Reasons for Fluff etc. (Perkins' blog)

[TwoSix]

Fluff is generally a waste of column inches, as far as I'm concerned. But I'm getting the feeling that 4e is going to be more fluff-adorned than 3e due to a concerted effort to spiff the game up for the benefit of wholly new and inexperienced customers. They can't just tell those folks "wizards can do this"; they have to say "wizards can do this because they know this, which they learned over here".

I always wondered....if the fluff is excluded, what are they supposed to fill the column inches with? More rules? But if the rules are designed to be concise and easy to play, than what need of the column width to begin width? It isn't like the PHB is a supplement, where the fluff replaces possible crunch...the point of the PHB is to present the game in an accessible package.

 

[Imaro]

I always wondered....if the fluff is excluded, what are they supposed to fill the column inches with? More rules? But if the rules are designed to be concise and easy to play, than what need of the column width to begin width? It isn't like the PHB is a supplement, where the fluff replaces possible crunch...the point of the PHB is to present the game in an accessible package.

My Translation...Less page count+more fluff+infinitely expanded attributes(feats, talents classes, etc.) means more supplements...Yay!

On a serious note, if it's between more fluff or more base classes, feats, spells, etc...I'll take more crunch for my buck. Just sayin, I can create(or purchase a campaign book) for fluff.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

As long as it's more DND book than white wolf book I'm ok with the fluff.


Don't get me wrong, I love nWOD but I really didn't need half the book as short stories. As long as DND is still DND in that sense the fluff wont bother me.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, I'll say the same thing I said in a different thread.

RPG books must be evocative and interesting, at least to an extent, or they're going to turn off a fair number of potential players. Similarly, even the core rules should inspire adventure ideas in DMs, and character ideas in players. As long as the flavor is sufficiently separate that the book can serve as a quick reference during play, the additional flavor is not only not harmful, but I'd argue absolutely necessary.

The last thing I want, and the last thing D&D needs, is a core book that is nothing but mechanics. An insufficiency of flavor is more stifling to the imagination, IMO, than an excess of it, even if that flavor runs contrary to the tastes and intentions of the players.

 

[Arkhandus]

Agreed with the mouse.

The core rulebooks need to do something to get new players interested and started with the game, to give them an understanding of the roleplaying aspect (D&D IS NOT PURELY A WARGAME, it is an RPG and as such needs to recognize the RP part of that), not merely cater to existing players who only want new rules material and will gnash their teeth at having to pay for even a single inch of illustration, elaboration, examples, or flavor text.

 

[zoroaster100]

I am unhappy about this. So far it is what I like least about the news on Fourth Edition. So far the types of issues they are tackling on the rules side seem generally good, but this stuffing of the core rules with too much fluff and specific flavor sound ill conceived to me. Especially so since I strongly dislike the flavor I've seen so far. I detest the idea of a fantasy world filled with tieflings. And I never liked the warlock class precisely because it seemed to have too much specific flavor built in, flavor that does not fit with the world settings I like to use.

 

[Celebrim]

An insufficiency of flavor is more stifling to the imagination, IMO, than an excess of it, even if that flavor runs contrary to the tastes and intentions of the players.

Jerry Bruckheimer would like to have a word with you. So would the the International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers. They seem to think making a product that has a flavor that runs contrary to the tastes of the market is not the way to sell a product. They recommend vanilla rather than trying to force on the market something that they don't really want to buy.

 

[Arkhandus]

Except most people don't have the same preference of D&D setting. Anything at all that you use in the core rules flavor-wise, even just the simple inclusion of certain classes, feats, races, spells, or whatnot in the PHB (like the inclusion of warlocks and tieflings, or the inclusion of bards or paladins or whatnot) carries some implication of setting that some people may disagree with.

But as long as the core rules include some reasonably generic/standard flavor text, they shouldn't conflict with too many peoples' tastes in fantasy settings. A majority of people will not object to dwarves being gruff and quarrelsome, for example, because it's fairly typical fantasy fare. It's not like the designers are going to include mention of extremely social, well-mannered, pacifist dwarves in the PHB, which would conflict with the majority of peoples' general expectations.

Regardless of a relatively small number of peoples' homebrews, many D&D settings have fairly similar concepts of 'dwarvishness' or 'wizardness' or 'druidness' etc., that won't be negatively impacted by the inclusion of standard flavor text in the PHB.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Jerry Bruckheimer would like to have a word with you. So would the the International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers. They seem to think making a product that has a flavor that runs contrary to the tastes of the market is not the way to sell a product. They recommend vanilla rather than trying to force on the market something that they don't really want to buy.

It's a good thing I'm not making TV shows or ice cream.

Seriously, I'm not saying the game should be predicated too heavily on the flavor of any given setting. But I do think that having an implied setting, and drafting the descriptions of the rules to match it, is not only a good thing, but a necessary one.

Obviously, if it crosses the line to the point where it's difficult to remove that flavor for DMs who want to use other published settings, or to homebrew, then it's gone too far. But I've seen no indication that this'll be any more of a problem in 4E than it was in past editions.

 

[helium3]

Well, I'll say the same thing I said in a different thread.

The last thing I want, and the last thing D&D needs, is a core book that is nothing but mechanics. An insufficiency of flavor is more stifling to the imagination, IMO, than an excess of it, even if that flavor runs contrary to the tastes and intentions of the players.

Agreed. On the flip side, often times the flavor gets mistaken for mechanics. I don't want players telling me that such and such can't happen because the flavor in the PHB contradicts it. Flavor needs to be clearly delineated as such.