominated "vs Elves" supplement for Philip Reed's vs Monsters and in Kumquat Tattoo, a fan-press plug-in for S. John Ross's Risus. Another "apect" of the setting will soon show up in the print edition of Simple 20 and, prior to that, you can expect to see yet another portion of it in the EZ20 Ashcan Edition.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If there was a PDF market for such things -- and I'm not sure there is, given how much of the PDF market is crunchy stuff -- I'd love to do this kind of stuff, either on my own or through someone else's PDF line. (And not just for gnomes, either!)

 

[Dan Bell]

Here is my contribution to the Fluff pile. (I have other fluff type articles on that site too, but figured one link was enough.)

 

[jdrakeh]

Here is my contribution to the Fluff pile. (I have other fluff type articles on that site too, but figured one link was enough.)

Mmmm. . . Lythia. Great stuff, Dan!

 

[MonkeyDragon]

I have my own idea for a fluffy setting churning around in my head. I'd be pretty skeptical on the marketability of such a thing, but since I want it for my own games, there's no harm in writing it.

 

[Tonguez]

GURPs cornered the fluff market long ago

The internet covers the rest