Concerning Fluff and Cruch
I play with two groups. Both groups I think pretty regular people, love fantasy, have kids, jobs, etc, like blowing stuff to smithereens and are not really sold on the whole Roleplaying thing, they prefer dungeons to aristocratic events in there D&D.
So, that being said. This is what I noticed happened as DM when you seperated the fluff.... they ignored it. It didnt "make it easier for them to reflluf". It didn't give them the freedom to make any type of fireball, and roleplay however they like unrestricted by the rules. WHat happened was they started playing like this - "I use my daily, it causes a burst of x damage". Thats it. No asking the DM for a description, no refluffing, sometimes we didnt even get the POWERS name!
So I am a BIG fan of fluff mixed in with the crunch.
I've had lots of players who wanted to refluff spells and powers prior to 4e, I even had a player who wanted to be an archer, but use the wizard class and make his spells "melee" based (spells would represent magical arrows). Thats fine, good DMs work with players, thats the fun of D&D talking and thinking about things. I know I hear on forums people gushing about their ability to "refluff" but my experience with 4e and watching other groups play 4e leads me to believe most 4e players want the fluff seperated so they can jump straight into the tactical combat and ignore even more of the roleplaying.
As a DM, I think the DM is a player too. And older abiities gave cues to the DM, to interpret, describe, adjudicate. The first time you cast a spell, you waited for the DM to describe what happened, and you learned how it worked in his game. Now when you use a power you say 2W burst 2, place your damage marker on a grid and roll the dice. DM pretty much just watches. Thats great for a tactical combat game, but not so great for an interesting, fantastical story based game.
Just My 2 cents
I play with two groups. Both groups I think pretty regular people, love fantasy, have kids, jobs, etc, like blowing stuff to smithereens and are not really sold on the whole Roleplaying thing, they prefer dungeons to aristocratic events in there D&D.
So, that being said. This is what I noticed happened as DM when you seperated the fluff.... they ignored it. It didnt "make it easier for them to reflluf". It didn't give them the freedom to make any type of fireball, and roleplay however they like unrestricted by the rules. WHat happened was they started playing like this - "I use my daily, it causes a burst of x damage". Thats it. No asking the DM for a description, no refluffing, sometimes we didnt even get the POWERS name!
So I am a BIG fan of fluff mixed in with the crunch.
I've had lots of players who wanted to refluff spells and powers prior to 4e, I even had a player who wanted to be an archer, but use the wizard class and make his spells "melee" based (spells would represent magical arrows). Thats fine, good DMs work with players, thats the fun of D&D talking and thinking about things. I know I hear on forums people gushing about their ability to "refluff" but my experience with 4e and watching other groups play 4e leads me to believe most 4e players want the fluff seperated so they can jump straight into the tactical combat and ignore even more of the roleplaying.
As a DM, I think the DM is a player too. And older abiities gave cues to the DM, to interpret, describe, adjudicate. The first time you cast a spell, you waited for the DM to describe what happened, and you learned how it worked in his game. Now when you use a power you say 2W burst 2, place your damage marker on a grid and roll the dice. DM pretty much just watches. Thats great for a tactical combat game, but not so great for an interesting, fantastical story based game.
Just My 2 cents
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