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Message: <blockquote data-quote="X-Marks!" data-source="post: 2838373" data-attributes="member: 5118">Good Intentions, Weakened InventionsTo go one step further, I feel like I'm getting spammed by "flavour text" of just about every variety out there!  I think RPG writers' greatest weaknesses is their overwhelming addiction to writing prose instead of helpful, useful gaming text.  The Races books started adding mini-stories (Day in the Life) that were only minorly useful in their specificity.  The Prestige Class description went from being about a page and a half long to stretching something like 6 pages now.  The 3.5 MM descriptions elongated to include some helpful info, then got even more stretched in MMIII, and now looking at the MMIV Red'Arcanist pdf, they're right back where they were before 3rd Ed, if not worse.  Affiliations, Religions, Guilds, Classes, Magic Items, Feats, Races, Spell Descriptions, and on, and on, and on -- everything is getting sown with extra fill.It takes a lot less work to come up with one idea (say a prestige class or affiliation/organization) and then write 6 pages about it (often repeating the same basic concept/view again and again), than it does to fill that same page count with 2 or 3 distinct ideas.Remember that one of 2nd Edition's great downfalls was that gaming products were getting so watered down with "flavour" text/prose/fiction they hardly contained any useful, serviceable RPG material (Dark Sun & Planescape products, as examples).  I just see it heading that way again, I'm sad to say.Forget the "fluff vs crunch" debate -- please keep my fiction separate from my source material first!  If I want a novel (or short story), I'll buy that specifically.</blockquote>

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