NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snoweel" data-source="post: 5045321" data-attributes="member: 4453">No I think you've misread (or misunderstood).If what I say is true, then that justifies the need for published campaign settings. That is, keeping setting information in the core books to a minimum necessitates more detailed settings for those who don't have time to flesh out the implied setting of the core books.This comment is coming dangerously close to matching the language of edition bashing (cartoonishly emphasising 'bad' and 'fun'), so be careful.What I explicitly said was too much flavour text in the core books can crowd out a DM who wants to build his own setting. In particular, that excess setting detail can interfere with how the DM reveals his setting to his players, since the players come to the table with far more preconceptions that the DM is more likely to not be aware of.I never made that claim. Your argument falls down on this single assumption.I agree.The thing is, there will always be one section of the community who aren't happy with how that question is answered, as we can see in this thread.And if they were made happy (by including more flavour text) then you'd see more of the kind of problem I've been talking about. In fact, I'm sure certain groups are already encountering this problem even with the current (meagre) amount of implied setting information. WotC can't win on this one, though many of us would argue they've hit the right balance."You can please all of the people some of the time..."Well it's not moot, because as I've just argued, the final decision is arbitrary. WotC had to draw the line somewhere and I'm guessing their arbitrary line was informed by market research.Oh it's totally about opinion.I'm not saying you're wrong; your preference is your preference, and a not insignificant amount of people share your gripe, according to this and some other threads.But clearly a lot of people are satisfied with where WotC have drawn the line and I'm one of them. That doesn't mean I'm right, but maybe I'm closer to the middle of 'the market' than you. Hooray for being unremarkable.I'm happy with how I've addressed it. You probably won't be.Bear in mind though that there will certainly be somebody who thinks there is already too much fluff in the core books. It's just a matter of opinion.I don't think the social/economic/political climate surrounding 2e can be compared to 4e; it was a different time. Second edition, and indeed pen-and-paper RPGs in general, had less competition than 4e and were required to provide a broader range of entertainment. That included catering for gamers' pleasure-reading requirements.</blockquote>

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