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View Full Version : What is the most fluff based, yet still has numbers, based system?



ShadowFireLance
2013-09-19, 06:52 PM
The only problem I have with my current system (D&D 3.X) Is that Fluff doesn't help, If, for example, I say:

"The Dragon stands before you, pure fire leaking from his mouth, eating into the floor below him." People I hang out with want to know if it's a Black/Half-Red Dragon, and grind the game to a screeching HALT.

So, What is the best balance between Fluff and mechanics?

And for the love of Tiamat, DONT say ANYTHING about "NEW PLAYERS!" Please.
Please.

The Glyphstone
2013-09-19, 06:53 PM
Burning Wheel integrates its numbers and fluff in an interesting way. Consider looking into that, I'm certainly impressed with it after a few readthroughs.

Hiro Protagonest
2013-09-19, 06:53 PM
Wushu. :smalltongue:

ShadowFireLance
2013-09-19, 06:56 PM
Wushu. :smalltongue:

The first thing that came to mind was a type of sushi.
Must have something to do with the show on Wasabi I'm watching.

The Rose Dragon
2013-09-19, 07:02 PM
There isn't really a "balance". Fluff and mechanics are different concerns, and except for word count issues, do not really limit each other. There are, however, many games that have narrative-based mechanics, such as FATE, where the mechanics used on the table are closely tied to what is happening in the game world. That doesn't mean they have fewer mechanics, or more fluff (in fact, the core rulebook of FATE is rather light on the fluff), just different priorities.

There are also meta-narrative games, such as Anima Prime or Nine Worlds, where because the game portion is so weirdly disconnected from the narrative itself, you either put a lot of emphasis on the narrative, or you get a weird game where the mechanics provide little to no context for what is going on and realize you are just testing probabilities. It doesn't sound interesting when I put it like that, but it is both accurate and much more enjoyable than it sounds.

ShadowFireLance
2013-09-19, 07:07 PM
I'll try to explain it a bit better;

I want something that would allow the player to make something up on the fly that makes the character more interesting, and possibly Mechanically justified.

The Rose Dragon
2013-09-19, 07:20 PM
Well, fully one third of Nine Worlds' mechanics is devoted to making stuff up that make the characters more interesting. They are called Muses, involve the characters' connections to the world and people around them, and double as both extra attack cards (Nine Worlds is a card-based system) and emergency health. One of the gameplay examples involves one player deciding her character is in love with another character, and resolving to help the latter rescue his lover from the afterlife, for example, because she needs the extra cards it will give her later. Essentially, creating new plot hooks is a crucial form of character advancement (and, in fact, resolving those plot hooks is the only way to actually get permanent increases in power).

Jack of Spades
2013-09-19, 07:26 PM
I'll try to explain it a bit better;

I want something that would allow the player to make something up on the fly that makes the character more interesting, and possibly Mechanically justified.

This sounds like a problem that Burning Wheel can solve pretty handily. It's pretty heavily a system where one is expected to come up with fluff and then make the mechanics work for it. Which is why the system as a pretty ridiculous level of modularity.

If you can, look into how Circles work in that game. They're the main social mechanic, and basically they function by forcing the player to come up with a good reason their character would know, say, a blacksmith in the capitol city who has an associate in the area.

And, in situations like the one spelled out in the OP, you could probably just tell your players that there's a damn dragon staring at them and they don't have time to cross-reference his toes with their draconology texts.

Rhynn
2013-09-19, 07:30 PM
I want something that would allow the player to make something up on the fly that makes the character more interesting, and possibly Mechanically justified.

What does "mechanically justified" mean?

HeroQuest is based on keywords; every keyword is essentially equal, it's just a matter of judging whether one is appropriate to a test/challenge (and if it isn't, assessing a penalty based on how inappropriate it is: you can use your Knitting as a combat skill at a -40 penalty, etc.) There are some more specific rules, but not a lot: combat and a debate, for instance, are handled the exact same way (assuming both scenes are deemed as important to the game/story).

One of the official character creation methods is just coming up with a basic "who am I?" and coming up with everything else as you play along: your broad keywords (culture/race, profession, magic/cult) and 10-20 (I forget) specific abilities. And those abilities can be very broad: for instance, a player can declare "I pull out my Bag of Ill Winds and capture the evil spirit inside it!", effectively pulling out of thin air not just an ability, but an explanation for the power of a magic item. (Magic items are never really defined beyond the keyword, except by their use during play.) The GM would say "okay, roll them dice" - no ability is ever automatic, unless nothing resists it (including the natural world).

The limitation is that everybody has to more or less agree with everything that happens at the table, particularly the GM.

Toy Killer
2013-09-19, 08:40 PM
Dread and Feng Shui are both very fluffy systems.

Dread is diceless and, in essence, numberless. Everyone gets together and roleplays and characters take control of the story by taking blocks of a Jenga tower, just like the game. Feng Shui is a great little system the awards you for doing daring and exciting "Action-movie" like stunts.

Don't know if that's what your looking for though.

Slipperychicken
2013-09-19, 09:00 PM
The only problem I have with my current system (D&D 3.X) Is that Fluff doesn't help, If, for example, I say:

"The Dragon stands before you, pure fire leaking from his mouth, eating into the floor below him." People I hang out with want to know if it's a Black/Half-Red Dragon, and grind the game to a screeching HALT.


In 3.5e, it's vitally important to know those specifics; getting the dragon's color one shade wrong (like Albino Silver vs White) means the difference between victory and humiliating failure. You'd probably want a system in which the players don't need as much information to tailor their approach to each encounter.

Also, a side note, is there a difference between "pure fire" and regular old everyday fire?

Rhynn
2013-09-19, 09:43 PM
Also, a side note, is there a difference between "pure fire" and regular old everyday fire?

:smallcool: Ethanol.

ShadowFireLance
2013-09-19, 09:43 PM
Also, a side note, is there a difference between "pure fire" and regular old everyday fire?

Elemental Plane of Fire Fire.

Knaight
2013-09-19, 09:45 PM
I want something that would allow the player to make something up on the fly that makes the character more interesting, and possibly Mechanically justified.

You would like Aspects. They're a system that originated in FATE, and have spread through a number of indie games. Basically, they work two ways.
1) You can spend a metagame point of some kind (Hereafter referred to as FP) to use an aspect. This gives a bonus to a roll.
2) You can have an aspect compelled against you, but you get a FP out of the deal. Generally, these can be turned down.

The thing that makes them work, though, is that you just make them up. To use an example, I had a character for a Dresden Files game, Isaiah Williams. His list of aspects involved:

Homeless Alchemist With A Debt
Never Knows When To Stop
Street Student
If They Can't Find Me, They Can't Hurt Me
What Did I Ever Do To You?
Magical Pharmacist
It Can't Be Real! It Can't!


The first and last of these were basic character establishment. Isaiah was an alchemist, but he doesn't actually know this - as far as he know's, he's basically a chemist who manages and works with some odd stuff. The rest are either useful things that provide bonuses, engines for trouble, or both. All of these end up being used for both. For instance, 'If They Can't Find Me...' can be used to try and hide, or to destroy evidence of where one was, or just to pick up on something that isn't right because of caution. It can also be used to incite paranoia, and make Isaiah less able to do things. 'Magical Pharmacist' can be used pretty much whenever healing comes up, with the downside being its capacity to bring people into Isaiah's life who he might not want there. 'Homeless Alchemist With A Debt' can be used for street survival, alchemy, and similar things. The debt bit, on the other hand, can be used against Isaiah really easily.

Basically, Aspects seem right up your alley. Take a look at FATE, I suspect you'd enjoy it.

Segev
2013-09-20, 09:13 AM
Exalted, as a game system, tends to very tightly wed its fluff to its mechanics, designing the latter to serve the former. It is, however, a crunch-heavy system that is necessarily tied heavily to its setting. One thing that you might like out of it is the "Stunts" idea: when a character wants to do something cool, they describe the action and are awarded stunt dice for it. These are bonus dice that help them succeed. They get 1 die for describing anything at all, and if their description includes the environment (whether inventing a new, reasonable aspect of it, or playing off of established elements), it becomes a 2-die stunt. Three dice, the maximum, are awarded if their stunt pretty much drops everybody's jaw at the table with how awesome it is. Reducing everybody to falling on the floor and laughing is also acceptable.



For a system which allows mechanics to be arbitrarily assigned to fluff, there's a free, less-than-20-page system called "Risus." It's core mechanic is that every character has 10 dice to assign at creation. They assign these dice to as many attributes as they want, typically between 5 and (obviously) a maximum of 10. Like "Aspects," these can be anything that describes part of the character. You apply the appropriate trait and roll it to any action taht has outcome in doubt. Combat is contested rolls, and as long as you can explain how you're using a given trait, any of them can be used in combat. When in combat, "damage" happens at the rate of one die lost to the trait you used if you lose the contested roll.

Jormengand
2013-09-29, 03:08 PM
The Die Has Fallen is an entirely fluff-based system. The core rules mechanic is "Roll a d20 with any modifiers the DM thinks is appropriate. 11 or more are varying degrees of success. 10 or less are varying degrees of failure.

If you're fighting someone in any sense, both roll a d20 with modifiers. Whoever rolls better wins. Whatever winning or succeeding entails is up to the DM.

You have 50 hitpoints, unless you have a good reason to have fewer. You lose them when the DM says so."

You can then apply just about any fluff you like to it, without worrying about your players gating in solar angels, pun-punning or otherwise abusing the game system because you can't abuse the game system. Similarly, the mechanical effect of the dragon is whatever the DM says it is, so you can carry on without working out what exactly the dragon does.

Obviously, you can make the system more complicated so that you don't get players going "No, I should only have taken six damage from that, not seven!" but it basically provides a simple or complicated as you like system for doing just about anything.

Frozen_Feet
2013-09-29, 03:43 PM
As far as the games I own go, Noitahovi. The game system has its fair share of number crunching, but the numbers don't tell you what happens, they tell you who gets to tell what happens. Thus, the narrative is very much player-driven. Winning the game (which is actually possible and defined, in a way) pretty much allows a player to change the setting in a fundamental way, and that change becomes a rule for the game world.

veti
2013-09-29, 05:26 PM
You'd probably want a system in which the players don't need as much information to tailor their approach to each encounter.

Just because the players demand or "need" information, that doesn't mean you have to give it to them. "The dragon's scales gleam a dull reddish hue in the firelight". Their actual intrinsic colour may be anything from platinum to black, but here and now, in this light and with the amount of dirt and soot covering this particular dragon, you just can't tell.

If the players want to start the encounter by hosing the soot off and casting 'light' spells, that's up to them...

Lorsa
2013-09-30, 06:13 AM
I'm still not sure I understand the question or what you want to accomplish. Could you elaborate with some (hypothetical) example so we know what you're after?

NichG
2013-09-30, 08:25 AM
I'm going to warn against a problem I've seen with systems that do this kind of thing. You really want to watch out for systems where 'all fluff is equal mechanically'. It seems like a good idea - if the mechanics are solid, we just let any piece of fluff use the solid mechanics, and the fluff is free to be whatever the players want!

But the problem it it is, it makes the fluff basically meaningless - whether you're dripping elemental fire from your mouth or vapors of the souls you've eaten or its just that your spit is made of pure distilled Chuck Norris, the mechanical result ends up being exactly the same, and you're soon left with a game that's just very simple.

Of course the alternative, letting players make up mechanics on the fly, is very very difficult. I don't really know of a system that does it in a concrete, numerical way (Nobilis is probably the closest thing I can think of - each level of miracle has a certain 'scope' and you can do anything that makes sense given your theme, the type of miracle you use, and the scope you're willing to pay for)

My idea would be, make it so that the players get to 'bind' mechanics to fluff, and then once that choice is made it is permanent and applies to everyone/everything in the setting. Obviously these 'bindings' would be a limited resource. For example, lets say I had a list of 20 'broad' mechanics and 100 'specific' mechanics which modify the broad mechanics somehow. A character might get 1 'broad' mechanic to assign every 5 character levels, and might get 2 'specifics' they can assign at every level. Once a given broad mechanic has been assigned, no one else can assign it, but others can use it by adopting the fluff that it has been assigned (which can be as specific or general as the player likes, possibly with some kind of bonus based on what they decide). Specific mechanics can be added to a broad mechanic to modify it, but a given combination can only be used once.

Some broad mechanics might be freebies (there are tons of way to 'do damage' for example).

Lets do a smaller version for sake of a concrete example:

Broad Mechanics

-Healing the body
-Causing temporary injury (nonlethal damage)
-Causing bleeding wounds ('slashing' lethal damage, does 50% of the damage again the next round)
-Debilitation (reduce the target's stats)
-Summoning
-Resistance: you are resilient against certain attacks


Specific Mechanics

- This is based off of Strength
- This scales only with character level
- This has +25% effect, but can be resisted with the 'Resistance' mechanic.
- This has +25% effect but uses a limited resource
- This has +25% effect but harms you when you use it.


So, Jack decides he's going to make up magic. He wants magic to be powerful, but have the fluff of slowly eating away at your soul over the years, because you're basically ripping free parts of your humanity and channeling it into your spells. He figures this means that magic should be good at weakening others, consuming their humanity in place of the caster's.

So he says 'I would like to buy the Debilitate mechanic for my Soul-Eater magic, and associate it with +25% effect/harms the user. This will be generally available in the setting.'

Now, anyone who wants to use the Debilitate mechanic _must_ use Jack's type of magic. They cannot make a swordsman who can Debilitate enemies by hacking at the backs of their legs - that is now protected and belongs to 'Soul-Eater magic', and only people who pay the personal cost of taking damage to use it can create debilitation effects.

Someone else however could make a martial style that injures the body when you use it (taking the +25%/harm effect) but instead of debilitation, it deals 'bleeding wounds'.

This way you're basically guaranteed that whatever fluff you end up with will be mechanically distinctive.