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<blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 4426025" data-attributes="member: 1106">I disagree, the kind of thinking you're displaying here is IMO what's gotten the game into this mess.&quot;Crunch before flavour&quot; is it's name, and it's a scourge.&nbsp; The idea is that you go &quot;oh, this would be a cool crunch ability&quot; and then tack on some contrived, afterthought flavour, and then tack on a contrived name to label it, then pretend it has a right to exist.&nbsp; It hasn't, the flavour doesn't make sense, neither does the name, and everything is bass-ackwards, cart-before-horse, mythologically void, contrived arbitrariness.&nbsp; It just happens that mythological resonance is D&amp;D's lifeblood in terms of vibe and atmosphere, and this kind of game design just haemorrhages it away, turning the game into a cypher that has nothing to do with anything else but itself.Just because it's obviously a design direction doesn't make it right.&nbsp; It just makes it ubiquitous and really annoying.&nbsp; I'm not advocating design purely from genre flavour (that wouldn't work in terms of balance or playability), but the pendulum has been swung too far the other way, IMO.&nbsp; There has to be a compromise....or at least, more of a compromise than is being demonstrated.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="rounser, post: 4426025, member: 1106"] I disagree, the kind of thinking you're displaying here is IMO what's gotten the game into this mess. "Crunch before flavour" is it's name, and it's a scourge. The idea is that you go "oh, this would be a cool crunch ability" and then tack on some contrived, afterthought flavour, and then tack on a contrived name to label it, then pretend it has a right to exist. It hasn't, the flavour doesn't make sense, neither does the name, and everything is bass-ackwards, cart-before-horse, mythologically void, contrived arbitrariness. It just happens that mythological resonance is D&D's lifeblood in terms of vibe and atmosphere, and this kind of game design just haemorrhages it away, turning the game into a cypher that has nothing to do with anything else but itself. Just because it's obviously a design direction doesn't make it right. It just makes it ubiquitous and really annoying. I'm not advocating design purely from genre flavour (that wouldn't work in terms of balance or playability), but the pendulum has been swung too far the other way, IMO. There has to be a compromise....or at least, more of a compromise than is being demonstrated. [/QUOTE]

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