I'm picturing maybe a toned and italicized page-height sidebar with a little fictionalized vignette to compliment the large pieces of artwork between chapters, maybe a single full page with a nice but legible font at the start and end of a book - disconnected scenes that hint at a larger heroic narrative. That, and maybe expanding the one line quotes that introduce each race, class, paragon path, and epic destiny expanded into sidebars of a paragraph or three in length describing a character of the given race or class doing their thing in clever ways. All of these being in-character fluff complimenting the artwork, and in addition to, rather then replacing, the out-of-character couple of descriptive paragraphs that we already get in the PHBs. This kind of thing would considerably increase my desire to actually buy 4e products, rather then just get the mechanical info from my DDI subscription. Then again, the new $20 price point might manage that already, regardless.
You hate too much fluff for classes ... because it is too petrified to accommodate your own character concepts. ...
But you love too much fluff for campaign settings ... even tho it is too petrified to accommodate the setting concepts of the gamers.
You yourself might end up hating the particular details that the fluff chooses to impose on you for the campaign setting.
You might find yourself unable to fit your own worldview within the official hi-rez setting, being forced to shove a 'square peg thru a round hole' and 'deal with it'.
Here's the thing, though, as a DM, I never felt like I was being forced to use any of the "World-Fluff" unless I wanted to. Sure, the official opinion on Dragonlance was that there were three moons & their position depending on what time of month affected a mage's spellcasting abilities... But, when I DM'ed dragonlance, I didn't care, so I didn't use it. It was easy enough to house-rule a patch to cover any troubling game mechanics. I mean, that's the DM's job, after all.
On the other hand, if I come up with... say a character whose family was killed in a dark alley & decides to seek bloody vengeance... what class should I choose? Avenger? I'm forced to get religious all of a sudden? Ranger? I don't care about nature; I want vengeance!
I mean, even if I bite the bullet & go with an "agnostic avenger," even time I use a power, the very name of the power reminds me that this character isn't what I wanted.
Rogues are probably the closest thing to what I'm asking for. Although, part of what i'd like to see would be a way to multiclass out of being a rogue & maybe become a warlord or something. The way the current rules work, I just can't do that.
That's the kind of thought process I go through when making a new character.
Meanwhile, all that character stuff is going on within a framework of cultural, legal, generational, religious, fluff that I can use or not use as I want. It doesn't harm the campaign if I use it or not, but it being there is like having a menu for the kind of flavour I want for my stories & characters.
As written, many (not all, but many) of the character classes feel railroading. And the lack of useful/interesting/any fluff in the "fluff" books is de-motivating from buying new ones.
It's not a fun place to be in. I want to buy D&D books! Please make books I'd like to buy
Anyway, just voicing an opinion. You can take it or leave it.
*nods* Yeah, I know it seems like a self-contradictory request.
Here's the thing, though, as a DM, I never felt like I was being forced to use any of the "World-Fluff" unless I wanted to. Sure, the official opinion on Dragonlance was that there were three moons & their position depending on what time of month affected a mage's spellcasting abilities... But, when I DM'ed dragonlance, I didn't care, so I didn't use it. It was easy enough to house-rule a patch to cover any troubling game mechanics. I mean, that's the DM's job, after all.
On the other hand, if I come up with... say a character whose family was killed in a dark alley & decides to seek bloody vengeance... what class should I choose? Avenger? I'm forced to get religious all of a sudden? Ranger? I don't care about nature; I want vengeance!
I mean, even if I bite the bullet & go with an "agnostic avenger," even time I use a power, the very name of the power reminds me that this character isn't what I wanted.
Rogues are probably the closest thing to what I'm asking for. Although, part of what i'd like to see would be a way to multiclass out of being a rogue & maybe become a warlord or something. The way the current rules work, I just can't do that.
That's the kind of thought process I go through when making a new character.
Meanwhile, all that character stuff is going on within a framework of cultural, legal, generational, religious, fluff that I can use or not use as I want. It doesn't harm the campaign if I use it or not, but it being there is like having a menu for the kind of flavour I want for my stories & characters.
As written, many (not all, but many) of the character classes feel railroading. And the lack of useful/interesting/any fluff in the "fluff" books is de-motivating from buying new ones. It's not a fun place to be in.
I want to buy D&D books! Please make books I'd like to buy
Anyway, just voicing an opinion. You can take it or leave it.
You apparently have a very narrow view of how classes function. Apparently you want a "my-mommy-died-so-I-want-vengeance" class, not a class that represents a broad archetype or play-style. To be honest, such a move would be, well, kind of suicidal for a company. A 4e class takes alot of work. I should know. I work for a company that makes a few. If I made a martial class devoted, purely, to "my-mommy-died-so-I-want-vengeance" it would be suicide. Its a lot of effort for a very narrow market. Such a class may be used, what, once per game group?
As mentioned 4e classes are more about archetypes and play-style than background dictation. You want a guy who is upset that his parents are dead? Play a Warlock. Because of his family's brutal murder and the failure of the justice system he turned to the dark arts to gain the power he needed to set the world right. Play a fighter. Since the guards of the city couldn't save his family he honed his own abilities to ensure it would never happen again. Play a rouge. Since no one will stand up against courruption he decides to train as an assassin and begins to murder all of those who stand above the law. Play a paladin. In his despair he fond the light of Bahamut and has vowed to spread justice wherever he goes so no one will have to suffer like he did. The "my-mommy-died-so-I-want-vengeance" is so vague it can be stretched to apply to almost any class at all. It isn't that the system has failed you. Its that you're not trying hard enough.
If I made a martial class devoted, purely, to "my-mommy-died-so-I-want-vengeance" it would be suicide
That's pretty much exactly the opposite of what I was talking about.
How about have powers that relate to a power source, that any class with that power source has access to?
I like this idea
Depending on how things turn out with my next groups of players/campaign idea, I might house rule something like this
I guess, in a nutshell, I was suggesting that future books contain more landscape fluff & less character-related crunchy bits. I mean, as a DM, I don't really need rules on how to make more powerful characters. If I need a super-human baron, I imagine him into the game. Done.
Although it would be a dream job, I'm not a game designer. I don't have the time to research the sociological aspects of foreign cultures & synthesize them down into role-play-able sound bites, art work, or story ideas. Yeah, sure, I could spend my free time & money doing that sort of thing myself, BUT I would much rather spend my money on D&D books
I've heard it said that the problem, from the marketing standpoint, with 2E D&D was that there were too many game settings with too much fluff, which divided D&D's consumers up into xenophobic camps.
Personally, I think 3E went too far in the other direction, producing far too many crunchy bits, which lead to boring "Monster of the Week" dungeon crawls with characters that were so unbalanced "power creep" couldn't begin to describe it.
I'd like to see a happy medium between the two in 4E ;)
PHB Races: Dragonborn is a total of 32 pages long, 8 pages of which are devoted to describing the personality of your typical dragonborn (which was already pretty much covered in the original 4E PHB). The other 24 pages are all about how to tweak the game rules to get the most damage per round out of a dragonborn character. Plus it's written in a "Tell, Don't Show" style, which makes it an uninspiring & boring read.
The 2E Complete Book of Elves, on the other hand, is 128 pages long. The authors write 8 chapters of interesting fluff for us before they get anywhere near anything crunchy. And even then, they start each chapter with a vingette short story introducing the reader to the chapter's contents, even the crunchy chapters. This, to me, is more useful, or at least more interesting. And, even though I didn't use the book too often, I bought it... and every book in the "Complete Book of... " series. Even the Complete Book of Humanoids & the Complete Book of Bards.
I'm not in the gaming industry (sad to say
), & wasn't there at the tail end of 2E, so I don't know what went on then or what's going on in the RPG market now. But, providing story ideas & elaborating about an interesting setting in which to frame them seem to be a good thing to me.
Number crunching is boring. Show me a story.
Dear Santa don't listen to this person.
Fluff is nice and all. But you should not be going for rulebooks for inspirations. If you want inspiration go for books meant for that (adventure literature is crowded and all your old stuff still fits for that end).
Dragonborn books are rather telling about 4ed approach. They do give you pointers about where to look and how to biuld your characters with cultural preferences and things like that. But it only lasts for few pages. Why? Cause any more than that ant instead of giving you pointers they will be telling you how to play your character for you. Actualy om rather pissed at the old fluff legacy in me games: There is one Dwarf in party. Dwarf Shaman with personal quest to find out the Dragon that wiped out his clan. He is country boy from mountains never realy was merchantile type nor that greedy. We play some time and the suddenly out of nowhere (with ample situations where his greed and miserlines had chance to show passed by) he goes all "Archtypical Dwarf" on us bieng greedy ale lovin munchkin. When asked "why the change"? He gave reply: "thats how Dwarfes are". I don't realy like rasisms and other isms in real world so why should I be rooting for it in me games. As there is huge amount of Human personalityes in the World there should be similarly big amount of personalityes in Fantasy races.
Anyhow welcome to age after the Age of Information. In previuos age Information and Knowledge was superbly valued, above all else. In result of that we have mountains of informational trash. The entire Interwebs is a testament to that. Sometimes I feel like hobo rumaging the mountain of trash to find something of use within it when I surf the web. There is way too much needless redundant or flat out wrong info available and you still want more.
In the end unnesesary stuff had to be removed. The 8 chapters of Elven Fluff where all nice and dandy. But actual usage of the book came from crunch. Extra detailed fluff meats two fundamental seemigly oposite problems:
"Too much". If there are portions of fluff that are never used in the game they are redundant. If there are portions of the game that are used very rarely or brought up specificly to be brought up. They are needless in official printing.
"Not enough". It is rather irrelevent how many chapters of fluff is printed and written. There will be white spots in actual play. Whether it is caused by twists in game story or the lack of reading comprehension on DM's part is irrelevent. They will go with the only tool available for them there: they will fill it up. While In fluff light settings this is much more prevalent there is the the catch: Your fillings have less places to clash with "offical" stuff and therefore whole consistency shtick is moved on to DM's shoulders. This also gioves them controll on how deep they watnt to go which official fluff doesn't allow fully (unless no one read offical fluff and doesnt base theyr characters around it in which case we go back to "Too much").
And while you don't seem to have trouble imagining in some npc to serve your way just because. You present us with the problem of how to make "Avenger"... The ansver is very same way. Imagine him in.
Class is not fluff. Class is Combat specialisation/ability package. How you behave during combat. There is infux from Class to OOC interaction which can be either capitalised upon or moved away rather easely.
But what you where asking is comepletely different question. You asked "Why" characters enters combat not "How he does it". Class model is not meant to answer that question fully.
You want to take vengence upon something? Fine roll up PC (powerup to hero :P). How you want to make it happen? And only then question about Class comes up.
I also loved the skill powers, and wouldn't mind some similar bleed-through between characters who share power sources or class roles to blur the lines between classes a bit more, though, as with the skill powers, designers would have to be very careful not to overshadow native class options.
On the other hand, I like the level of distinction we have between classes already, and don't really want them to be more or less specific then they are already.
As for the OP's character - "a character whose family was killed in a dark alley & decides to seek bloody vengeance..." - that's a motivation, not a combat style, or source of power, or anything else that would indicate a class. Any character of any class could have that motivation, and indeed it's a somewhat overplayed trope in PC backgrounds.
So the PC's parents were killed and he swore revenge. How old was he? Who raised him afterwords? Who did he go to to get the power he needed to seek his revenge?
Did he train his body or mind to the peak of fitness, devoting himself to the study of combat techniques mundane or magical that allow him to punish his enemies while protecting the loved ones he has left, becoming a fighter or sword mage?
Did he despair at his inability to protect his family, and sell his soul to otherworldly forces for the power to exact his revenge, becoming a warlock or assassin?
Was he taken into a monestary as an orphan, eventually initiated in the ways of a secret warrior sect, becoming a monk or avenger?
Was he left to fend for himself on the city streets or the outskirts of civilization, learning to survive on his wits and strike from the shadows, becoming a rogue or ranger?
Obviously a direct translation of Batman doesn't really work in D&D, since batman does too much. He's a master of all formal sciences, of psychology and crimonology, of street level detective work, of dozens of forms of martial arts, of a wide variety of exotic weaponry, or stealth and intimidation, of high tech gagets and super-science, and so on. In D&D he'd need to be some sort of gestalt monk/fighter/artificer at the very least, with high scores in every single stat: strength (for athletics and melee fighting power), Dexterity (for acrobatics, stealth, and initiative), Constitution (for endurance and resiliance), Intelligence (for knowledge skills and arcane abilities - the D&D equivalent of super science), Wisdom (for perception and insight) and Charisma (for intimidation, bluff, and streetwise).
D&D is a cooperative game, so you simply have to go with a more narrow focus then that in order to work as a part of the team. And once you do narrow your focus, you'll find that the current range of classes is pretty encompasing. While the class choices back when the first 4e PHB were released were a little slim, at this point between the many classes available and the multiclass and hybrid options for mixing them, there aren't a lot of character concepts left that still don't work. Mostly just my poor necromancer - and even that can be sort of approxamated with a refluffed shaman or summoning-focused Invoker or Wizard.
I personally wouldn't mind more fluff, particularly in regards to power sources and how they work. Longer racial books like in the old days, and more short bits of fiction or other in character bits of fluff between the chapters of any book would be welcome in my mind.
I also loved the skill powers, and wouldn't mind some similar bleed-through between characters who share power sources or class roles to blur the lines between classes a bit more, though, as with the skill powers, designers would have to be very careful not to overshadow native class options.
Exactly.
I appreciate Aiva's suggestion to troll the internets, but if WotC is going to produce a "fluff" book, like PHB Dragonborn or the Plane Below, then I want to buy those books, because I love D&D & I want to support WotC.
However, I'm not going to just give them my money. They have to produce something that I want to buy. There was literally nothing in the Dragonborn book or in the Plane Below that I didn't already know from reading the sidebars in the PHB1 & Monster Manual. The rest is just arithmetic. Why should I spend $60 on something like that?
I quit playing D&D entirely during 3E & wrote my own game. Now that 4E is here, I am much happier & returned to D&D.
Obviously a direct translation of Batman doesn't really work in D&D, since batman does too much.
I chose the batman story as an example because Batman was a direct inspiration for the Avenger class. The debut article said, "If Batman had religion, he'd be an Avenger." But, what if the kind of Batman I want to play isn't an Avenger? What if none of the classes fit what I want?
My point was that if I had an idea, most 4E classes are too specialized to implement the idea in game without square-pegging-round-holing it, if you get my meaning. It shouldn't be so difficult to make a character that feels like it belongs to me rather than some pre-fabricated thing I just lifted from a sourcebook.
What I was asking for (in future 4E supplements, this IS the Future Releases forum, after all), what I was asking for was a set of classes with very little fluff in them, so that the players/DMs could use them as building blocks to create a character that stays true to the player's idea.
Have any of you guys played the original PS1 (now PSP) Final Fantasy Tactics? That's the sort of thing I was talking about.
D&D is a cooperative game, so you simply have to go with a more narrow focus then that in order to work as a part of the team. And once you do narrow your focus, you'll find that the current range of classes is pretty encompasing.
I appreciate your point. But, I don't want WotC to try to guess the character I want to play. I want to create my own, unique character. I want them to provide the building blocks. There IS quite a lot of customizeablility in the current character classes. I'm not criticizing them.
I just want more, lol.
Of course, I didn't buy the dragonborn or Planes below books, either. I glanced through them in the local book store, and it seemed like most of the fluff was stuff I already knew, and all of the mechanics are of course incorporated into the compendium, character builder, and monster builder automatically, which I'm already paying a not inconsiderable monthly fee for.
I'm curious to see what the new essentialls line is going to look like this year. table-space friendly but cheaper feeling paperbacks like the oldendays spell compendiums in place of unweildy but sturdier hardcovers? Core game rules in one book, with monsters and player options in others? Tokens and tiles? And while the page counts imply gameplay-friendly brevity, that doesn't hold much promise for more in character bits of fluff or description to bring the game to life.
Santa's certainly bringing us a new direction for D&D this year, but I'm not sure what to think of it yet. As long as full errata is made available free online for anyone who's bought into 4e so far, I don't think I'm going to be angry exactly, but whether I'll be happy about it remains to be seen. I think I've been ready for a "4.5" for a while now though, so I'm hoping the essentials line is willing to tackle some of the underlying mechanical issues of 4e (fixing the level up chart to remove the need for patch feats like weapon expertisse and paragon defenses; fixing the MMI stats to follow the design theory of subsequent Monster Manuals, etc).
Right now I'm mostly hoping that next March's "Player's Option: Heroes of Shadow" has its expected page count expanded to include a fourth class (a shadowcaster/beguiler to complement the currently planned assassin, necromancer, and hexblade), some races (shadar-kai, revenant and kenku are obvious possibilities; changelings, shades, or something new would also be welcome), and some in-character fluff description, flavor text, and short bits of fiction at chapter breakes to make the shadow power source 'pop' in the minds of players & DMs.
- it was extremeley flexible (something that is completely lost or at least massively overshadowed in 4th edition, but let's admit it, a "I've got levels in all classes and can swap between them at any time" system is fantastic for a VG but too game-y for PnP)
- it was extremely tactical; this is what works wonders in 4th ed. In FFT you would build your group around every characters having a certain set of skills, talents and equipped abilities that would "combo" together nicely. The game-y nature of 4th ed. combat recreates this wonderfully.
As for your plea of having more flexibility in character design, when related to a character's background, well... I think that is mechanically done with the power selection.
I think many players get too stuck up into the "if I play a fighter, I will only always pick fighter powers, so all fighters are the same" mindset and ignore the flexibility of the system. There's literally hundreds of powers by now available to every single class. Once you picked an overarching theme (which, once you strip things down, ends up summing up to A) role, B) power source and C) as a distant third and extremely loose flavour text, then you can literally design dozens of characters that will fight in distinguished ways.
Often people make the mistake of assume that 3rd edition fighters were less "constrictive" because by having no abilities to choose from, they could do everything. In reality, with the 4th ed. fighter class alone you can create more melee combatants with distinguished abilities than you could with all 3rd edition splatbooks, and that's a lot. Picking powers that suit your idea of characters is what will make your "generic" Fighter become the character you had in mind. And that's a LOT similar to FFT in my book.
Like malisteen said, though, all these little problems are starting to creep up. Myself, I'm most worried about the blatanly obvious power creep in the PHB3, but that's off topic.
Anyway, between "building block" characters & landscape fluff, all I really want for Christmas is the Landscape Fluff. I can make my own crunchy bits. Actually, I am currently writing up new character classes & monsters.
Out of the dozens of books WotC is planning on releasing over the next year, I'm planning on buying just 3: the Dark Sun books & this month's MM3. After that, unless things change for the fluffy, I'm out.
Waever: "What I was asking for was a set of classes with very little fluff in them, so that the players could use them as building blocks to create a character that stays true to the player's idea."
D&D 4e should provide 'building blocks' and let players assemble them anywhich way they feel appropriate.
IMO, D&D 4e does a good job, for the most part. Especially now with hybrids, players have the tools they need to finetune the mechanics to express their character concept well.
D&D needs to balance conflicting needs. And usually does.
On the one hand, players must have mechanical crunch to back up their flavorful fluff. For example, if the player wants a character concept who can fly, that character better well have the mechanics to fly before leaping off a cliff. If the character bursts into flames whenever angry, the character must have the appropriate mechanics to make this a meaningful trait during normal gameplay.
On the other hand, that crunch better not trap all characters into a specific flavor, like a straitjacket. Personally, it drives me insane, the D&D crunch actually forces all Cleric characters to 'worship' a 'patron deity'. What about other character concepts? What about spiritual traditions that dont have polytheistic gods? What about spiritual traditions that dont have masters and servants, thus dont have 'worship'? In this case, the crunch needs to untie itself from the straightjacket of a specific fluff.
But normally, D&D 4e gets it right. It supplies the crunch: a menu of mechanical options that players can assemble to build their character. Then it supplies the fluff: a few very different examples of how a player can combine the mechanics to build very different kinds of character concepts.
In sum, fluff must have crunch to back it up, but this crunch must be open-ended enough for the player to reuse this crunch to express very different kinds of flavor.
In other words, players must be able to reflavor the crunch.
As a rule, D&D 4e gets it right.
Campaign settings must supply enough crunch to express specific cultural concepts. (Such as economy, legal systems, spiritual traditions, family organization, education systems, private organizations, very importantly forms of entertainment which often incarnates the essence of a culture, and so on.) However, it must not straightjacket the ability of the DM - as well as the players - to 'own' their world concept.
If the player wants their character concept to come from special environment (such as, be an envoy from a hidden utopian city, or the child of a shaman from an indigenous mountain village), the world must have enough room for this concept to 'fit' inside it.
Again, D&D normally gets this right.
It provides very specific crunch for specific cities. These are the examples of how to use crunch to express very different kinds of fluff. But the official world includes many other cities that remain 'uncharted', and the DM has the room to design these cities according to whatever fluff is necessary to facilitate the player needs.
Even the official hi-rez sample cities leave about 20% of its boundaries 'uncharted'. So, even here, the DM has enough design space to fit in whatever setting concepts are necessary to make the world their own.
For example, previously, I could care less about the city of Sigil. But when I read the 4e version in the Manual Of The Planes, it captured my imagination. It is the perfect balance of excellent mechanics to convey inspiring fluff. But this city has enough 'uncharted' space to supply our reflavoring of this place. The place is intreaguing ... and disturbing. Rife with potential encounters. Its not a place I want my character to live, but its definitely a place I want my character to visit. Perhaps even frequent as a gating-hub. I cant wait to have adventures there.
Players need campaign settings with a good way to balance specific crunch and creative flexibility. And D&D 4e gets it right.
However, it must not straightjacket the ability of the DM - as well as the players - to 'own' their world concept.
*nods* I remember when the original Dark Sun boxed set was released. All the city-states were so interesting! I loved the way that there were recognizable archetypes for each city-state, & how their peoples had such interesting flavor.
I also remember becoming more & more disappointed as the areas around the city-states were mapped out
Dark Sun: Slave Tribes YAY!
Whatever that obsidian plane full of undead... boooo!
For example, previously, I could care less about the city of Sigil. But when I read the 4e version in the Manual Of The Planes, it captured my imagination. It is the perfect balance of excellent mechanics to convey inspiring fluff. But this city has enough 'uncharted' space to supply our reflavoring of this place. The place is intreaguing ... and disturbing. Rife with potential encounters. Its not a place I want my character to live, but its definitely a place I want my character to visit. Perhaps even frequent as a gating-hub. I cant wait to have adventures there.
This comes as a complete surprise to me. I really don't see how a couple of hundred words can compare to whole books devoted to adding interesting fluffy tools to the DM's toolbox. It'd be like refusing a vacation in Aruba because you've seen the postcard.
I know this seems like a complete contradiction of what I just wrote, but when fluff is done right it is really, really good. The fluffy expansion of 2E Sigil, to me, is an example of fluff done extremely right.
More of that, please
For me, I lacked any interest in Sigil of previous editions ... because it had too much detail. If I want to read a novel, then I would read a novel. But a novel and an adventure arent the same thing. When I want an adventure, *I* want to be the author of my adventure. I dont want *my* character to be trapped inside of *someone elses* story about some adventure they created for *their* character.
For example, I hate Dragonlance because my brief experience with that campaign setting was way way too railroading. From Clerics being unable to heal, to insisting all halflings were kleptos, it was a pure narrative straitjacket. I resented it passionately. I felt like I was trapped in that straitjacket, and that straitjacket was sewn onto a conveyer belt, and that conveyer belt was grinding thru a storyline whether I liked it or not. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Even tho I hear they fixed this problem, Im just turned off of that whole setting. The point is, every campaign setting that gets too much detail, risks becoming a narrative straitjacket.
Dont get me wrong, I greatly value the creativity of DMs and other authors who create worlds, but there must be enough room for my characters persona and my characters freewill choices while adventuring.
Going back to your feeling:
"How [can] a couple of hundred words compare to whole books devoted to interesting fluffy tools to the DM's toolbox?"
First and foremost, you dont need to know everything. D&D is a very existentialist (even solipsistic) game: a place simply doesnt exist until the players adventure thru it. It doesnt matter whats happening in the Far East if the players choose to never leave the hinterland around their walled town. It doesnt even matter whats happening in the walled town if the players choose never to go there. Nothing exists except the choices of the characters and the occasional opportunities to make significant choices. You dont need lots of books for this.
Moreover, its probably better for the D&D game if you *dont have* all these books full of detail. Think of when you DM. *You* might think this is a beautiful amazing interesting world, but who cares? Your *players* will never ever see it! All they will see is the door down the hallway that you put in front of them. The only 'world' they will ever know is whatever you put in front of them. You could be thuroly entertained by the intricacies of the campaign setting, but simultaneously, your players could be bored out of their minds because of lack of adventure. Sometimes, by not knowing what the world is like, and by focusing only on what your characters actually experience, this restriction - this discipline - helps you ensure, the adventure that your players actually have ... is beautiful amazing interesting.
Of course, details can inspire creativity, not to mention provide a readymade adventure for many gamers who dont have the free time to fill in all the details. But too much detail is unnecessary and can easily distract the DM from making the best adventure possible.
The only details a DM needs to care about are the ones that the player choices provoke.
For example, previously, I could care less about the city of Sigil. But when I read the 4e version in the Manual Of The Planes, it captured my imagination. It is the perfect balance of excellent mechanics to convey inspiring fluff. But this city has enough 'uncharted' space to supply our reflavoring of this place. The place is intreaguing ... and disturbing. Rife with potential encounters. Its not a place I want my character to live, but its definitely a place I want my character to visit. Perhaps even frequent as a gating-hub. I cant wait to have adventures there.
This comes as a complete surprise to me. I really don't see how a couple of hundred words can compare to whole books devoted to adding interesting fluffy tools to the DM's toolbox. It'd be like refusing a vacation in Aruba because you've seen the postcard.
Playing is the vacation.
Those of us who prefer less fluff don't see whole books as a vacation in Aruba, we see it as being stuck between Patty and Selma as they show us the a slideshow of their vacation in Aruba. The postcard is just enough to grab our attention, capture our imagination, and make us go "That looks awesome. I want to go there!"
Recognizing that playing is the vacation, I'd guess for you and others who like detailed books, they are more like being the well prepared traveler who knows where they'll be and what they'll be doing every day.
For me, I lacked any interest in Sigil of previous editions ... because it had too much detail. If I want to read a novel, then I would read a novel. But a novel and an adventure arent the same thing.
Ah, there's one difference between our styles. I used to read D&D sourcebooks for fun, just like novels. Sadly, I can't anymore :'(
Of course, details can inspire creativity,
*nods* this is what I am hoping for. I have never felt straightjacketed by having too much information. I'm the kind of person who can take presented material & create something entirely new from it. If there's no material in the book, why should I buy it?
The only details a DM needs to care about are the ones that the player choices provoke.
I don't quite agree on this point. But, if you were to rephrase it like this, "The only details that matter at the game table are the ones the player choices provoke," then I can agree 100%.
Also, (not to give away any of our DMing tricks), player-provoked details only trigger if I want/need them to. Like I said about Dragonloance, that whole moon thing was just a pain. I completly ignored it. Didn't harm the game one bit.
When I sat down to write my adventure between game sessions, I had a wonderful menu of landscape fluff to choose from, or ignore as I saw fit (^o^)/ from the epic 2E landscape fluff.
Again, if there's no fluff in the self-proclaimed fluff-book that's useful to me as a DM, then why should I buy it?
I'd guess for you and others who like detailed books, they are more like being the well prepared traveler who knows where they'll be and what they'll be doing every day.
Right, except not quite like that. The fluff is there if, and ONLY "if," we choose to use it, but there's nothing to stop us from totally ignoring it. It's like having a map of Aruba. We can decide to visit the tourist beaches if we want, but we always know that we can go Off-the-beaten-path & create our own unique vacation at any time.
Let me put it to you this way: would you rather spend $20 on 8 pages of material which was already published in the sidebars of your basic books, plus some tips on basic math? Or would you rather spend $30 on a book that was so interesting to read that you would go back again & again AND included those new paragon paths & feats & things?
--
Ps. My smiley faces aren't showing up anymore
Huh, well, that one did... grr (><)In my mind, the lack of in character fluff in the core players handbooks, more then any change in mechanics, is at the root of the ongoing perception that 4e discourages role playing in favore of tabletop miniatures gaming.
Of course, you can go too far the other way, as some White Wolf books do, where rules and flavor text are so intermixed that it can be difficult to figure out how some of their games are even played, but at the same time, their fluff and in character fiction is excellant at setting the mood and drawing players into the game world.
Somewhere in there is a happy medium to be found, imo.
My writing has been a little discombobulated lately.
Waever: "The fluff is there if, and ONLY if, we choose to use it. But there's nothing to stop us from ignoring it."
I want to emphasize the *need* to ignore.
World building shoud be the same as character building. Optional and modular.
When I play and create my character, I can construct whatever persona I want. A Wizard. Intelligent. If I dont want an Intelligent mage, then a Sorcerer a Charismatic mage, or a Laser Cleric a Wise mage. Or even a Monk and Dexterous mage. So say a Wizard and Intelligence. Does he also exhibit Wisdom or Dexterity? Or Constitution - or Charisma? Wand Mastery or Tome Mastery or what? Psychic atwill attacks, Force, Fire or what? And so on. The official canon is modular, nothing except a list of choices. I am completely free to build my character concept anywhich way I want. There is no premade character that I *must* play. Premade characters suck, because they are never what I want exactly.
The problem with detailed premade worlds is, they are exactly like premade characters. Premade worlds suck, because they are never (can never be) exactly what I want.
When I DM and create our world, I *must* be able to construct whatever world I and my players want. What inhabitants? Warforged? Eladrin? Genasi? Humans? What technology? High magic or low magic? (High magic, always!) Spirituality? Gods or ideals? Or dreams? Social structures? Urban or tribal? Or nomadic clans? Or utopian? And so on. I need to be able to mix and match. It must be officially clear, that all of these are nothing more than a menu. Gamers must choose which features they want to plug into their world concept, and which ones they want to leave out. I dont want official canon to force a premade world on us. I like canon giving me options that I might use or not.
As said, D&D 4e already does this well. When D&D 4e publishes its campaign settings, it makes it very clear that the content is nothing except a list of options. The books strongly encourage DMs to make their world their own, only use content they find interesting, and even to plug content from one official setting into another, like plugging Warforged in Forgotten Realms or Genasi into Eberron. Or whatever or wherever.
For gamers who do like more detail, I could tolerate a premade city (with about 20% of its boundary left 'uncharted'). The book could detail the legal systems, spiritual systems, entertainment systems, and so on, of that city. But the city would be 'setting neutral', with recommendations for notable places the DM may wish to plug it in in the Core setting. Or not. Or in places in Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Darksun, or in whatever official settings published so far. The book would be exactly like Dungeon Delves, except instead of optional plug-in sidequests, it would be an entire optional city. There could be a book for nomadic clannish societies, and so on. These could exist in any world. Or not.
Truly officially optional.
Maybe some peolple expect the Players Handbooks to do the wrong things?
For myself, when I want inspiring D&D 4e *fluff*, then I read the novels.
For example, I read Swordmage and the rest of the Blades Of The Moonsea series, by Baker. And love them! I get to see how Baker uses the various options of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting to build his own world. I get awesome inspiration from his example without feeling any official pressure whatsoever to use the Forgotten Realms material in the same way he does for my own campaign setting. As a designer, Baker leads by example, not by dictation. Thats D&D at its best.
Novels are the place for fluff. Guides are the place for options.
When players show up to my table for a game of Changeling: the Lost, they're bubbling over to play out their backgrounds, personalities, and motivations - they want to tell me about what their characters' lives were like, what their durances and fey masters were like, what they want their role in the court system to be. They come with written backgrounds, and ask for help making their character mechanics better fit their stories.
When these same players show up at my house to play 4e, their characters are pure mechanical abstractions. They don't write back stories, and select 'backgrounds' purely for mechanical reasons. Their motivations are cliche or non-existent.
And, from what I can tell, the difference is the lack of fluff and fiction in the player's handbook - the key gateway to the game and the only D&D book many players will actually sit and read through. The game seems to dedicate all of its attention to combat crunch, and so the players care only about combat crunch when preparing for the game. Oh sure, there are little bits about coming up with character back stories and motivations, and they talk about D&D being set in worlds of excitement, exploration, and adventure, but it's all tell, no show. The book doesn't present any exploration or set the tone for any adventure. Some of the expansion books have been better - I liked Open Grave, Underdark, and Plane Above, but I would have liked a few short spatterings of in-character fluff or fiction in them as well. But some of this needs to be in the core books that players look at right from the beginning, or many of them simply won't get into the game on that level.
Again, White Wolf frequently takes this too far, with rules that can be hard to find amid the fluff. And this isn't a new problem in 4e - previous editions of D&D weren't all that different - although spell descriptions felt much more engaging then 4e's power descriptions (which is not to say that I think power descriptions are the place to fit in fluff, just that there should be some compensating fluff elsewhere).
I think a few pages of fluff - particularly in the form of in-character fiction - spread throughout a book would do a lot. It doesn't even have to go into great or restrictive detail, just enough to set the tone, and get across the spirit of the game - high adventure, progression through tiers of play, and so on.
A good example of what I'm looking for is the one page comics at the start of each chapter in the 3.5 eberron campaign book (I don't have the 4e eberron book yet, so I can't say if they did something similar). The art style, comic format, and pulpy situations and text really set the tone for game in that campaign world for me, at least as much as many more pages of dry background information or drier game mechanics. Yes, the 4e PHB has some great art to mark chapter breaks, but this is one case where text really helps - either mixed with art in a comic format, or alongside art as a short fiction segment setting the scene and the characters to accompany a good art piece.
And D&D is not totally modular. The class system has an innate structure to it. Fighters do this and this, rogues to that and that. Primal characters work this way, Divine characters work that way. A modular system would be something like gurps, where there are a bunch of different effects, and any character can buy any effect they pay points for and then fluff it in any way they like. Some people have called for that - I specifically don't want that for D&D. I like that fighters are this way and wizards that way. I think such distinctions aid in world building and role playing, rather then get in the way. I think if you hand somebody an ink blot and ask them what they see, you'll get a more interesting answer then if you hand them a blank piece of paper and ask them the same question.
Again, I don't want the fluff invading and overgrowing the rules like runaway ivy. I want it to be clearly segregated, so that those who want to pass it by can easily do so. But a nice garden of fluff here and there to mark out chapters, set the tone of the game as a whole, and break up the heavier rules chunks would be appreciated by me at least. Maybe expand the throwaway quote at the start of each class description into a small scene of a member of the class doing their thing. Maybe a connected story of an adventuring party advancing through the tiers, told in small vignettes and disconnected scenes, a little piece at the start of each chapter of a book. One page's worth out of thirty or so would be about right in my mind. Maybe incorporate some of the description of how power sources work like we saw in some of the Power based splat books into an introductory chapter in the Players Option books that will introduce new power sources in the future.
Not everyone agrees, I see. Different strokes and all. That's just what I'd like.
Again, I don't want the fluff invading and overgrowing the rules like runaway ivy. I want it to be clearly segregated, so that those who want to pass it by can easily do so.
I think that 4e has done this kind of fluff, unfortunately it seems to be mostly in the books aimed at the DM. I think that Open Grave, the Draconomicons, Plane Above & Below and the Underdark book give just enough fluff to help foster ideas.
I find myself reading those for fun on occassion, although not as much as the old Van Richten's Guides for instance, but I dont think I have picked up any of the "player" books for the same reason.
I like the fluff that Wizards is capable of doing, but I think they need to spread it around a little more.
The chapter in Primal Power about how the Primal Source fits into the game world is a pretty good example of this, in my opinion.
Again, I don't want the fluff invading and overgrowing the rules like runaway ivy. I want it to be clearly segregated, so that those who want to pass it by can easily do so.
I think that 4e has done this kind of fluff, unfortunately it seems to be mostly in the books aimed at the DM. I think that Open Grave, the Draconomicons, Plane Above & Below and the Underdark book give just enough fluff to help foster ideas.
I think that's the best way to do it, if it must be done. There are many players who are 'fluff lawyers' and try to pretend that the fluff in the books is binding, whether it's referring to monsters or PCs. I find them very annoying.
Again, I don't want the fluff invading and overgrowing the rules like runaway ivy. I want it to be clearly segregated, so that those who want to pass it by can easily do so.
I think that 4e has done this kind of fluff, unfortunately it seems to be mostly in the books aimed at the DM. I think that Open Grave, the Draconomicons, Plane Above & Below and the Underdark book give just enough fluff to help foster ideas.
I think that's the best way to do it, if it must be done. There are many players who are 'fluff lawyers' and try to pretend that the fluff in the books is binding, whether it's referring to monsters or PCs. I find them very annoying.
Wow, I have never had anyone try to "Fluff Lawyer" me, although I do use mostly homebrew so it might actually get somewhere with me. But if not I would treat them just like rules lawyer, that is: shield bash them with my foam rubber shield, gets the point across and almost impossible to cause permanent damage.
I guess my only real desire is for a reason to pull the book off the shelf when I am not either running a game or making characters. At $30-$35 a piece, I personally would like them to be entertaining as well as informative. I think the DM books accomplish that... the players books less so...
There was a time when many D&D books were enjoyable reading in and of themselves, another facet of the hobby. the norm in 4e has been books that exist primarily as a tool to facilitate gaming, with minimal enjoyment to be had away from the table apart from working out build concepts. Good, in character fluff mixed in with the rules can be constricting to creativity for some, but for many it opens the imagination, drawing the player into the game while away from the table, so that when they show up to the table they are ready not just to roll play the crunchy character builds they stated up, but also to role play the heroes adventuring through the exciting fantasy world they've read about.
In my mind, the lack of in character fluff in the core players handbooks, more then any change in mechanics, is at the root of the ongoing perception that 4e discourages role playing in favore of tabletop miniatures gaming.
Of course, you can go too far the other way, as some White Wolf books do, where rules and flavor text are so intermixed that it can be difficult to figure out how some of their games are even played, but at the same time, their fluff and in character fiction is excellant at setting the mood and drawing players into the game world.
Somewhere in there is a happy medium to be found, imo.
I don't think you can make a blanket statement over the entire 4e production.
Take books like the Draconomicons or the Planes AAAAA books or the Necronomicon or whatever they called the Libris Mortis reprint - those books are choking full of fluff.
Now if you tell me the Monster Manuals are a bit light on fluff or that sometimes campaign settings in both the DM and player guides could use more fluff, I can agree, but you said it yourself... happy medium. Those books are chocking full of gaming info, and removing any of that would be problematic.
You also need to consider that edition after edition, D&D gets bigger and bigger. Every edition adds something, expecially fluff-wise (new monsters, new spells, new locales, new stories, new items) and while cutting between editions happens.. it doesn't happen so often that it makes up for the constant stream of info.
And when you look at 4th edition, and how much more expansive player classes and monsters often need to be in terms of gameplay text, I'd say the "happy medium" isn't perfectly reached but approached in a noble way. Compared to 2nd edition expecially, fluff HAS been cut; but making an abstraction, over time and expecially 3rd edition what Wiz has done with 4th would be probably close to a 30% cut on fluff and a 60% increase in "crunch" - we can discuss what we prefer, but it's hardly deniable that the quality and content of individual books skyrocketed in this edition.
The fluff I'm looking for in Players Handbooks and other introductory level player items is bits of interesting, in-character fiction to complement the artwork in setting the tone for the game, not long stretches of out of character description of who lives on what plane and and how this city and that city interact economically and why exactly it is that purple elves and blue elves don't like each other. That kind of stuff I'm happy to leave in more specific expansion books (although I would have liked to see a bit more of it in the Dragonborn book).
And I think the essentials format may have room for it. Yes, the pages are smaller, but the PHB covered eight races, eight classes, and the core game rules in about the same number of pages that, say, Heroes of the Fallen Realms is covering five races, five classes, and no core game rules (since those are in another essentials book). So yeah, I think there could be room for what I'm looking for in these books, that seem to be the new core format going forward.
Take books like the Draconomicons or the Planes AAAAA books or the Necronomicon or whatever they called the Libris Mortis reprint - those books are choking full of fluff.
Here, I must disagree. I haven't read the new draconomicon or the Plane Above books, but the Chromatic Draconomicon was barely anything more than an expanded monster entry. The Plane Below was so disappointing that it literally convinced me to skip buying any new 4E D&D books. I can think of only three articles that weren't already described in a previous book's sidebar, & even then, those three articles went something like this:
"Then, there are the Pillars of Reality. They're really tall. Monsters live on them. No one knows how far down or up they go. Did we mention they're really tall?"
Take 2E Planescape for example. Even if they didn't include a short fiction at the start of the chapter, they sprinkled the pages with one-liners from in-game characters. ("Even though we have found you innocent of the attempted murder, you continue to pronounce our fair city's name with a soft 'g.' This canNOT go unpunished! Guards! Seize him!" ~Harmonium judge pronouncing his sentence of a Clueless berk)
Every edition adds something, expecially fluff-wise (new monsters, new spells, new locales, new stories, new items)
New monsters, new spells, & new items are not fluff
That sort of thing is crunch. I can make that stuff up myself.
(On a side note, since 4E was released, I've created about 50 new monsters, which I'm really happy about being able to do. Creating monsters in 3E was so arbitrary & complicated, I gave it a miss & went back to my homebrew system.)
Thats the main point: fluff must be easy for gamers to bypass.
Actually, I like the 'Flavor Text' box in the power cards. Its an empty box where players can visualize (even poeticize) what the mechanics of their power does. It is a discrete, 'clearly segragated', empty box. Sure, the designers fill the box in with their flavor text as a sample. But players can easily choose whether to go with the designers fluff, or substitute their own personalized flavor text.
Mali and Waev, you want a brief fictional story to introduce each new concept in a rules guide, to serve as an example that sets the tone and helps players visualize how to use the following mechanics. That would be fine with me, if it stays strictly inside a 'flavor text' box, and easy to bypass. If ALL flavor whatsoever was required to stay inside a flavor text box, that would be even better. The use of boxes everywhere would probably make me happy, because it helps the designers to literally contain the fluff, keeping it 'clearly segragated' ... and easy for players to replace wherever necessary.
Mali and Waev, you want a brief fictional story to introduce each new concept in a rules guide, to serve as an example that sets the tone and helps players visualize how to use the following mechanics. That would be fine with me, if it stays strictly inside a 'flavor text' box, and easy to bypass. If ALL flavor whatsoever was required to stay inside a flavor text box, that would be even better. The use of boxes everywhere would probably make me happy, because it helps the designers to literally contain the fluff, keeping it 'clearly segragated' ... and easy for players to replace wherever necessary.
I'm picturing maybe a toned and italicized page-height sidebar with a little fictionalized vignette to compliment the large pieces of artwork between chapters, maybe a single full page with a nice but legible font at the start and end of a book - disconnected scenes that hint at a larger heroic narrative. That, and maybe expanding the one line quotes that introduce each race, class, paragon path, and epic destiny expanded into sidebars of a paragraph or three in length describing a character of the given race or class doing their thing in clever ways. All of these being in-character fluff complimenting the artwork, and in addition to, rather then replacing, the out-of-character couple of descriptive paragraphs that we already get in the PHBs. This kind of thing would considerably increase my desire to actually buy 4e products, rather then just get the mechanical info from my DDI subscription. Then again, the new $20 price point might manage that already, regardless.
Actually, I like the 'Flavor Text' box in the power cards.
I do, too. Even just the names of the powers help flavor crunch-powers.
I'm picturing maybe a toned and italicized page-height sidebar with a little fictionalized vignette to compliment the large pieces of artwork between chapters, maybe a single full page with a nice but legible font at the start and end of a book - disconnected scenes that hint at a larger heroic narrative.
I'd love to see this sort of thing. Actually, I'd go a couple of pages long. I'd even forego the distinctive boxes, but make sure that the flavour/fluff text was clearly formatted (with a distinctive font, for example, like how they did it with the 2E Planescape stuff) to disignate "Here be Fluff!"
malisteen, your posts are so succinct, I'm going to edit the original post so that new comers can easily see what this thread is really about. Please let me know if you want me to remove the edit.
And for the love of RP, could we have character construction involve more on the RP side than the character background and 3-5 skill trainings? Borrow from 3.x Modern and Star Wars and use the Feat/Talent concept so you can design a character that doesn't have to have the vast majority of his/her powers be focused on combat.