The Crunch vs. Fluff poll

[Zappo]

Seems like AV's proposition of making full-crunch and half-crunch-half-fluff products is a good one.

Just a single bump for votes.

 

[KnowTheToe]

Re: 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.

You're not nuts, most PrCs bite the big one if you know what I mean. I am tired of feats and PrCs and don't think I will buy too many new books because this is the direction they are going.

 

[Selfloathing]

Doh, I read the thread title as crunch vs. FLUMPH.
Needless to say, I'm disapointed.

 

[Jon F. Zeigler]

This is an odd thing.

I much prefer to buy books that have new crunchy bits, as long as they're the right crunchy bits. New prestige classes, magic items, and other shiny things to hang on my character are not very useful. Rules covering new kinds of character activity are much more worthwhile.

On the other hand, I much prefer to write books that are mostly fluff. To me, writing rules-heavy books is like undergoing root canal surgery without anesthetic.

I'm not sure why this is, since as far as I'm concerned writing well-thought-out fluff is no easier than writing well-thought-out crunch. Call it a personal taste.

 

[absurdum]

I voted for more fluff then crunch. Mainly because when you run a FR campaign that is what is useful, you can't run it without the fluff. That, and the fact that most of not core crunch is total crap. I bought one of the class books, sword and fist, and the whole thing was total tripe. Then the more crunchy FR books like MoF, nearly all the PrC were usless, but i still use some spells from the book though, the fluff in that was rather bland. In lords of darkness the fluff is great, whenever i am making a campaign or game or what have you in the realms it is thefirst book i go to, but its crunch is rather useless. I picked up the silver marches the other day, very very little crunch, but the fluff rocks and will it very heplful for the next campaign. The FRCS is probably the best blend though, it ad alot of fluff, and a good amount of crunch, with the difference being that the crunch wasn't crap. So i am all for the this new system of pumping out books, if and only if the crunch is good, and the crunch has a real relavace to the realms. Examples of what not to have is most of the PrC's from the maic of faerun, they had no relavace to the realms, they could at least of made something up. Oh well more books with crunch like in the campaign setting book, and fluff as useful as in lords of darkness. That would be nice.

just edited to say that in defence of magic of faerun the magic items were very good. better then the spells

 

[Holy Bovine]

I'm in the 50/50 camp myself. I love new rules/spells/weapons and even (gasp) PrC! But if I'm buying a 'campaign sepcific' book I want and need some fluffy bits to tie it together.

S&SS's Divine and Defeated is a pretty good example of what I like in a book. Lots of details about the gods & titans and what happened during the Divine War - all fluffy but then they add in new titan spells, leaders of Titanspawn cults and combat mechanics of the god's avatars. Just enough fluff to make those crunchy bits so much more tasty.

If I were buying a book of just spells or just monsters then fluff may drop to a 25/75 spread - 'generic' spells and monsters are always useful to me and I don't need as much 'fluff' details - I can fit them into the campaign I am running without having to 'waste' space on flimsy background details (for example if the upcoming monster book Tome of Horrors has a huge section of fluff describing how it fits into 'X' campaign world I will be a little dissappointed - I want monsters and lots of 'em in that book - just give me a little blurb on how this monster came into being and I can run with it )

 

[Sulimo]

I definitely prefer (most of the time) almost all fluff, mainly due to the fact that I like to be able to using gaming material with a variety of rules - my current Scarred Lands campaign uses Rolemaster for instance - thus I get more value for money (generally) in products that as mechanics free as possible.

 

[Harlock]

Well, I voted for mostly fluff. Now that the main rulesets are out and a new MM coming out and ELH and 3rd parties picking up slack here and there, I'd like to see more in the way of what I can do with all these rules. I run Homebrew, a Greyhawk and work on a homebrew that I am not currently running and have no problems making up fluff. But, I want ideas to inspire me, something fresh and new and something I would never have thought of. That's my problem with the setting contest. Another generic Fantasy setting. Woop-tee-doo. I wish they would have had an open call and just let those creative people out there (that may include you) surprise them and us as well. Fantasy was new and exciting at one point, I'm just looking for a new genre I guess. Anyway, sorry to semi hijack. We now return you to your regularly scheduled poll.

 

[shadow]

CRUNCH, crunch, crunch all the way! I almost never play in official setting like the Forsaken Realms, so fluff is almost useless to me. I prefer homebrew settings. Besides I never liked most of the fluff developed anyway. Most of the fluff from published settings seems rather absurd to me. If I want to read badly written fantasy, I'll pick up a WotC novel, not a $30 "game" book. If I'm going to shell out $30 or more for a "game" book, I expect it to have game rules that I can use in my campaign.

 

[herald]

There seems to be a big point in the Crunch vs. Fluff arguement.

While Crunch is the the tool that propels the game. But Fluff gives us the context that the tool is used.

Fluff gives use the who, what, when, where, why, on the tool.

You need both.