D&D General Rules vs. lore preferences in D&D sourcebooks?

[EzekielRaiden]

I can write a story just about anytime, but it's useful to have pointers, a basic starting point, that sort of thing. What is sometimes referred to, in player-facing terms, as a "skirt-length" backstory--enough to cover your butt, in other words. Having that baseline gives me the tools I need in order to overcome the tyranny of the empty page; either I have a seed I can grow into my own thing, or I have a wall to push off against so I have a direction to go.

I'd say I'm really about midway between "mostly rules, some lore" and "equal mix." Like, I do enjoy lore assuming it is well-written, but I find a lot of it is...somewhat lacking, shall we say. But it's a HELL of a lot easier to write my own good, functional, self-consistent lore than it is to write my own good, functional, self-consistent mechanics, so I'd prefer that the designers focus on the aspect of game design that is actually difficult for little ol' me to do by myself, and trust me to handle the part of game design that I can do quite easily on my own.

 

[loverdrive]

Care to elaborate? Because this seems to throw shade at any toolkit system,from Savage Worlds to FATE to GURPS, and even D&D when it is in generic fantasy mode.

Don't really know anything about Savage Worlds besides Deadlands, so can't comment on that.

Fate doesn't have any lore. It makes barely any little assumptions about the characters and the game world, other than them being proactive, dramatic and competent. Specific rules that do come with lore attached, like Six Viziers or Stormcallers can't be really separated from it. Pretty much the same for GURPS.

D&D is kind of a special case because a lot, if not the majority of fantasy is influenced by D&D. You still can't escape the Weave, the gods being a real deal, fantasy monsters, all that.

Overall, I think if there is lore and it can be easily separated from the mechanics, either the lore is so bland there's no point of having it at all, or the mechanics don't support it.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Overall, I think if there is lore and it can be easily separated from the mechanics, either the lore is so bland there's no point of having it at all, or the mechanics don't support it.

I would see that last point as a feature, not a bug in a lot of cases. There may be cases where a specific ruleset better realizes a setting's lore than others, but I can imagine very few where a setting wouldn't be workable without a specific ruleset, and I think in most cases, a group's preferred style of play should be a greater consideration when choosing a ruleset than the setting, if any, attached to it. Having a setting written in such a way that I couldn't transport it to another ruleset or at least meet it halfway by adapting a ruleset to the setting would, to me, indicate that the material was poorly written.

 

[Jer]

What do you mean by rules? What do you mean by lore?

Because I am certainly not looking for "more rules" in the sense that I'm not looking for a big book of how to run wars in D&D or a generic "horror in D&D" or "here's a book on adventuring in tundra" or "here's the Little Golden Book of Goliaths, Goblins, Gnomes and other races that start with G". 3e burned any desire out of me for stuff like that.

On the other hand - I like new campaign settings. New campaign settings are full of lore, and that lore requires mechanics. The Ravenloft book has lore with mechanics to back up that lore where needed. The Eberron book likewise. A new Dark Sun book would need the same, as would any new campaign settings that they might release.

Every new monster added to the game is a mix of mechanics and lore. Every new subclass or spell likewise.

I guess for me don't give me mechanics for the sake of mechanics. Give me mechanics in the service of some cool thing to add to my game - so I guess I want to see a mix of both (though I can't pin it down to a ratio - enough mechanics to serve the lore would be my answer).

 

[Reynard]

Fate doesn't have any lore. It makes barely any little assumptions about the characters and the game world, other than them being proactive, dramatic and competent. Specific rules that do come with lore attached, like Six Viziers or Stormcallers can't be really separated from it. Pretty much the same for GURPS.

I still don't understand why that is a bad thing. Not having lore attached to a rule means you can use it with whatever lore you decide.

 

[Plaguescarred]

I like a mix of rules and lore in sourcebooks. They are great opportunity to introduce new rules, game elements such as new races, classes,backgrounds, monsters, feats, equipments, magic items etc while also providing new lore and story elements.

So say an Underdark Sourcebook could have settlements, maps, natural hazards, new poisons in addition to some of the things i enumerated above.

 

[loverdrive]

I still don't understand why that is a bad thing. Not having lore attached to a rule means you can use it with whatever lore you decide.

It's not a bad thing. It's okay, Fate Core is one of my favourite systems.

Having lore that doesn't matter, on the other hand, is a bad thing IMO.

 

[Reynard]

It's not a bad thing. It's okay, Fate Core is one of my favourite systems.

Having lore that doesn't matter, on the other hand, is a bad thing IMO.

Ah, I misread you meaning in the original statement I quoted.

What constitutes "lore that doesn't matter"?

 

[loverdrive]

Ah, I misread you meaning in the original statement I quoted.

What constitutes "lore that doesn't matter"?

Like, imagine a class, idk, Spirit Warden. It's whole shtick that they are communing with the spirits of the land.

And then you realize that this class' mechanics can be used to play a good ol' fireball slinging wizard.

The lore, that whole spirit communing thing doesn't matter — it can be removed with no any pain.

 

[Reynard]

Like, imagine a class, idk, Spirit Warden. It's whole shtick that they are communing with the spirits of the land.

And then you realize that this class' mechanics can be used to play a good ol' fireball slinging wizard.

The lore, that whole spirit communing thing doesn't matter — it can be removed with no any pain.

I agree, that would be a poor marriage of lore and mechanics. Im can't say I have ever seen it occur so egregiously before, though.

What about lore that doesn't necessarily have a mechanical implication, like a membership in a particular organization or faction? Do you think designers should force mechanics to meet lore like that (through prestige classes, to use a common 3.x/PF example)?