The Crunch vs. Fluff poll

[Zappo]

Well, all them elves and gnomes are making me dizzy.

I want to know what you people prefer: crunch or fluff? 'cause I realized I don't even really know what I prefer.

So, tell us: you'd rather buy books with Crunch (rules, mechanics, PrCs, feats...) or Fluff (NPCs, maps, geographics, politics, history...)?

 

[Desdichado]

Crunch is a lot more useful to me, as I prefer to homebrew as a DM, and as a player the fluff is not really for me all that often anyway.

However, crunch is dry as all heck to read. Without enough fluff to put it in some context I feel like I'm reading economics textbooks again. Except that I actually was interested in some macro-economic concepts.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Crunch and fluff go hand in hand.

That being said, sometimes I think if I see one more prestige class I will scream so loud the resulting sonic boom will shred the flesh from my skull.

 

[jollyninja]

if the fluff is good i like it, if the crunch is good i like that too. most books only have one or the other worth mentioning.

the class splatbooks should not even have bothered with their feeble attempts at fluff. they should have stayed crunchy, not even trying to please everyone, then there might have been at least some who were fully pleased. i read each cover to cover once, figured out what fit into my homebrew, and never read the fluff again.

with that said, faiths and pantheons could have been great if it just had more info about the religions and less space devoted to diety stats and combat strategies.

i guess what i am saying is WotC sucks at giving me what i want. i have read the epic level playtest document and once again i say "booooooooo!!!" to them it's crispy, not crunchy. it was the book i was most anticipating this year and it sucks.

if silver marches has a single generic prestige class in it i'm done with WotC forever, only 3rd party from that point forth. mongoose, come take my money, you to green ronin. SSS, i guess i'll finally buy scarred lands, your books cost less for the page count so i will not feel as cheated when i never use them.

 

[Crothian]

I like the crunch with my fluff. The fluff that is about the crunch ussually helps fit the crunch into games seemlessly. Without the fluff the crunch seems to just be there for little reason. And the fluff is great to read, but with the right crunch you can easily place it into your games.

 

[Henrix]

I generally like fluff, but it has to be real good for me to bother wading through it.

Most WotC fluff isn't, so I hardly bother to read it.

I'm playing D&D3 purely for the crunchy bits, in homebrew campaigns.

For fluff, I prefer other games, like HeroWars*/HeroQuest/Glorantha, Ars Magica, Over the Edge, etc.


* Though I can hardly stand the crunchy bits in HeroWars, or rather the lack thereof.

 

[Kershek]

I run a FR campaign, but I voted Equal Parts. You can't have one without the other - it encompasses the largest demographic. For those that don't like the background stories or run a homebrew world, they can ignore it or change some names. After all, can you really have 300 pages of crunchy bits other than the core books?

 

[Blueicus]

I agree...

Everytime I buy a book I find myself trying to ignore the prestige classes. Maybe I'm just nuts.

And while I do run a homebrew world, it's interesting to read what others have in regards to fluff.

 

[dreamthief]

You can't use most fluff, but at least you get steal ideas from crunch.

DT

 

[Dark Psion]

Why can't we have both?

Look at the Hackmaster books, more crunchy stats than a mathematician can handle, yet so much fluff you want to savor each monster entry in all eight monster books.