Background or Game Content?

[Gorfang113]

WHen you get a d&d sourcebook, which would you rather have in it? Good background or good rules and gaming content? And have you ever bought a sourcebook soley for the background material in it?

[Feytalist]

One can get good background anywhere; online, novels, where-ever. Sourcebooks are primarily a source of mechanics, rules and gaming content.

That said, I'm such a hopeless Forgotten Realms fanboy that I'll buy anything with a FR logo on it.

That's the only reason I have actual hard copies of Unapproachable East and Shining South. And Lords of Madness.

[erikun]

WHen you get a d&d sourcebook, which would you rather have in it? Good background or good rules and gaming content?
Yes.


And have you ever bought a sourcebook soley for the background material in it?
Yes. Heck, I picked up Legend of the Five Rings' Way of the Naga pretty much only for the background and description, since I don't have any other LotFR books. I am also a fan of picking up the occasional system solely to see how the mechanics work.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Good rules. I ignore the provided fluff nine times out of ten anyway, which increases the versatility of the mechanics a lot.

[HappyBlanket]

Rules, mechanics and a system. That's pretty much the reason I started d&d in the first place, really. After all, I can derive fluff from wherever I'd like.

[Eldan]

While I often ignore the fluff as presented, it's what makes me want to read the rules in the first place. The sad truth is, I won't read the best system (if it's more than a handful of pages) in the world if it doesn't have some good fluff.

The rules needn't be perfect. They have to provide a serviceable framework. If things don't work, but are easily changed, I'm fine with that too: I'll invest a lot of time in a game anyway, having to houserule a few things isn't going to make me not want to play it.

In the end, I think what's really important is consistency. The fluff has to represent the rules, and vice versa. Don't make a desert world where mages can easily summon water and are common and then expect there to be wars for water. If something can or can't be done in the rules I'd expect to be possible, I'd like an explanation for that.