The terms 'fluff' and 'crunch'

[Doug McCrae]

Someone in another thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=125968) once said "Given that 99% of problems in roleplaying are communication problems that's something that should be avoided or minimised at all costs."

Well, he certainly knows his stuff, whoever he is.

It hadn't occurred to me that I'd been advocating cohesion between game terminology and game world terminology on another thread. You haven't been trawling all my old posts have you? I'm getting paranoid now.

 

[fanboy2000]

In other words, if you change the fact that falling hurts, you are plaing in a different world, but if you change the degree to which falling hurts, you are not? At what point in the spectrum between "falling 10 ft instantly kills you" and "falling 100 ft causes minimal (1 hp) damage" have you switched worlds? And, if you haven't switched at all, why does removing the damage of that 1 hp (i.e., moving to no damage) make such a difference compared to the oodles of other damage already removed from the system?

This is how I think of it.

You have three models.
1. Is a model of 9 planets and an asteroid belt moving around a star. The orbits are circular and the planets are evenly spaced apart. One planet has a ring system. None of the planets have moons.

2. Is a model of 9 plantes and an asteroid belt moving around a start. The orbits are elpitical, and the model is much larger, with the planets not evenly spaced apart and the planets beyond the asteroid beld are a great deal further away from the star than the ones inside the asteroid belt. Some of the planets have moons. The largest one, for example, has for moons orbiting it.

3. Is a model of 5 planets and two asteroid belts. This model is the same scale as modle two, but all the planets resemble the planets inside the asteroid belt in model 2. Some of the planets have moons.

Now, models 1 & 2 are models of our solar system. They both model the same physical object, but they do so it diffrent ways. In other words, though they model the same thing, they are diffrent from each other. Model 3 doesn't model our solar system, but it does model a solar system. Each model serves a diffrent purpose. 1 conveys the rudamentry properties of our solar system, 9 planets orbiting a start. 2 is more acurate in the portrial of the orbits, and is closer to the porportion of solar system, being made to scale. Or close to scale. 3 folows the format we think of when when we think of a solar system, but otherwise is missing to many familer things for people to really buy it as a model or our solar system.

It's the same thing with games. I can model Star*Drive with the d20 future rules, or I can use the Alternity ruleset, but I'm still modeling the same setting. If I were to remove a key feature of the setting, like faster-than-light travel, I can continue to use either ruleset even though I would no longer be playing in the Star*Drive campaign setting.

To more directly answer you question. Removing that 1 point of hp is a mental barrior. It's one thing for falling to cause little damage, it's another for it to cause no dammage at all. The diffrence between 0 and 1 is quite a bit when you really think about it.

 

[woodelf]

Most of the time I think people use the fluff/crunch terminology where it is at its best - to talk about splatbooks, particularly campaign setting material. .

Speaking of incorrectly-used terminology:

splatbook =/= sourcebook

A splatbook is a very specific type of sourcebook. It is (1) player-focused, (2) about a specific character group (class, race, clan, guild), and (3) generally only covers one element of a set. [I actually suspect point 3 is a necessary element, but i have this nagging feeling that there is something generally considered a splatbook that is solo.]

And, no, i won't simply accept this as an evolution of terminology, because it is a word that was invented to describe a very specific sort of RPG book. Moreover, generalizing it is not helpful because there are already at least two terms that refer to all non-main books for an RPG line or setting: sourcebook, and supplement. We do not need yet another synonym for these, and co-opting a word that has a useful meaning in RPG discussions, and no easy synonyms, is counter-productive.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Well, he certainly knows his stuff, whoever he is.

It hadn't occurred to me that I'd been advocating cohesion between game terminology and game world terminology on another thread. You haven't been trawling all my old posts have you? I'm getting paranoid now.

Nah. Luck of the draw. But, when I was reading through the thread and noticed your comment, I do admit that my mind took on the Fiendish template.....

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

This is how I think of it.

You have three models.

<snip>

It's the same thing with games. I can model Star*Drive with the d20 future rules, or I can use the Alternity ruleset, but I'm still modeling the same setting. If I were to remove a key feature of the setting, like faster-than-light travel, I can continue to use either ruleset even though I would no longer be playing in the Star*Drive campaign setting.

To more directly answer you question. Removing that 1 point of hp is a mental barrior. It's one thing for falling to cause little damage, it's another for it to cause no dammage at all. The diffrence between 0 and 1 is quite a bit when you really think about it.

Fanboy2000,

Your analogy is fine to a point. However, the difference between physics and models in the real world is that, no matter what model you use, the travel time at a constant speed from Venus to Neptune is the same....but, if you pick a bad model, Neptune might not be where you expect it to be.

(Yes, I know that the orbits of planets will affect where they are, and that therefore the distances will not be constant. That, however, is beside the point. The point is that a real-world model doesn't change the results of what happens to you; it merely reflects it to a greater or lesser degree.)

A set of RPG rules, however, does change what happens to you.

To use your example again, if model 1 & 2 were instead rulesets 1 & 2 and we assumed that they modelled the same setting, then travelling at a constant speed in the direction of Pluto in ruleset 1 would have a different effect than in ruleset 2. Simply put, travelling at a constant speed in ruleset 1 (which models different distances between planets as being the same) would result in shifts in net speed depending upon where you start and where you are headed.

Similarly, the difference in falling damage implies something about the world. There is a big difference between a model and the thing it models. When rules are used in the game system, they become part of the thing being modeled.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm actually now of the opinion that f/c can be applied to any written game material, even something an individual gamer has written and printed out himself, without losing such clarity as it has. The problem with this usage is the denigration of fluff at the expense of crunch is no longer appropriate here. Something that was just printed out (not even existing on the web) will probably only be for the use of a single group so the crunchy bits are no better than the fluffy bits. If anything, the reverse is more likely to be the case.

So, if we eliminate clarity of terminology (you've changed your viewpoint again), and we eliminate appropriateness of using a denigrating term for non-rules written text, what exactly is the benefit of keeping the fluff/crunch terminology?


RC

 

[hong]

Obviously, though, I think that this thread has demonstrated that, whatever the original intent of the terminology, it is not used in that manner consistently. People's ideas about what is crunch or fluff have a tendency to bleed over into non-published game worlds. I think that Doug McCrae (whom you might remember from such actions as starting this thread) offered the best defense of the terms, from a rational standpoint, but in doing so even he had difficulty avoid recognizing non-published material as "clearly" crunch, and considered other examples to be fluff.

At the same time, he was unwilling to call certain "_non-numeric, non-formalised_ content in game books" fluff (i.e., Glorantha).

So what? Words can have different meanings, depending on context. That doesn't mean, _in the given context_, that their meaning isn't clear to everyone involved. All my experience thus far, here and elsewhere, indicates that people generally _do_ know what's going on when the word "fluff" is used: whether it's published material ("the quality of the fluff in that splatbook is okay"), unpublished material where the term is used by extension ("I only have fluff on my web page"), or just a generic pejorative ("nothing but fluff"). The surrounding text usually makes it clear whether the overall tone is intended to be positive or negative.

In general, when people _do_ take offense at the word "fluff" being used, it's not because they've misunderstood the meaning of the other side. It's either because someone is denigrating fluff in favour of crunch, or they object to it on principle.

This is a long way from, say, "munchkin", which always implies disapproval (unless used in an intentionally ironic/self-referential way). That causes problems because the word ends up getting applied to many different gaming styles, and there's no avoiding the negative connotation. "Fluff", however, is often used in situations where no implied disapproval exists, and it's clear to those involved that this is the case. The only negative connotation is whatever people choose to drag in from unrelated contexts.

 

[diaglo]

So what? Words can have different meanings, depending on context.

see the very first reply to this thread.

fluff is passing gas, flatulence, farting, cutting the cheese, the expulsion of intestinal gas from the anus.

just like crunch is all about fiber(re) and the inability to digest... cleaning out the digestive system.

and splatbooks... splat is the sound of feces hitting the fan or floor.


i know what they mean. and this is how i use them in re to rpgs.

 

[fanboy2000]

Saying the rules are the physics of a game world implies a greater connection than it really is. Taking a varying amount of dammage when you fall from ruleset to ruleset is nearly the same thing as not taking any dammage at all, or not being able to fall at all because there is no gravity.

When you said that dropping a sword and it always falling to ground is an implied rule, what you really talking about is the physics of that world. I can play D&D and have your implied rule not be true. Heck, WotC's even put out a book of such worlds, Manual of the Planes. To me, the physics of the world is a feature of the setting, not the rules of the game. For one thing, rules encompass things physics has nothing to do with, like diplomacy checks against NPCs.

I imagine that many of your implied rules would be features of the setting to me.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So what? Words can have different meanings, depending on context. That doesn't mean, _in the given context_, that their meaning isn't clear to everyone involved.

True.

However, the context in this thread is pretty limited, and even within this thread it doesn't seem to me that the meaning is clear to everyone involved.

For a term to be generally unambiguous, I would say that approximately 80% of the people involved ought to understand the term to mean the same thing. Which means, to me, that the term "crunch" is generally understood to be inclusive of stat blocks, for instance (from Fanboy2000's poll).

If we wanted to test the "only published rules" theory, I suppose a poll would be a rational way to do it. Certainly, if 75-80% or more of a reasonably large sampling (100+ people reply) agree that the terms fluff and crunch only apply to published material, then I will concede the point.

RC