The terms 'fluff' and 'crunch'

[Raven Crowking]

Doug,

Thanks for your replies. I note that you didn't say whether the fluff implied rules, or why.

I should be upfront in saying that I don't believe that the term "rules" applies only to the written text. There are explicit rules (SRD), implied rules ("If I drop my sword, it will fall to the ground" or "casting a spell will not cause me to explode"), and situational rules (DM rulings based on circumstances, which may or may not be codified, but which are either explicit or implied based upon DM and setting...for example, "Anyone who drinks from this fountain heals 1d6 points of damage" or "we're no longer allowing trip attempts as attacks of opportunity"). All of these can be part of the "bones" of a rpg campaign.

In general, rules can be stated as if/then statements. If you do action A, then B is the result, with the understanding that B may be randomly determined. An example of random determination is, If you attack an AC 14 creature, then you may hit based upon the outcome of a d20 roll." Suplimental information may be needed to further define either the "if" portion of the statement, or the "then" portion of the statement, or both portions of the statement.

"Meat" includes all flavor text, but meat is often used by the players to determine which rules are in play and, how they will affect the player characters. For example, "Your ship sinks and you fall into the ocean" may be meat, but players will be quite aware of the connection between the supposed "fluff" and the rules for drowning.

Overall, we agree on what amounts to "flavor text" and what amounts to "rules." I, however, tend to think that some of the flavor text implies rules. For instance, you said the statement "This world contains a civilisation of lawful good orcs." was "Fluff with a hint of crunch (the alignment)," although earlier, you argued that the same statement doesn't affect the rules.

I admit to some curiosity as to how there can be even a hint of crunch here, unless you are either implying that one can introduce some amount of crunch without altering the rules, or you are rescinding your earlier statement. If nothing else, there is an implication something that made these orcs different from the orcs in other campaigns. Moreover, if the stat blocks of these orcs are crunch, then the "fluff" must imply "crunch" -- in other words, the meat shows the shape of the bones.

(Now, obviously different campaigns will have different stat blocks. If stat blocks are now "crunch" then each campaign has different crunch. Ergo, changing the terminology will not result in the dichotomy of different meat on the same bones.)

Another statement, "This world contains a land of islands floating in the air," that you called "Fluff," is one which we've already agreed probably implies rules. The term "fluff" implies something insubstantial, without weight. Yet, this statement clearly has weight. The term "fluff" is simply a bad term.

You found defining "An encounter table for one of the floating islands" as either fluff or crunch tricky, I imagine, because your terminology doesn't allow for connective tissue. Mine does.

You said that the statement: "Characters may be of any class in the Player’s Handbook or Psionics Handbook. Players with access to Oriental Adventures can also choose to play a shaman." "Feels more crunchy than fluffy." I would say that this statement is pure rules.

You found the statement: "Druids are extremely rare among dwarves and the goblinoid races." "more fluffy than crunchy" (to my mind, implying that you found it at least somewhat crunchy) but found the statement "Ghost ships and long-necked monsters have been reported on the lake, as well as occasional merfolk and faerie creatures." to be "Fluff" although they are both fairly nebulous statements on the odds of encountering specific types of beings in a given area. To my mind, these are both "meat". Because meat is organically related to bone, my terminology better supports an understanding of the relationship between the statements and their meaning in-game.



RC



EDIT: The above was written before your post (directly above it) was available to me. Obviously, if you don't define "crunch" as "game rules" it will change some of the conclusions....! However, it does beg the question as to exactly what you mean by "crunch." Far from making crunch a "better term," it makes it a term without defined value.

RC

 

[fusangite]

I guess you're a hardcore simulationist.

Actually, people have labeled me with all three things in the Edwards canon. My style of play doesn't tend to break down well into these ideas.

D&D is crap for simulation,

I experience all games at all three levels. I actually think most people do. Rules/world/story for me are pretty hopelessly entangled with one another. If a GM wants to cut all the tendons in an NPC's legs and have this cripple them and my character witnesses it being done with mundane weapon and yet my character is incapable of doing this himself under the rules, it harms my suspension of disbelief. If I want a gritty game where you can cause people permanent disfigurement, I haul out my Runequest rules. Your world, your story, your rules should match. There are enough game systems out there that there should be no need for these things to be thrown into obvious contradiction.

D&D is designed very much as a gamist system, for challenging the players, not for simulating the world.

It simulates a world -- a world with slightly different physical laws than this one. We all accept that things that happen in the game will generally conform predictably to these laws; D&D wouldn't be a gamist system either if the events in the world that happen near the players weren't largely modelable in the rules. A game where things happen largely independent of the rules is labeled by Edwards not as "gamist" but as "illusionist." (Yes, that's really a 4th category he establishes.) All self-consistent worlds have the capacity to be gamist and simulationist in nature.

I guess you wouldn't allow a D&D PC whose backstory involved losing an eye in a hunting accident, because there are no rules for that?

No. I would either create a rule that gave him a penalty on spot and search checks or I would rule that the loss of an eye didn't affect his ability to see sufficiently to constitute a penalty.

 

[fusangite]

I see the advantages of 'fluff/crunch' to be as follows:

1. It's the accepted terminology.
2. It denigrates fluff at the expense of crunch. Yes, I see this as being an advantage.
3. The terms are both very short, thus easy to say/type.

'Rules/flavour text', while being offensive to no one, has possibly fallen out of favour as it lacks advantages 2 and 3.

Thanks Doug! If I can be so bold, with reference to the discussion I am having with Joshua, how common do you think the view is that the terminology indicates that crunch is more important than fluff?

 

[S'mon]

>>A land of islands floating in the air surely requires some rules.<<

Plenty of RPG settings have flying islands (eg Mystara, Hollow World) and seem to get by fine without rules for them.

>>If a GM wants to cut all the tendons in an NPC's legs and have this cripple them and my character witnesses it being done with mundane weapon and yet my character is incapable of doing this himself under the rules, it harms my suspension of disbelief<<

Me too. I think our solutions differ though. I'd certainly let a PC do this to a helpless NPC (assuming the PC had some basic anatomical knowledge re tendons, which Rogues & Fighters certainly will). If a PC wanted to do this as a combat maneuver, well, they could try, but unless they had developed a PC specialised in a Tendon Slashing fighting style (spending skill points), it would probably involve a to-hit penalty and they'd still have to reduce the NPC to 0hp to slash his tendons, ie it wouldn't give them a Gamist advantage.

BTW I no longer use Edwards' GNS model much, I find the Threefold Model (Gamism-Drama-Simulation) more useful in describing what I & most D&Ders want in a game.

 

[S'mon]

BTW Woodelf I do agree that rules affect the flavour of the game, which is one reason I'd use different rules for different sorts of game even within the same fantasy gameworld. To me saying that rules are the physics of the world implies that the rules are immutable, whereas in fact the rules are highly malleable. The physics of the world I generally take to be an overarching constant (eg gravity, electromagnetism, nature of spirits), with a partial exception for the physics of magic, which IMC can change over time and differ from place to place.

To take a different example, I have run lots of PBEMs set on Earth in the recent past, present and near future. I use different rules for different games, even where the games are linked (ie are not 'alternate' Earths) without the physics necessarily differing.

I do have rules for world's physics differing within the same game campaign, derived from 1e Manual of the Planes, I assign worlds a relative Magic Factor (how powerful magic is), Physical Factor (how closely the physics adhere to the real world, as we currently understand it) and a Reality Factor (to what extent this world's physics dominate those of extraplanar visitors, or are dominated in turn - magic artifacts usually have a higher RF than their homeworld and thus 'create their own reality' to some extent).

 

[Raven Crowking]

>>A land of islands floating in the air surely requires some rules.<<

Plenty of RPG settings have flying islands (eg Mystara, Hollow World) and seem to get by fine without rules for them.

Plenty of RPG settings have swords falling when dropped due to gravity without formal rules as well. However, the rules of any game world are not limited to the formal rules; they also include the implied rules. Which is why the full quote was:

A land of islands floating in the air surely requires some rules (formalized or not) for how they float there, how (if in any way) they can be made to cease floating, and what is below them.​

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

no the wimp clause it to people who get out of sorts if rules, megagame issues causes issues with "the story" with the story being more important than game play. Aka we can't kill the npc because it the dm's favorite and a big plot hook when we get to tenth level.

You know, though, I tend to think that DMs are better off if they think of themselves as creating settings and situations, rather than stories. Sure, sometimes setting and situation leads to a story, and on some rare occasions it may even be the story that the DM had in mind, but most of the time players will want to do things the DM cannot predict.

There is a subtle (?) suggestion in 3.X that the action be "cinematic," and the adventure crafting sections assume a story. To my way of thinking, this leads to the sorts of problems that make you worry about "wimp" clauses.

If the DM is concerned with settings and situations, the PCs can do what they will, and the DM need only apply logical consequences. No one's feelings have to get hurt. (Although, people being what they are, someone's feelings will eventually get hurt, sometime.)


RC

 

[jasper]

I agree raven I create the world, the plot hooks, and the starting gun. The players take over from there. However I do occasionally remind the players the dm has not finished that part of dungeon yet when they wander too far off the main line.

New dms have trouble applying logical reactions to the pc actions. Slap the King's Grandma get a small fine or sold into slavery. Or run for your lives to Ravenloft.

I do too consider bad form to try to wreck a campaign for any reason. Been there have it done to me. Either talk to Dm and ask him to change or quit playing. Which is why I always ask for feedback after most sessions. Now I have gamers get their father to ask me to drop a villian but I let his son run some of my monsters that night and drop the villian.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I agree raven I create the world, the plot hooks, and the starting gun. The players take over from there. However I do occasionally remind the players the dm has not finished that part of dungeon yet when they wander too far off the main line.

New dms have trouble applying logical reactions to the pc actions. Slap the King's Grandma get a small fine or sold into slavery. Or run for your lives to Ravenloft.

I do too consider bad form to try to wreck a campaign for any reason. Been there have it done to me. Either talk to Dm and ask him to change or quit playing. Which is why I always ask for feedback after most sessions. Now I have gamers get their father to ask me to drop a villian but I let his son run some of my monsters that night and drop the villian.

Which sounds fine. DMs really ought to invest a few skill points to Perform [Winging It].

In any event, though, I don't see a relationship between poor DMing and the terms fluff/crunch. And, I still think that the meat/bones terminology offers a better metaphor.


RC

 

[fanboy2000]

I'm claiming that changes to setting are not wholly independent of changes to rules, and vice versa.

Do you mind clearifying the ammount of independance the setting does have from the rules? Because I belive there is a high degree of idenpendance.

The only argument that counters that is one wherein there are no exceptions. Conceding an exception supports my argument.

So why don't we discuss something useful? I ready to concede that there are exceptions. The correlation between setting and rules simply isn't strong enough to say that the rules are the physics of the world.

This statement makes my head hurt:

however his description (wounds exposing bone) is specifically intended to convey a game rules state (really low on hp), amply demonstrating that his belief that "there are no rules for that" is a false one

Huh? Whenever I look through the d20 Modern book, or the PHB, I don't see rules for wonds that expose bone, or various other forms of injury. I would ask how you get that there are rules for such injuries from my post, but then you said:

I should be upfront in saying that I don't believe that the term "rules" applies only to the written text. There are explicit rules (SRD), implied rules ("If I drop my sword, it will fall to the ground" or "casting a spell will not cause me to explode"), and situational rules (DM rulings based on circumstances, which may or may not be codified, but which are either explicit or implied based upon DM and setting...for example, "Anyone who drinks from this fountain heals 1d6 points of damage" or "we're no longer allowing trip attempts as attacks of opportunity"). All of these can be part of the "bones" of a rpg campaign.

We are obviously useing a diffrent meaning for rules. I don't disagree with it, but it is so broad that I don't see how I can possibly use the word. When I discuss rules with people, I'm talking about rules that are written in the rulebook. To argue about implied rules, house rules, and DM ruleing is pointless. Not only are they subjective, they're a matter of taste. Not opinion, taste. And there's just no accounting for taste.

Edit: Raven, can I use your defination of rules for a future thread? I have an idea...