Judging A Book By It's Cover

[Waker]

After a bit of exposure to a forum talking about RPGs, sooner or later you'll hear the terms Fluff (sometimes called Flavor) and Crunch. Fluff refers to the non-mechanical aspects of the game that mostly pertain to role-playing portion of RPG. That can include things such as Barbarians always being Viking/Germanic knockoffs or Kenders being painfully annoying. Crunch focuses on the game part, providing the hard rules for how everything is adjudicated.
When dealing with Crunch I'm a pretty easy-going DM. I run a number of houserules, do homebrewing and otherwise just tweak the rules to help ensure the game runs smoothly. And Fluff? Nothing is sacred to me. Only profane bonuses. I will allow nearly anything at the table provided it doesn't disrupt the game nor does it contradict the Crunch.
Forum goers have probably seen me griping about rigid adherence to Fluff in other threads like the Red Flags for DMs, but to try and curb myself from derailing it, I've decided to kvetch in here instead.
For me the Red Flag is actually the opposite. I can understand a DM's reticence in learning a new system, not only the basic mechanics but familiarizing themselves with all the maneuvers, soulmelds and so on. What does bother me is when DMs ban material solely on the basis of fluff. If I tried to pass off Incarnum as just another form of Divine Magic (which is kinda is, since it is strictly about manipulating soul stuff), then why shouldn't it be playable? Could a lay person in game really look at the effects of a Wizard and Psion and say, "Clearly these are two completely different forms of universe-bending abilities."
Mainly the gripe is that D&D is a game where players and DMs get together and state this is how something is. Just because something is written in a book doesn't somehow make it immutable and sacred. If you decide that Catfolk all look like characters from Thundercats, more power to you. At your table Orcus speaks with a Russian accent, fine by me. Just because you alter the narrative a bit doesn't mean that Gygax is going to leap from his grave and inflict an XP penalty on you. Anything that isn't strictly mechanics should be something a good DM and player can talk about to make everyone happy.

As a player, there are few things more infuriating than when a DM shoots down a character idea because of Fluff but then refuses to allow me to change the fluff to make the character playable. I can't play Psionics because it doesn't fit the setting or use ToB because it's too anime? Statements like these lead me to attempt making new expletives to expand my vocabulary.

How about the rest of you? Any headaches caused by when a DM or player refuses to acknowledge that our games of pretend are mutable?

[Honest Tiefling]

I prefer a middle ground approach. Sometimes, it just doesn't work for everyone or there's some rules that trip people up. For instance, if one were playing in a game where magic got recently discovered by a group of people and they were all sorcerers and the idea was that magic was very much unified and codified because a grand total of 50 people have it, trying to introduce Incarnum might not quite work in this situation. This is admittedly a very edge case, but there might be lore reasons that slightly different mechanics can bungle things up, especially if you have a monolithic magical tradition.

Another reason it might be done is newer players. I'm willing to bet that the majority of older players is more experienced with changing fluff, even if it is not their cup of tea. But when you are busy trying to explain that no, Warforged are not robots, elves are supposed to be attractive and not uncanny valley nightmares, unarmed Swordsages don't actually use bows and that your ranger doesn't need to be Aragon, adding additional layers of complication is probably a bad idea.

One thing I often run into is that I want to limit player options because I want to represent distance and cultural norms prohibiting people learning any old thing. If I want to say, place Incarnum amongst my elven nordic barbarians who have only recently regained contact with the outside world, it does run into a problem if the player not from this tribe is using it and meets them and there isn't a story reason for that to have happened.

There might also be the case that certain magical classes are banned to give certain restrictions to casters for balance or flavor reasons. For instance, in Dragonlance, it'd be mildly weird if Raistlin had healing spells when it was supposed to be a big thing that the gods weren't listening prior to that. If magic is supposed to have certain restrictions using other classes can get around that in weird ways. For instance, if the world doesn't have gods that pay much attention, cleric as a wizard is not a good idea. If magic is supposed to be making pacts with beings representing the various schools of magic playing a large part in the setting, non-wizard casters can sorta start getting weird.

I do think there is a value in being more flexible with fluff, but there are sometimes reasons to place limits upon it. Fluff being flexible can aid in many character concepts and lead to many wonderful stories, but sometimes the setting fluff is restrictive for a reason.

[Afgncaap5]

I dunno... if a guy came to me and said he wanted to use the magic system I'd banned but it would be okay because he'd play it as a scientist from the future with weird gadgets or as a shaman tapping into a power source that was different from the one I'd banned, or even just as an alternate wizard who was tapping into the same power source I'd allowed elsewhere but just in a different way... that might leave an odd taste in my mouth.

I tend to have reasons for fluff being the way it is in my games. Introducing an exception to the rules that handles the fluff with a set of rules I've banned elsewhere for another fluff reason would be weird.

[martixy]

I am inclined to agree on the specific point.

I have yet to experience an egregious example of this, but knowing myself, I'd be raining expletives as well. I've usually had DMs ban stuff on the grounds of not wanting, or the ancillary tried and failed to learn the system.

But I think for fluff, if the DM refuses to relinquish even that small bit of creative authority or admit the possibility that his world is wide enough that these two pieces of lore cannot coexist, then it is very much a red flag over either how authoritarian he's gonna be or how unimaginative.

P.S. @Afgncaap5, I think you're building a strawman there.

[GilesTheCleric]

I agree with the premise, but I think that one could make an argument that fluff sometimes can matter -- that it can become mechanically relevant.

Let me use an example from one of my own characters. I built a mechanatrix Cleric for a decently high-level game (I think I joined around level 11 or so). His backstory was that he was built on the plane of Mechanus by an expat of the Netheril empire (think Megaman's Dr. Light). I included a fair amount of religion in both his backstory and RP, but since his character was so heavily tied to Mechanus and constructs, I wanted a more "mechanical" approach to his magic.

So, I fluffed all of his spells to be electrical discharges (I used primarily electrical and light-based spells anyway, so that was easy), and his familiar (Knight of the Raven, EtCR 200) to be a clockwork raven rather than a living one. It was never really a problem, but it could have potentially become one.

For example, in one instance I created a Magic Circle spell for a summoning ritual, and for the fluff of that I had my familiar deconstruct itself as it walked in a circular path, then I called down some lightning from the sky (it was already stormy, and I activated my reserve feat) to "initialise" the circle. The GM thought this was fine, though some of the players were like "what is this witchcraft?" out of character. After the ritual, it pieced itself back together.

Given that my GM had allowed my familiar to deconstruct itself, purely as a fluff thing, I could have turned that into a mechanical advantage. Perhaps if my familiar had been cloven in two in combat, I could have argued that my familiar wouldn't be affected for very long since it could reconstruct itself.




So I could see an argument against fluff. Some players look for an advantage wherever they can find it. And, as the saying goes, if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. A small concession to fluff might inadvertently have a large impact on mechanics, or at least create argument where before there might not have been one.

On the other side, if I as a GM refluff something, then my players might expect to be able to interact with it differently. If the mechanatrix was an NPC villain, maybe they could argue that using insulators (that aren't Protection from Energy) could protect them from his harmful spells. I would probably allow it, but it would be a mechanical consequence for the change of fluff. The game balance would have changed.

[Zanos]

As mentioned in the other thread I don't place a lot of weight on specific setting or organizational fluff, a lot of stuff that's keyed off that is pretty easily translatable. But I feel like specific classes are tied to their fluff at least somewhat, and I wouldn't let someone write wizard on their character sheet and say they got their power from the divine without making some bluff checks or just be lying to themselves. What you can accomplish with X power source does actually matter from a setting standard. Wizards, baring very specific build selections, do not heal people. They are disrupted by being grappled or silenced or having their spellbooks or component pouches taken away. Fluff impacts mechanics when characters decide to make decisions, and suddenly you're a wizard who doesn't obey any of the mechanical restrictions that actual wizards deal with.

I think that effectively treating the game as though any effect can be accomplished via any power source is too Laissez-faire and results in severe loss of class and profession identity, where anyone can accomplish anything from any school of thought, making how you decide to go about learning anything relatively pointless.

[Waker]

Another reason it might be done is newer players. I'm willing to bet that the majority of older players is more experienced with changing fluff, even if it is not their cup of tea. But when you are busy trying to explain that no, Warforged are not robots, elves are supposed to be attractive and not uncanny valley nightmares, unarmed Swordsages don't actually use bows and that your ranger doesn't need to be Aragon, adding additional layers of complication is probably a bad idea.

One thing I often run into is that I want to limit player options because I want to represent distance and cultural norms prohibiting people learning any old thing. If I want to say, place Incarnum amongst my elven nordic barbarians who have only recently regained contact with the outside world, it does run into a problem if the player not from this tribe is using it and meets them and there isn't a story reason for that to have happened.
All Warforged are powered by Arc Reactors, Elves are actually a race of frog/human hybrids, Swordsages have Flurry of Bows, Rangers can't cast spells because Aragorn didn't. All of that is now canon. 100%.
I'd be perfectly fine with a DM limiting Incarnum if he had story reasons to introduce it as part of the campaign, that would be something I could accept.


I dunno... if a guy came to me and said he wanted to use the magic system I'd banned but it would be okay because he'd play it as a scientist from the future with weird gadgets or as a shaman tapping into a power source that was different from the one I'd banned, or even just as an alternate wizard who was tapping into the same power source I'd allowed elsewhere but just in a different way... that might leave an odd taste in my mouth.
Players refluffing accepted game constructs just for the sake of refluffing them is ok by me, provided they don't interfere with the setting. Playing a Psychic Warrior with a bunch of speed and movement abilities would be fine, but when you introduce him as Barry Allen, the fastest man alive, I look at you funny. My goal in refluffing a banned system would be to make it more palatable to the DM (assuming the reason for the ban is fluff, not mechanics.)


Super Fighting Robot Megaman.

I'd be fine with that. Were you to play that character at my table I'd have no issues with it, unless you tried to claim some kind of mechanical benefit for your fluff, such as your aforementioned cloven familiar.

[BWR]

I'm perfectly fine with GM's limiting things on the grounds of "too powerful to fit in with the rest of the group/what I feel comfortable with" or "I just don't like it" as well as fluff. I only protest when it is done based on incorrect understanding of the thing in question. You don't like psionics? Fine. You don't want psionics in your DL game because DL doesn't have psionics? fine. You don't like it because it's more powerful than magic? Not so fine.

Honestly, if I can't find something fun to do with what I'm allowed to work with, I'm concentrating too hard on mechanics and not enough on personality. (Before we start falling for the Stormwind Fallacy Fallacy: I understand why certain mechanical options are attractive and am just as interested in trying cool stuff as anyone else; I just don't consider it a basic right of a player to be allowed to play whatever s/he wants)

[Someone Else DM]

BWR +1

Can't say I disagree with anything you wrote. Thank you for reading my mind and posting for me :smalltongue:

Personally, I have an above average knowledge of the 3.5 game system. However, I haven't taken the time to read and learn all of the mechanics and associated fluff from all of the books. I know that I have limitations, and my refusal for certain game mechanics is necessary. My limited knowledge, of say psionics and ToB, would likely lead to uninteresting gaming and continuous stoppage to read up on rules and maneuvers. Yes, I could take the time to read up on all of these subjects/books/mechanics between sessions or before the next session starts. However, as they say, real life sometimes gets in the way. Perhaps I am just lazy. Either way, I won't be allowing psionics or ToB anytime soon...

For fluff alone, I LOVE when my players bring something off-kilter to the table. As noted by others, I generally will have found a common ground with the player before the session starts. If you the player are able to use the fluff in a creative way to overcome an obstacle in the game - Good Job By You! :smallcool: :smallbiggrin:

If you have a premeditated way of using the fluff to derail a campaign or to show up the other players or the DM - Shame On You and then rule 0 :smallmad:

[prufock]

My games always use the "fluff is malleable" mindset. Mechanics describe the things yoyr character can do, not why or how they do them. As long as the fluff can be molded to fit the game world, the written flavour text doesn't much matter.

[Gildedragon]

All of this.
Which is why I give all casters 2 free feats: Spell Thematics and Eschew Materials.
And make the expensive components just be abstract GP costs OR subbable for a x5 cost focus. If they want to make their staff the focus it then adds the focus cost to the staff or ring or amulet cost.

[Godskook]

If I tried to pass off Incarnum as just another form of Divine Magic (which is kinda is, since it is strictly about manipulating soul stuff), then why shouldn't it be playable? Could a lay person in game really look at the effects of a Wizard and Psion and say, "Clearly these are two completely different forms of universe-bending abilities."

By mechanics, yes a commoner should be able to tell Psions and Wizards apart.

1.How they work, within the rules, is different, and thus, they present within the setting differently, by necessity. They're also incompatible. A wizard hurls fireballs, and generally its quite difficult for him to conjure a "fireball" of acid. A psion manipulates energy, and which energy he manipulates is largelly irrelevant, and thus, his fireball-esque things are easily swapped between ice, fire and loud noises.

2.The Wizard cannot learn a Psion's "spells", and they don't even make sense to the Wizard's cosmological understanding of the world. Why isn't there any guano involved? Da Fuq?

A wizard-fluffed Psion is indistinguishable from a Vancian Wizard, except when put into contrast with a Vancian Wizard. Thus, if my setting supports Vancian Wizards but not Psions, trying to refluff Psions into Wizards won't work because they will stick out like a phillips Screw in a box of flathead screws.

This actually goes the same for ToB, Warlocks, etc, etc. If you want a world that approaches magic in a particular way, then certain classes can't be refluffed to fit. They'd need to be reworked, and by the time I'm done with them, they'll look a lot like things already in my setting.

Admittedly, from a balance perspective, I'm *EXCEEDINGLY* permissive personally, because I like letting players have options, but if I wanted to flavor my world with class bans, yes, trying to refluff Incarnum or ToB would be a problem for me.


As a player, there are few things more infuriating than when a DM shoots down a character idea because of Fluff but then refuses to allow me to change the fluff to make the character playable. I can't play Psionics because it doesn't fit the setting or use ToB because it's too anime? Statements like these lead me to attempt making new expletives to expand my vocabulary.

How about the rest of you? Any headaches caused by when a DM or player refuses to acknowledge that our games of pretend are mutable?

I have refused players the ability to play any thing draconic in my setting previously because at the time, Dragons weren't "around" and thus, unless your character had a *VERY* specific backstory, you wouldn't have anything to do with Dragons. Sorry, but no. A year later, a plot-line resolved, and now draconic classes are on the table.

[Florian]

I´ve grown sick of the notion that anything is just a building block for a character, therefore can be refluffed at a moments notice.
When I gm, things have a meaning and a connection to the setting the game is run in and those are non-negotionalble. Yes, you can pick levels in Ninja or Samurai, when coming from a culture or region that actually know that class exist. So, yes again, Viking Ninja are possible, Roman Samurai are not.
And no, you can´t refluff Samurai to Knight and vice versa.

[Honest Tiefling]

All Warforged are powered by Arc Reactors, Elves are actually a race of frog/human hybrids, Swordsages have Flurry of Bows, Rangers can't cast spells because Aragorn didn't. All of that is now canon. 100%.

So...Because the players got confused due to preconceptions, the setting has now changed? I assume you didn't quite get the point. I still believe that limiting how much can be refluffed around new players is fine. They are already needing to wrap their heads around certain concepts and the setting itself, more information to process isn't going to help.

[Waker]

So...Because the players got confused due to preconceptions, the setting has now changed? I assume you didn't quite get the point. I still believe that limiting how much can be refluffed around new players is fine. They are already needing to wrap their heads around certain concepts and the setting itself, more information to process isn't going to help.

...No I was joking. When you mentioned those specific points, like the Elf comment, I decided to bring up some of the various jokes and complaints that people made on this forum and other places. Sarcasm and hyperbole make up a lot of my dialogue.

[Darth Ultron]

As a player, there are few things more infuriating than when a DM shoots down a character idea because of Fluff but then refuses to allow me to change the fluff to make the character playable. I can't play Psionics because it doesn't fit the setting or use ToB because it's too anime? Statements like these lead me to attempt making new expletives to expand my vocabulary.

But in your two examples, most DM's ban psionics or ToB because of crunch and mechanics, not fluff.

A player does not just read the cover of the Psionic book and go ''wow, I want to be that character because of fluff, fluff fluff and more fluff. " If that was even remotely true they could be an spellcaster and use their ''fluffy ideas''.

No, what the player is doing is reading through all of the mechanics and coming up with awesome ways to exploit the crunchy rules. The player does not want to role play during the game and say ''I use my mental fluffy ability to bewilder my foes!'' or something colorful like that. What they want to do is say they use this power, with their interpenetration, and a trick and an exploit to do a massive mechanical effect in the game and one up the poor ''powerless'' DM with the old tired joke of ''haha, page 77 of the all mighty psionic rule book says so..so it happens..and I win!"

[Coretron03]

But in your two examples, most DM's ban psionics or ToB because of crunch and mechanics, not fluff.

A player does not just read the cover of the Psionic book and go ''wow, I want to be that character because of fluff, fluff fluff and more fluff. " If that was even remotely true they could be an spellcaster and use their ''fluffy ideas''.

No, what the player is doing is reading through all of the mechanics and coming up with awesome ways to exploit the crunchy rules. The player does not want to role play during the game and say ''I use my mental fluffy ability to bewilder my foes!'' or something colorful like that. What they want to do is say they use this power, with their interpenetration, and a trick and an exploit to do a massive mechanical effect in the game and one up the poor ''powerless'' DM with the old tired joke of ''haha, page 77 of the all mighty psionic rule book says so..so it happens..and I win!"

Wait, players reading Rulebooks for mechanics is forbidden? People who use Psionics can't roleplay and all must fall into a cetegory of players obsessed with winning? People expecting the rules to work as they are written? I'm not a expert but i've heard your typical Psionics are weaker then Vancian casting anyway. The last time I used psionics was to make a blaster. Does that make me a horrble filthy munckin bent on the destruction on the poor almighty DM's campaign? In your eyes maybe.

Sure, Psionics has the potential to become insane, but so does everything else. Vancian has much more support (Ignoring spell to power at least and started better anyway. Calling Psionics out on it is unfair. Just because your experience contrdicts with the other persons doesn't somehow give you the authority to make sweeping statements about players everywhere.

[Honest Tiefling]

...No I was joking. When you mentioned those specific points, like the Elf comment, I decided to bring up some of the various jokes and complaints that people made on this forum and other places. Sarcasm and hyperbole make up a lot of my dialogue.

Ah my mistake. But yes, if you ever did wander off the beaten path for your setting (as most do) you get an extra layer of fun, such as trying to use Dark Sun or Eberron.