Pathfinder 1E WotC desperately needs to learn from Paizo and Privateer Press

[Coldwyn]

I think these discussion always miss this:

How the heck could a 12 year old that had never played before (or 16 year old, or whatever) develop ANY fluff at all that had any meaning? I just think the MM should have:

A clear description of the monster
A little bit about tactics
A little bit about the culture. What is the difference between the various evil humanoid races?

As for "most DMs want their own fluff". I call bull. I want fluff I can use, or not use. But, I want fluff to inspire my ideas. I have two kids, golf, ski, volunteer for two groups, work full time.....I don't have time to do all my own work. I do have time to take decent to good modules and make them fit into my concepts (but my concepts are based on 40+ years of reading and watching movies and playing D&D).

Fluff is needed for beginners. It is needed to provide inspiration. And, sometimes, it is needed to be used as is.

As this came up again just now:

I think this assumption is totally wrong. It could only be considered true when one thinks of a 12 year old as a blank slate.
But all kids have been exposed to media and stories by then, in one way or another and already have developed a fantastic worldview based upon what they have been exposed to.

Ok, I guess that´ll be Pokemon and Dragonball, and so on, but these images is what they intepret stuff with.

I think it´s pointless then to give such a person fluff based on Howard, Leiber or Lovecraft, when they haven´t been exposed to this and probably never will be, even if this fluff is what we older players may consider to be superior.

 

[DaveMage]

As this came up again just now:

I think this assumption is totally wrong. It could only be considered true when one thinks of a 12 year old as a blank slate.
But all kids have been exposed to media and stories by then, in one way or another and already have developed a fantastic worldview based upon what they have been exposed to.

Ok, I guess that´ll be Pokemon and Dragonball, and so on, but these images is what they intepret stuff with.

I think it´s pointless then to give such a person fluff based on Howard, Leiber or Lovecraft, when they haven´t been exposed to this and probably never will be, even if this fluff is what we older players may consider to be superior.

Well, the 1980/81 (Moldvay) basic box set is what hooked me, so whatever amount of fluff is in that did the trick in my case.

 

[Garmorn]

I think there's a fairly recent poll around here about this.

IIRC it turned out most DMs borrow bits and pieces from modules for their homebrew campaigns.

Or maybe I'm projecting.

The Poll is here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...-precentage-they-make-up-your-campaign-2.html

It seems most DM don't use module hardly at all. While a large percentage use modules almost exclusively.

 

[BryonD]

I think it´s pointless then to give such a person fluff based on Howard, Leiber or Lovecraft, when they haven´t been exposed to this and probably never will be, even if this fluff is what we older players may consider to be superior.

I think this overstates the case.
One does not need to have ever heard of Howard to immediately relate to themes based on Conan, Bran, or Solomon Kane.
And one most certainly does not need to have heard of Lovecraft to find horror elements that just happen to be rooted in mythos ideas to be cool.

By the same token, I know virtually nothing of Dragonball Z beyond a cultural awareness of its existence as a younger generation cartoon that involves a lot of us/them fighting. But I'd expect to quickly recognize major archetypes in a game loosely based on Dragonball Z ideas and have no problem. Whereas I don't think I'd relate at all to a game based strongly on the presumption that I know Dragonball Z specifics.


In my personal opinion, some modern games are too hung up on the details of the current kiddie pop culture fad. It would be absurd to claim that much of old school D&D was not directly ported from popular elements of the time. But, maybe through pure dumb luck, the older versions don't seem to expect a knowledge of the source material. It was literally years after I had been playing D&D that I ever even heard of Jack Vance. Much less "Vancian" spellcasting. But it didn't matter. The raw materials of D&D are Tolkien in a box. But elves and dwarves and evil overlord magi are far more ingrained in fantasy cliche than LotRs. My older daughter enjoys playing halflings and elves and easily relates to them. And yet she has neither read nor seen LotR.

It seems that old D&D was based on the collective of fantasy ideas throughout modern history up until that point. And, very clearly, every bit of that is still there in the most recent version of D&D. But rather than subtley integrating the past thirty years of ideas into the game (for example, Darth Maul is cool, suddenly D&D 3X has double bladed swords as a standard troupe), 4E has taken that base structure and really poured a heavy coat of the last ten years of fantasy fad all over the top.

 

[Failed Saving Throw]

Actually, "Old World Bestiary" has a number of really significant weaknesses.

1. Basically, and primarily, there's just too much fluff. Given the size of the book, and given also that it is the only monster book for the game in question, the range of monsters provided is insufficient. Critically, the book doesn't include many, or indeed any, stats for human opponents. Given the prevalence of such antagonists in the game, this is a critical weakness. (3e D&D made the same mistake - it makes prep so much longer when you have to generate all the stats by hand.)

(Obviously, a D&D Monster Manual is unlikely to ever be the only monster book for the game, mitigating this latter concern.)

2. One of the things they do do to cut down on the size of stat-blocks is reduce the talents to a single word name, meaning you have to cross-reference several books in play. The full talent descriptions should be included in the descriptions. (3e also made this mistake with feat names; 4e does much better in that regard.)

The fluff that is there is extremely good; it's just that it gives rise to several other weaknesses in the book.

Couldn't agree more here. Old World Bestiary is full of amazing fluff and art, but is incredibly frustrating to use when you're actually trying to construct an adventure. It does have a very "limited" feel to it that left me wanting more. Of course, if they opted to publish, say, one Bestiary a year, the problem would probably have been solved.

 

[Coldwyn]

I think this overstates the case.
One does not need to have ever heard of Howard to immediately relate to themes based on Conan, Bran, or Solomon Kane.
And one most certainly does not need to have heard of Lovecraft to find horror elements that just happen to be rooted in mythos ideas to be cool.

Hm. Not really. I think every gamer (or gaming generation) brings some concepts what a hero is, what a certain monster is, what horror is, etc. to the table, mostly formed by the media they were exposed to.
My question is: Why change their perception by bringing fluff and mythology along with the rules?

 

[Failed Saving Throw]

The Poll is here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...-precentage-they-make-up-your-campaign-2.html

It seems most DM don't use module hardly at all. While a large percentage use modules almost exclusively.

Yeah but this is a poll on ENWorld posters. Believe it or not, not everyone who plays D&D posts on ENWorld, or even lurks. One could argue that those who do post to ENWorld generally share a lot of common attitudes, philosophies and approaches, and one them could be that people who are into D&D enough that they post about it on an Internet forum are also the types who prefer to run homebrew campaigns. That makes sense to me.

 

[Garmorn]

Yeah but this is a poll on ENWorld posters. Believe it or not, not everyone who plays D&D posts on ENWorld, or even lurks. One could argue that those who do post to ENWorld generally share a lot of common attitudes, philosophies and approaches, and one them could be that people who are into D&D enough that they post about it on an Internet forum are also the types who prefer to run homebrew campaigns. That makes sense to me.

Sure, but it messes well of what we know about sell figures for modules/adventures. I will not take the numbers as solid facts but a nice indicator with other information as being in the ball park.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Yeah but this is a poll on ENWorld posters. Believe it or not, not everyone who plays D&D posts on ENWorld, or even lurks. One could argue that those who do post to ENWorld generally share a lot of common attitudes, philosophies and approaches, and one them could be that people who are into D&D enough that they post about it on an Internet forum are also the types who prefer to run homebrew campaigns. That makes sense to me.

Let us not forget that "with only moderate modifications" is a big qualifier.

 

[Garmorn]

Let us not forget that "with only moderate modifications" is a big qualifier.

How true, I wonder how much of that was just fluff are was other stuff. Like changing encounters, traps, ect. I know it would vary and to get a close to accurate picture to that level of detail it would have to be a professionally done poll.