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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5805429" data-attributes="member: 58197">In my view, the distinction between &quot;fluff&quot; and &quot;crunch&quot; is silly. Notice how the posters above can't agree on which parts of 3E fireball are the fluff. The way I see it, the entire description is rules text; some of the rules are laid out in precise detail, others are looser and more colloquial, but the glowing bead and the low roar are every bit as much rules text as &quot;1d6 per caster level.&quot; That's why they get all mixed together in spell descriptions from older editions--because they're all part of the same thing, which is the description of the spell effect. The &quot;statblock&quot; portion of the spell is merely providing certain data which are common across most/all spells.4E's decision to split up &quot;fluff&quot; and &quot;crunch,&quot; and put the former in italics and away from the main block of the power--doing everything they could to signal ignore this stuff, it doesn't matter--is what I object to. I don't mind having spells and powers be short and to the point. In fact, I approve of it; the 3E spell description is almost comically overwritten. (I'm tempted to insert something about how the glowing bead is neither running nor tarrying as it flies to its destination.)Likewise, I don't think we need class descriptions to run on for pages and pages. I do, however, want to erase the &quot;fluff-crunch&quot; divide as much as possible. Putting all the &quot;fluff&quot; in a block at the front does not help with this.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 5805429, member: 58197"] In my view, the distinction between "fluff" and "crunch" is silly. Notice how the posters above can't agree on which parts of 3E [I]fireball[/I] are the fluff. The way I see it, [I]the entire description [/I]is rules text; some of the rules are laid out in precise detail, others are looser and more colloquial, but the glowing bead and the low roar are every bit as much rules text as "1d6 per caster level." That's why they get all mixed together in spell descriptions from older editions--because they're all part of the same thing, which is the description of the spell effect. The "statblock" portion of the spell is merely providing certain data which are common across most/all spells. 4E's decision to split up "fluff" and "crunch," and put the former in italics and away from the main block of the power--doing everything they could to signal [I]ignore this stuff, it doesn't matter[/I]--is what I object to. I don't mind having spells and powers be short and to the point. In fact, I approve of it; the 3E spell description is almost comically overwritten. (I'm tempted to insert something about how the glowing bead is neither running nor tarrying as it flies to its destination.) Likewise, I don't think we need class descriptions to run on for pages and pages. I do, however, want to erase the "fluff-crunch" divide as much as possible. Putting all the "fluff" in a block at the front does not help with this. [/QUOTE]

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