The term "Crunchy" and Dragon - where do we go from here?

[drnuncheon]

Why settle for 2nd best? If not Dragon, who's the ultimate d20 magazine?

Right now, it's either Campaign or SJG's online mag...since Dragon is not a d20 mag at all - ultimate, penultimate, or whatever the other end of the line is.

I wouldn't mind seeing Polyhedron jump over and join with Dragon instead of Dungeon - it seems like a more natural combination to me. (And I suspect kicking up the price of Dragon would net them more money than kicking up the price of Dungeon did.)

J

 

[King_Stannis]

I don't know who first coined the term "crunchy", but I wish they never would have. The term has become so ubiquitous in the last couple years that I cringe whenever I hear it.

 

[rounser]

I wouldn't mind seeing Polyhedron jump over and join with Dragon instead of Dungeon - it seems like a more natural combination to me.

A combination of Dungeon + LJG and Dragon + Polyhedron indeed seems more natural to me too, but I'll speculate on a couple of practical considerations as to why they didn't choose to go that way:

a) You'd have the fluffites subscribing only to Dungeon/LGJ and the crunchites only to Dragon/Poly, meaning less subscriptions from individual customers to both magazines.

b) Paizo would somehow have to churn out one d20 game every 30 days if Polyhedron hitched a ride with Dragon. I doubt they'd be able to match such a pace and still maintain the current level of quality.

 

[Frostmarrow]

A few years ago I was an avid Warhammer 40,000-fan. I bought most of their stuff as I loved to read the stories that all that conflict is based upon. If you remember: "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war."

Some genius decided to move the stories away from the game supplements into the products of a publishing company, Black Library. From that point the game supplements were all crunch and no fluff. If you wanted fluff you had to buy their Black Library stuff.

Now, without the crunch the fluff wasn't all that good. In fact it was just some over the top/ loud mouthed/ adjective filled tripe.

Without the fluff the game system wasn't all that good either.

This killed my interest in Warhammer and I haven't played it since. The moral of this story is; if you seperate the fluff from the crunch people will lose interest. (But you won't go belly-up as Warhammer is still around .)

 

[rounser]

Now, without the crunch the fluff wasn't all that good. In fact it was just some over the top/ loud mouthed/ adjective filled tripe.

Your comparison is a bit flawed in terms of types of fluff, though...Games Workshop players don't use their fluff at all, it's just there for getting pumped up about your army, atmospheric purposes and, if you're lucky, storytelling purposes for skirmish wargame-cum-RPGs like Necromunda. Mostly it's like supporting a footy team - the game goes on without it, but it enhances the experience enough to miss it when it's gone.

D&D players use fluff in-game significantly more in the form of adventures, NPCs, metaplots and setting material. My rule of thumb is that the higher level this fluff gets, the more theoretical it's application to the game becomes. As jasamcarl coined it, such "intellectual masturbation for DMs" fluff is the kind of fluff that gives D&D fluff a bad reputation, and is exactly the kind of fluff that Games Workshop provides for 40K, for the most part. Perhaps the nearest equivalent to Dungeon adventures style fluff are those Necromunda scenarios in Citadel Journal, which are directly applicable to your game.

I've said it before - the crunch/fluff way of viewing things is broke because all crunch aint equal and all fluff aint equal, and it's kind of disturbing that (apparently) significant D&D business decisions at WotC are being made on such a flawed rule of thumb.

 

[RobNJ]

Much has been made about Dragon appearing to be basically a 6-dollar advertisement for the next WotC product. And you know, I whole-heartedly agree with that.

Of course you do. Pretty much every topic you start portrays a nearly pathological hatred of WotC.

IOW, Dragon, don't give us more stuff. Give us instead boxes to put it in. For the love of all that is holy, don't give us "Drow." Don't give us "Elves." Don't give us "The Realms." Give us stuff we all can actually use. Even though the group that screams for "Drow" and "Vile Evil" and "Realms" is loud, they are by far the minority among gamers

What scientifically accurate study did you conduct to determine this? Or did you just decide, "My point of view is the majority point of view so I'll just say it is."

I'm just fine with what Dragon is putting out. It's not the best thing I've ever read, but it's consistently useful enough for me. If you want to talk about how it could be better, that's cool, but don't try and pretend like you are the Voice of the Gaming Community. 'Cause you ain't.

 

[Marion Poliquin]

A few years ago I was an avid Warhammer 40,000-fan. I bought most of their stuff as I loved to read the stories that all that conflict is based upon. If you remember: "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war."

Some genius decided to move the stories away from the game supplements into the products of a publishing company, Black Library. From that point the game supplements were all crunch and no fluff. If you wanted fluff you had to buy their Black Library stuff.

Now, without the crunch the fluff wasn't all that good. In fact it was just some over the top/ loud mouthed/ adjective filled tripe.

Without the fluff the game system wasn't all that good either.

This killed my interest in Warhammer and I haven't played it since. The moral of this story is; if you seperate the fluff from the crunch people will lose interest. (But you won't go belly-up as Warhammer is still around .)

While I agree with you that pulling most the background info out of the warhammer 40k codices was a bad idea, I have to point that the background info was not relegated to the BL novels but transfered to the pages of White Dwarf, which has tons of great background info in its pages every month - the info we used to find in the codices.

 

[The Sigil]

Re: Re: The term "Crunchy" and Dragon - where do we go from here?

Of course you do. Pretty much every topic you start portrays a nearly pathological hatred of WotC.

Hmm... disappointing since I really don't have a hatred of WotC. I guess I have high expectations because I have seen what they did to D&D and I really like it. Then I see them make decisions that IMO sabotage the good that they have done and I want to cry out, "why are you ruining the beautiful piece of work that you created?" I guess it's kind of like Star Wars - fans love George Lucas for the original trilogy, and are disappointed that the latest one is not living up to their expectations. I don't hate WotC - and I love some of the stuff they've done - I am just disappointed that they don't seem to continue to want to have that same genius.

Perhaps you refer to my "MM2/WotC violates the OGL" thread. While perhaps I overreacted on one of my two points, the fact that it took Clark himself chiming in to explain how the second point was not violated - and that even now, people are not fully convinced that WotC did it the right way - tells me that the thread was not totally off-base.

Or perhaps you refer to me asking WotC repeatedly, "why aren't you at least putting the format for Dieties/Strongholds/etc. in the SRD so that other d20 companies can publish compatible material?" How exactly does that display a hatred of WotC? To me it says, "hey this is good stuff, why not let everyone else support it?" IOW, "hey, I like what you're writing, do you mind sharing?"

I have strong opinions, and I'm not afraid to voice them, but I also put my money where my mouth is. And I also am willing to change my mind if someone can point out where I've erred - and that does occur from time to time. But unless I state my point of view, how is someone else going to know where I went wrong and how to correct me?

What scientifically accurate study did you conduct to determine this? Or did you just decide, "My point of view is the majority point of view so I'll just say it is."

I did not do a scientific sampling of all Dragon readers. What I have done is observed these boards for the better part of a year and watched the negative reaction to themed issues. While each issue has had its supporters, the ratio of those disappointed with a given issue of Dragon to those enjoying it seems to run between 2:1 and 3:1. That is admittedly not a scientific sampling, since I am using a sample derived from these boards, but the only alternative is the WotC boards, where I expect the sample will include a disproportionate number of "fanboys" and "trolls" both.

I'm just fine with what Dragon is putting out. It's not the best thing I've ever read, but it's consistently useful enough for me.

Well, that is wonderful. I'm not being sarcastic - I am glad Dragon is servicing the needs of some of its subscribers/fanbase (I am going to presume that there are others like you, just as I presume there are others like me). But here's the rub - you yourself describe it as "not the best thing I've ever read" but "consistently useful enough" for me.

I guess this goes back to the expectations thing - I don't expect it to be the best thing I've ever read, but do I expect it to be "on par some of the best RPG-writing I've ever read." I expect Dragon to earn an "A," not a "C." For me, right now, Dragon is about a "C-" and I expect better from it. That doesn't mean it's bad, it just means it's not living up to its potential.

If you want to talk about how it could be better, that's cool, but don't try and pretend like you are the Voice of the Gaming Community. 'Cause you ain't.

No, I'm not the Voice - and I recognize that - but again, I have seen enough worry about the direction of Dragon on these boards that I know I'm certainly not alone. I don't think there really CAN be a "Voice of the Gaming Community" - we're too diverse a lot.

Now, my formula may not be what you want. Maybe Dragon is "A" material to you. If so, that's a good thing, and you should let them know, just as I'm letting them know that their grade, which was an "A" back in the 270's, has been steadily slipping ever since. And maybe it's okay for Dragon to put out "C" material for some people - it isn't for me. What I am offering here is what I think Dragon needs to do to put out "A" material. The number of responses for and against my solution should help people figure out how well my proposed solution might actualy be received. I haven't bothered to count myself, but perhaps a poll is in order... I just want to use this to figure out what options should be on the poll first.

Even such a poll would only be pseudo-scientific, but it's a start.

--The Sigil

 

[RobNJ]

Re: Re: Re: The term "Crunchy" and Dragon - where do we go from here?

I did not do a scientific sampling of all Dragon readers. What I have done is observed these boards for the better part of a year and watched the negative reaction to themed issues.

These boards are meaningless as a gauge of opinion. How many active posters can there be here? Certainly less than a hundred. (I'm not talking about how many people have accounts, but how many people regularly participate in discussions). That makes up a microscopic proportion of D&D 3rd Edition players.

Just because there are a lot of bitter cranks here doesn't mean that that's the average opinion among gamers. I'd trust Paizo's sampling far sooner than I would yours (and even then, it's iffy).

Like I said, you seem to be eager to see Wizards and any other group in power fail or make a mistake or do badly, or want to invent that where it's not the case. Frankly, it's tiresome.

 

[Victim]

Probably the main reason publishers don't focus so much alternative systems, like the VP/WP or armor/DR system is that fully fleched systems aren't gonig to be as useable as as feats or prestige classes.

Let's say we're allocating a few pages of dragon. We'll say that we can put in a bunch of feats, a few prestige classes, or one "rules expansion."

First of all, not all the material will it into someone's game, so they probably don't want it. I don't have a problem with the armor = AC system, so I could care less. Also, I don't play in Greyhawk, so if they put in 4 prestige classes based off Greyhawk nations or dieties or feats based off training in those areas, I probably care. However, even if everything is Greyhawk based, I can still probably find areas of overlap between my game and their material. For example, I might be able to use the Radiant Servant of Pelor with a few tweaks for a priest of Lathander or Madriel, or replace Evil Kingdom X's Champion with Evil Kingdom Y's Legionarre. So I can still use some of the material, like 1 or 2 out of 4 P classes, or almost all the feats. However, if I'm not interested in the alternate rules, then the whole section is a waste.

Also, some of the ideas will be good or bad. One PrC might be poorly thought out and another overpowered. Some feats might not be worthwhile, or done better some other way. Another feat might be like pre errata Expert Tactician. So some of those elements will get wasted because they good enough to take or no DM would allow them. If there's a bunch of feats, I can probably pull out a few that look interesting. If there's a handful of PrCs, I can maybe find an interesting one, or at least find some interesting class features that I can use if I make my own classes. However, even one bad element can make a system relatively worthless, and the more integrated the system, the more difficult it is to fix that element. Skills and Powers is good idea in theory, but the execution lead to abuse. The High level Campaigns book had a number of options that gave nonspellcasters new abilites. However, most of those abilities worked best when using the S&P system for advancing them. However, since the S&P didn't work so well, the High level book based on it didn't work so well. Similarly, if the result of your Armor-DR and WP/VP system is that it makes fighters without Power Attack worthless, and fighters with it normal, then it doesn't really matter how perfect your AC value > DR value system works, or if you have a method of tweaking spells to fit with almost no work, or how you integrate other sources of DR. Alternatively, if you work out a way that perfectly balances all non magical classes with your DR/WP/VP system, but don't have the necessary changes to spells, then the system isn't gonig to work well either.

Since the system as a whole has to be right, because it's only useable as a whole, it will require much more work to make sure it works. And even then, if you could create flawless game systems just by trying hard . . .

Finally, rules exansions and alt systems don't combine very well. While there will be some overlap, I could use 2 fighter sourcebooks, and pick the coolest feats out each one. If there are similar areas, like 2 weapon master type prestige classes, each one is only a small part of the book, or I can use both, creating 2 rival schools of swordmanship, so if the PC picks one, I create a rival from the other. On the other hand, it's hard to use 2 different naval combat systems, or 2 DR based systems, etc at the same time.