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sikyon
2008-02-26, 05:36 PM
This is a question I pose to the forum, carried over from the thread on lich's sanctum on positive energy plane.

Anyhow, is there a difference between fluff and rules in D&D?

To my mind, there is no difference. D&D is not just hit point and save mechanics, it's rules also take the form of a setting. That setting is what the people in the world interact with, and therefore fluff like "wagons are made of wood" carries the same weight as "wagons can carry 300 pounds".

In essence, when playing a role playing game, all of the flavour of the setting is very much part of the rules of the setting.

To head off a few arguments I will, however, also define "general" descriptors and "specific" descriptors. Obviously "axes are deadly weapons" is a "general" descriptor and "axe does does 5 damage" is a specific descriptor, so the specific descriptor overrides the general descriptor.

What do the rest of you think?

Kyeudo
2008-02-26, 05:42 PM
Fluff is muatable, crunch is less so. I can have a half-orc with no tusks if I want. I can't have a half-orc with -2 Wis instead of -2 int without a house rule. That's what makes the first fluff and the second crunch.

Let's look at a setting specific example: The Dragonmarked Houses of Eberron. Mechanicaly, they are just people who can perform a few spell like abilities. Fluff wise, they use that power to become major economic institutions.

However, I can port Dragonmarks over to my own homebrew setting without bringing along the house politics and monolithic nature of the houses. Since I can lose that part of the Houses without affecting the numeric values, that is pure fluff and irrelevant outside of the setting.

Fluff is how the world feels, and so in a setting fluff can be nearly as hard as crunch, but that is only because all settings are made out of pure fluff.

Kizara
2008-02-26, 05:45 PM
Mechanics define a concept.

Descripion (fluff) explains the concept.

The concept, to be effective, must incorporate both seemlessly. The mechanics should directly support the descriptive elements, and the description should add depth and understanding to the mechanics.

Example:


If you called Power Attack "Diamond Nightmare Blood Strike", it would not have the same flavor or understood concept, although it could be mechanically represented the same way. (since nobody has a clue what Diamond Nightmare Blood Strike is, aside from being some kind of attack, it could be represented by 'Power Attack').

Edit: Also, the Power Attack function has nothing to do with diamonds, nightmares or (aside from creating a wound) blood. Thus, those statements in the fluff are both meaningless and confusing. If the mechanics instead revolved around an attack using a diamond that caused some kind of blood infection that caused hallucinations (which would be incredibly ackward mechanically, but that's what the name calls for), it would be appropriate.

However, Power Attack, and the mechanics that support it, describe and facilitate the combat action much more cleanly.

Example 2:

If you instead called Magic Missile: FIRE DEATH MAGIC STRIKE!, and described it as a fan of red needles that blow up. The fluff (aside from being silly) would not make much sense with the mechanics of the Magic Missile spell. Since it does not do fire damage, or involve death magic directly. Nor is it truely an attack (or "strike") since no attack roll is made.

Fluff invokes a different meaning and understanding of a concept, both in what it is presented and how.

Collin152
2008-02-26, 05:50 PM
Yes, fluff and rules are seperate. That's why we have a glossary.
We have set terms that have defined effects. We have various ways to bring about these effects.
But fluff and rules are seperated, and if you brought examples up, the forums could easily seperate the two for you.

tyckspoon
2008-02-26, 05:50 PM
In D&D, the statement 'a wagon is made of wood' tells you how sturdy that wagon is if you try to fireball it or hack it apart. It doesn't tell you what kind of wood (irrelevant to the crunch except for a few specific kinds) or how well crafted it is or if it's been painted or decorated in any way.. which is a lot of stuff that you can change around without changing the basic crunch of 'wooden wagon.' I don't think 'a wagon is made of wood' is actually a fluff statement.

Spell effect descriptions are another big category where you can change the given fluff to almost anything without changing the mechanical effect. In general, I think that D&D's fluff and crunch are separate. There are cases where they inform one another and you have to consider the ramifications on both when you change one, but those are relatively uncommon inside the Core/SRD content. Which is just fine for the supposedly generic rules of Core, in my opinion.

Zincorium
2008-02-26, 05:56 PM
Sikyon, you're really reading WAY too much into that thread.

Not a single person I've sat down at a table with or heard talk plays without fluff of some sort. They may use what is in the book, they may change it, but it's there. This includes that thread, where in the original post it's mentioned that that situation would not occur in a real game.


Enforcing fluff is generally the sign of a poor player-DM relationship. Good DM's should let players choose whatever reasonable sort of fluff will make them happy, and players shouldn't annoy the DM with unreasonable sorts.


I'd put it as:
Fluff is the character's perception of their world.
Crunch is the abstract, mechanical representation of that world required to play a rules-arbitrated game.

Kioran
2008-02-26, 05:58 PM
No. And itīs not even "fluff" (*restrains raging self*). At the beginning of every set of rules is a feel or kind of story/world the rules want to emulate/create. Rules are made with deference to that setting.

I understand that, too many, itīs easier to change around descriptions than houseruling, but both becomes significantly harder if one wants it done in a consistent, artful way.
Regardless, usually the result of a good gaming session, the stories and events, are, seen in a totally unromatinc fashion, merely "fluff" - but they are what most of us come for, and we donīt want to play a system that makes us have fun despite itīs rules (like a game with Batman and Trip-Machines would be for me). So a good flavor/concept is the base and inseperable from the mechanics as a whole.

BRC
2008-02-26, 05:59 PM
Yes and No. THey are equally important, the difference is that Fluff can be changed, but once it is agreed upon it should remain that way.
Mechanics on the other hand, are difficult to change without unbalancing things. Example

My next character (Epic level evil campaign) has an army of hobgoblin followers. The only problem being that Hobgoblins have a level adjustment, so I can't have my troops as hobgoblins. To fix this, we used the stats for Half-Orcs, and since Fluff-wise ability scores are actually abstract concepts, we called these Half-Orcs Hobgoblins and left it at that. After we did that, the fact that my troops are Hobgoblins is just as set in stone as rolling D20 for an attack roll.

Let's throw somthing different, Let's say you have a character who is supposed to be a solider modeled after a Roman Legionare. Well the Romans used Spears in one hand and shields in the other, however, the Shortspear is a pathetic weapon, and logically you should be using a trident mechanics-wise. But a Trident breaks the image that you had, so you stat his weapon as a trident and call it a spear. Now that weapon is a "Spear", and that is important in terms of the game because it helps set up the character concept. It's just if not more important then the fact that your "Spear" deals 1d8 damage. However, If you had decided that your characters "Spear" should deal 1d12 damage, while otherwise being identicle stat wise to a trident, then you have messed with Mechanics.

Kizara
2008-02-26, 06:03 PM
Yes and No. THey are equally important, the difference is that Fluff can be changed, but once it is agreed upon it should remain that way.
Mechanics on the other hand, are difficult to change without unbalancing things. Example

My next character (Epic level evil campaign) has an army of hobgoblin followers. The only problem being that Hobgoblins have a level adjustment, so I can't have my troops as hobgoblins. To fix this, we used the stats for Half-Orcs, and since Fluff-wise ability scores are actually abstract concepts, we called these Half-Orcs Hobgoblins and left it at that. After we did that, the fact that my troops are Hobgoblins is just as set in stone as rolling D20 for an attack roll.

Let's throw somthing different, Let's say you have a character who is supposed to be a solider modeled after a Roman Legionare. Well the Romans used Spears in one hand and shields in the other, however, the Shortspear is a pathetic weapon, and logically you should be using a trident mechanics-wise. But a Trident breaks the image that you had, so you stat his weapon as a trident and call it a spear. Now that weapon is a "Spear", and that is important in terms of the game because it helps set up the character concept. It's just if not more important then the fact that your "Spear" deals 1d8 damage. However, If you had decided that your characters "Spear" should deal 1d12 damage, while otherwise being identicle stat wise to a trident, then you have messed with Mechanics.

Perhaps you are confusing Rome with Sparta? Roman legionaries used swords and tower shields.

BRC
2008-02-26, 06:05 PM
Perhaps you are confusing Rome with Sparta? Roman legionaries used swords and tower shields.
They also used spears (well, more like modified javelins actually, they would throw the javelins then draw their swords). So your right, although that is kinda irrelevant.

FlyMolo
2008-02-26, 06:08 PM
Yes.

Actually, the "this wagon is wooden" and "this wagon has x hardness, y hit points, and z weight, and of a q size" question is interesting. But by and large, the wagon is not important. If I decide to refluff the least invocation shatter as really, anything, it doesn't make much of a difference. If you're summoning a little imp which flies off and eats the weapon, it's basically gone. But this isn't quite the same as the traditional shatter. Fluff changed, crunch the same.

But if I decide the wagon is made of bricks, or somesuch, or glass, that does change the crunch a little. But if it's strong glass, or weak glass, or glass-that-has-the-same-hardness-and-hp-as-wood, then I just changed the fluff without changing the crunch.

Starbuck_II
2008-02-26, 06:10 PM
This is a question I pose to the forum, carried over from the thread on lich's sanctum on positive energy plane.

Anyhow, is there a difference between fluff and rules in D&D?

To my mind, there is no difference. D&D is not just hit point and save mechanics, it's rules also take the form of a setting. That setting is what the people in the world interact with, and therefore fluff like "wagons are made of wood" carries the same weight as "wagons can carry 300 pounds".

Wood is a mechanic not a fluff text. Remember in D&D wood has hp/hardness/resistances (to cold as it is a object but not fire).

Carrying capacity is also not fluff.

Now all Wagons are red is fluff. What mechanic essence does it force? Can't green one's exist withou harming mechanics? The answer I'd think is yes unless you invent spells that make color matter.



In essence, when playing a role playing game, all of the flavour of the setting is very much part of the rules of the setting.

False.
I can't think of one example of fluff that can't be changed...


To head off a few arguments I will, however, also define "general" descriptors and "specific" descriptors. Obviously "axes are deadly weapons" is a "general" descriptor and "axe does does 5 damage" is a specific descriptor, so the specific descriptor overrides the general descriptor.

What do the rest of you think?

I don't understand specific/general in this context...

Raum
2008-02-26, 06:15 PM
Anyhow, is there a difference between fluff and rules in D&D?

To my mind, there is no difference. D&D is not just hit point and save mechanics, it's rules also take the form of a setting. That setting is what the people in the world interact with, and therefore fluff like "wagons are made of wood" carries the same weight as "wagons can carry 300 pounds".

In essence, when playing a role playing game, all of the flavour of the setting is very much part of the rules of the setting.Yes, there is a significant difference. If "fluff" weren't separable from mechanics you wouldn't have the SRD. You wouldn't be able to use the same mechanics in different worlds much less genres. The "roll d20, add AB, and compare to target's AC" mechanic is easily transferable. The "fluff" says you're attacking with a club, sword, firearm, laser pistol, or even a spaceship.

VanBuren
2008-02-26, 06:38 PM
Weren't the Paladin and Assassin classes touted as the perfect examples of fluff-as-mechanics?

Matthew
2008-02-26, 06:39 PM
Perhaps you are confusing Rome with Sparta? Roman legionaries used swords and tower shields.

It's very unlikely that Roman Legionaries ever carried around 45 lb Tower Shields. Heavy Shields are a much better fit (and actually are the shield wisely chosen to represent the Scutum in Green Ronin's D20 Mythic Vistas - Eternal Rome (http://www.greenronin.com/catalog/grr1410) supplement, I notice).

Also, Roman Legionaries used many different weapons over the centuries, including more conventional spears and longer swords. Don't be fooled by the 'Hollywood' image; even the 'classic' [i.e. the Early Principate (roughly 31 BC to 69 AD)] Roman Legionary was more diverse than the Pilum, Scutum, Gladius and Lorica Segmentata!

Tura
2008-02-26, 06:52 PM
Of course they're separate. There are a million of settings out there who have a completely distinct feel (fluff) and yet use the same crunch, more or less.

However crunch, and especially SRD core crunch, was designed with a specific flavor in mind, that fabled "generic fantasy D&D". You can generally apply it to many many different situations fluff-wise, without messing with the rules. There's a lot of room to play with concepts and descriptions (fluff!) within this generic frame. And in those cases, crunch and fluff seem, ummm, interlaced. By definition.

The difference between them becomes more obvious when you try to play a game with something more specific in mind. If you want fantasy with a genuinely western medieval feel, for example, you may ban monks. And if you want more drastic deviations from that generic fantasy, you may have to start house-ruling all sorts of things, so that the crunch won't seem out of place all of the sudden. (For example, there are tons of threads in the forums about "how to change the crunch if you don't want alignment in your setting". That's a classic case of changing the mechanical rules to better fit your concept, your flavor, your fluff.)

But it doesn't need to be so extreme. Here, play a standard game, and introduce an NPC. He's human, 20 years old, stats 12,7,11,9,12,13. Calculate his AC, attack, skill checks etc. Great, now you have all the crunch. But what does that make him? How does he look like? How does he talk? The rules have nothing more to say on the subject. From now on, fluff takes the ball and scores.

Prometheus
2008-02-26, 06:55 PM
Fluff is what guides the game when a) rules don't cover the topic b) rules cover the topic but no one knows them or c) when rules blatantly contradict verisimilitude of the world d) as a house rule, homebrew, or DM fiat

Rutee
2008-02-26, 08:09 PM
No. And itīs not even "fluff" (*restrains raging self*). At the beginning of every set of rules is a feel or kind of story/world the rules want to emulate/create. Rules are made with deference to that setting
Are you going to keep getting angry about a standard term on the forums? Because that seems like a senseless reason to up your blood pressure. It's a /word/. Fluff doesn't mean it's unimportant. Also, you have completely gotten the order DnD does things in wrong; The rules were made before a setting ever was.

Anyway, fluff is seperate from the rules in DnD; It almost has to be. SRD notwithstanding, DnD has fairly little fluff entwined with its mechanics, in a general sense (Though there /are/ Paladins..)

Basically, if I can represent the same concept in multiple ways mechanically, fluff is not heavily tied to crunch. Likewise, if the same crunch can have multiple, and quite varied, fluff interpretations (This /isn't/ a DnD thing) we can also surmise that the system doesn't tie crunch and fluff very much together.

In most systems I'm aware of, one or both of these are true, so..

sikyon
2008-02-26, 08:41 PM
I don't understand why people consider the setting more mutable than the mechanics underlying it. Both are equally difficult to create convincingly and make balanced.

I think that people take the plausibility of fluff for granted. If you change 1 thing in the game, it should theoretically change everything else. Butterfly effect. This appears in changing a mechanic as well.

For example, if we had kingdom A and kingdom B and they were well balanced, but kingdom A was full of wizards and kingdom B was full of ninjas. They are equally matched.

Now if we change the rules so that spellcasting was more powerful, we'd have to change the fluff to so that kingdom A had less wizards (so that the state of affairs was balanced). But if they have less wizards, then that would mean they need less food, and that would mean... etc.



So here's a question:

Rope trick tells us that bringing a portable hole into it is hazerdous, but gives no other rules. Is this fluff or is this crunch? It certainly doesn't feel like crunch, in fact, it feels very much like fluff. It feels very similar to descriptions like "it's dangerous to bring gas next to fire" and not "if you bring gas to fire, roll a d20. on a 15 or higher, the gas ignites causing 2d6 damage to any creature in contact per round. the gas burns for 10 rounds."

Icewalker
2008-02-26, 08:45 PM
a fan of red needles that blow up.

I'm going to go homebrew this spell now. Yeah. low level, similar to burning hands but in a spread, with a few variations...

Rutee
2008-02-26, 08:47 PM
I don't understand why people consider the setting more mutable than the mechanics underlying it. Both are equally difficult to create convincingly and make balanced.

Do you play DnD in settings other then Greyhawk?

Starbuck_II
2008-02-26, 08:55 PM
I think that people take the plausibility of fluff for granted. If you change 1 thing in the game, it should theoretically change everything else. Butterfly effect. This appears in changing a mechanic as well.

For example, if we had kingdom A and kingdom B and they were well balanced, but kingdom A was full of wizards and kingdom B was full of ninjas. They are equally matched.

Now if we change the rules so that spellcasting was more powerful, we'd have to change the fluff to so that kingdom A had less wizards (so that the state of affairs was balanced). But if they have less wizards, then that would mean they need less food, and that would mean... etc.

How did you make the Kingdoms well balanced?
Are they known to be well balanced?
Are they believed to be?

I don't understand the Criteria you judge this.
Need more Input.

And spellcasting is more powerful...you don't have to change anything.

Also, changing mechanics while that can change fluff, fluff cannot/should not have to change mechanics.

Neon Knight
2008-02-26, 08:59 PM
In a DnD game, there are two entities. The World, and The Game.

The World is the fluff and the story you are creating.

The Game is the mechanics.

Which is more important depends on you play style. In my play style, were The Game's purpose is a task resolution system, and it has no bearing other than to resolve certain actions, then The Game is 100% alterable and ignorable in order to support The World.

In other play styles, The Game is the physics of the The World, and The World must reflect that.

[FLUX]
2008-02-26, 09:00 PM
It's a /word/. Fluff doesn't mean it's unimportant.

I dunno, I hardly take anything referred to as "Fluff" seriously. Whenever I read that, I'm thinking of the end of Ghostbusters 1 and start laughing at Bill Murray's one-liners. Maybe we can give it a more evocative and respectable name, like "That Stuff The GM Makes Me Care About Between When I Roll Twenties". "TSTGMMCABWIRT" for short, roughly pronounced "Tees-tee-geem-cab-wert".

Either way, Fluff and Mechanics really need each other in a symbiotic relationship. If all you have is fluff, you're sitting there going "Oh, I have my Hammer of Ownage +5, it hits you", "I have my Ownage Proof Shirt on", "I sundered that earlier with my Stoat of Vorpal Explosions" et cetera and so on. The same can be said of an all mechanics game: "I roll d20 and get 14" "Something happens better than 70% of the other things that happen. You take 8 units of Something Else" "Joy!".

In other words, you have to decide on your setting and the numerical representation of said setting at the same time, so you can rely on one or the other based on necessity. Trying to straight-jacket one or the other just makes everything not fun.

Raum
2008-02-26, 09:03 PM
I don't understand why people consider the setting more mutable than the mechanics underlying it.The setting may be considered more mutable simply because there are far more settings than sets of rules. However, mechanics are also mutable...just look at all the different game systems for similar genres. Or even for the same setting in some cases (Freeport is a good example).


Both are equally difficult to create convincingly and make balanced.I don't know if they're equally difficult or not. I suspect individual preferences and aptitude make a big difference.


I think that people take the plausibility of fluff for granted. If you change 1 thing in the game, it should theoretically change everything else. Butterfly effect. This appears in changing a mechanic as well. This is only true if the setting is created as an interconnected "ecosystem" - and I can't think of any. Most model a genre or reflect aspects of the real world.


For example, if we had kingdom A and kingdom B and they were well balanced, but kingdom A was full of wizards and kingdom B was full of ninjas. They are equally matched.

Now if we change the rules so that spellcasting was more powerful, we'd have to change the fluff to so that kingdom A had less wizards (so that the state of affairs was balanced). But if they have less wizards, then that would mean they need less food, and that would mean... etc.I suspect that oversimplifies things. It certainly assumes a need for "balance" which few settings have. I won't even comment on whether or not game mechanics are balanced. :)


So here's a question:

Rope trick tells us that bringing a portable hole into it is hazerdous, but gives no other rules. Is this fluff or is this crunch? It certainly doesn't feel like crunch, in fact, it feels very much like fluff. It feels very similar to descriptions like "it's dangerous to bring gas next to fire" and not "if you bring gas to fire, roll a d20. on a 15 or higher, the gas ignites causing 2d6 damage to any creature in contact per round. the gas burns for 10 rounds."Ok, lets agree and say the rope trick info is fluff...so is gas next to flame. Your mechanic of rolling a d20 at a target number could also be used for other "fluff" such as 'gunpowder next to flame', 'flame near flour processing', 'flame in a grain silo' or even other potentially dangerous situations.

Tar Palantir
2008-02-26, 09:05 PM
So here's a question:

Rope trick tells us that bringing a portable hole into it is hazerdous, but gives no other rules. Is this fluff or is this crunch? It certainly doesn't feel like crunch, in fact, it feels very much like fluff. It feels very similar to descriptions like "it's dangerous to bring gas next to fire" and not "if you bring gas to fire, roll a d20. on a 15 or higher, the gas ignites causing 2d6 damage to any creature in contact per round. the gas burns for 10 rounds."

It's fluff until it does something that affects crunch, then it's crunch.

Fluff and crunch are both important. Pulling from your posts in the lich thread, yes, it matters that the stone is red. Maybe red stones are the calling card of some weird assassin guild. But it does not affect how much damage the stone does, what type of damage, etc. It is, therefore, clearly fluff, not crunch.

Crunch and fluff serve two different purposes, both bringing the game together, both important. Crunch provides structure and standardization. If a +1 longsword does 1d8+1+Strength damage, it always does 1d8+1+Strength damage. This seperates D&D from freeform RP. Both are great, but they are not the same thing. The difference is crunch.

Fluff, on the other hand, helps make the crunch matter. Great, I did 9 damage to the kobold, and he's killed outright. What does that mean happened? Perhaps I grabbed his head and slit his throat. Maybe I bisected him with my massive sword. I could have decapitated him, sending his head flying. That's fluff. Crunch is the same, but the end result is different.

The main distinction is that crunch and fluff do not affect each other. No matter what color my fireball was, the druid's still at -7 and falling. No matter much damage I deal to the paladin, he still has his god's symbol engraved on his shield. The two are independent of each other.

Now, I'm not saying that fluff isn't a good reason to change crunch, and vice versa. In fact, sometimes it's almost essential. You probably can't say you decapitated the lich when you didn't beat its damage reduction. And many people believe that you shouldn't have ninjas in a medieval setting. The difference is that changing one doesn't change the other. Changing one gives you a reason to change the other. Going back to the lich thing. Fluff wise, the Positive Energy Plane should not heal undead. Therefore, you change the crunch to have undead be damaged by it instead. The fluff did not change the crunch, it gave a reason to. A subtle distinction, but an important one.

Collin152
2008-02-26, 09:07 PM
Generally speaking, if theres a slot for it on the Character Sheet, it's crunch. However, some thigns on there are fluff, and some thigns not on it are crunch. But it's a good start.

Sucrose
2008-02-26, 09:14 PM
You also have to keep in mind that "fluff" is really pretty much two separate entities. There is the book fluff, which is just what the designers slapped onto the mechanics in the text that the mechanics are from, and then there is the game fluff, which is the heart of the world that the players and DM build.

Both the game fluff and the book fluff are, once conceived, immutable. However, game fluff =/ book fluff. You may, in fact, have a world in which Warblades, rather than being psychotic glory-hounds, are just well-trained combatants of any attitude, with various personal fighting styles. (I use that sort of example a lot, just because some people seem to keep getting hung up on certain parts of the book fluff of Tome of Battle.)

In short, the fluff is important. The fluff needs to make sense. The fluff does not have to be what the book proscribes, and thus, until the game begins (and, if the game's not fully fleshed out, even after that!), game fluff is mutable.

Everyone who's saying that the fluff is mutable isn't saying that it can change within the game world, necessarily (though if it can be stretched to fit, it's generally worth doing for cool concepts), but that the game fluff of one game is different from the game fluff of another, and the mechanics can be used in both games.

Matthew
2008-02-26, 09:36 PM
It's a /word/. Fluff doesn't mean it's unimportant.

Bah! Everyone knows it's 'flesh and bones', not 'fluff and crunch'!

[FLUX]
2008-02-26, 09:42 PM
Bah! Everyone knows it's 'flesh and bones', not 'fluff and crunch'!

Or "Meat and Potatoes". Or "Flavor and Fun". Seriously, who came up with "Fluff and Crunch", someone eating marshmallow cereal?

Collin152
2008-02-26, 09:54 PM
;3990946']Or "Meat and Potatoes". Or "Flavor and Fun". Seriously, who came up with "Fluff and Crunch", someone eating marshmallow cereal?

The makers of Sblounschked.
"You got the munch, the crisp and the crunch, living in the gutter with grandma! When coach puts you in, you gotta go for the win- Y2K turned out all right!"

[FLUX]
2008-02-26, 10:23 PM
That's "Crisp and Crunch" though. I'm not at all sure but "Crisp" is a worse name for setting that "Fluff".

Also, best reply to the thread thusfar.

Talic
2008-02-27, 02:39 AM
Nobody has stated, "OMGzors, fluff is totally worthless and you're a n00b for using it."

But fluff (as I use the term, it is descriptions without concrete mechanical guidelines) is always trumped by mechanics (descriptions incorporating concrete mechanical guidelines. At least, by the rules.

Descriptions are valid and important parts of the game of D&D. However, each specific description isn't important, only that the descriptions on a whole are vivid, accurate, and convey a feeling of suspension of disbelief. Whether the spell shoots green bolts or red bolts is unimportant. What IS important to that suspension of disbelief is that whatever color you use, you describe it accurately and well.

Further, most of this descriptive text has relatively little bearing on discussions of mechanical effects and their overall impact or effectiveness.

The reason that people consider setting mutable and mechanics less mutable is because it's true. Whether you're playing Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, Scarred Lands, or a homebrewed world, the base mechanics are the same. Some few mechanics change a bit here or there, but on the whole, the game functions the same.

When you go between D&D and, say, Vampire: The Masquerade, you change the mechanics. You've changed what game you're playing. You're still role-playing, but you're not playing D&D any longer.

Thus, to say that in D&D, the mechanics are less mutable than the setting is true.

That's all I'll say about the matter.

Funkyodor
2008-02-27, 02:56 AM
Yes, they are separate, but also intertwined. "Fluff" is the descriptor and "Crunch" is the math. If you have no Crunch you effectively have a play. If you have no Fluff you effectively have a C++ script to parse.

Compare the rulebook to a video game, quite a popular topic at the moment with MMO's and 4th Edition coming around. The visual and interactive components are the "Fluff" and the ones and zeros flying around behind the scenes would be the Crunch. Who's to know that your Wizards Fireball does the same effect as the Clerics Pillar of Flame, they look different so shouldn't they have different effects? Or the Fighter swinging the same type of sword as the Rogue, his identical twin brother, should have the same effect but they don't. Ah, the designers had to take shortcuts and attempt to simulate fictional life in a way that could be comprehended by the majority of a target group!

That is why there is "Fluff" and "Crunch". One describes, the other attempts to relate this description in a universal format. The easiest universal format is math. Fluff becomes Crunch when interaction happens, and Crunch becomes Fluff once the results are known. Fluff can be as bland as "My Wizard casts Fireball at that random goblin." Or be as descriptive as, "Gobor the Mad shouts incantations in a otherworldly voice, then points his glowing appendage at the nearest terrified goblin. Vinnie the Small screams as the green tinted blue flame streaks toward him then explodes in a massive Fireball!" The results can be equally bland or descriptive. "The goblin dies." or, "Vinnies screams fill the glade as his charred body crumples to the ground."

Talic
2008-02-27, 03:26 AM
Yes, they are separate, but also intertwined. "Fluff" is the descriptor and "Crunch" is the math. If you have no Crunch you effectively have a play. If you have no Fluff you effectively have a C++ script to parse.

Note that I didn't use the term "crunch", and that when I defined mechanics, it was a DESCRIPTION with concrete guidelines. We're coming at the numerical side of the equation from different sides of the coin. You've got "crunch" independent of descriptive text. I've already conceded that mechanics includes description in my opening statement. I've already acknowledged that they're intertwined.

It's like when I say that I poured some milk in my cereal, and ate it, along with having a glass of orange juice... And you come along and say, "Uh uh, you should have your cereal with milk." I did.

Funkyodor
2008-02-27, 04:17 AM
But I wouldn't say that because clearly, (Cereal+Milk)+Orange Juice=Talic's Breakfast. But can this be simplified more? I don't think so. The "Crunch" doesn't care if the cereal was Fruit Loops or Captain Crunch, or if the Milk was Chocolate or Strawberry, or if the Orange Juice was fresh squeezed or Concentrate unless it has an effect on something else. Then the "Crunch" could be constructed differently. Like if Talic had a allergic reaction to chocolate the crunch would have to be changed to (Non-Chocolate Cereal+Non-Chocolate Milk)+Orange Juice=Talic's Breakfast. While the Descriptive Text ("Fluff") could stay the same, the Mechanics ("Crunch") would be different.

Talic
2008-02-27, 04:30 AM
What is it with this topic that draws out anal retentive traits in everyone else? Even if the example (that you focused your ENTIRE response on, rather than the actual message) is imperfect... Even if it's totally off base... One thing is still true.

I AGREED WITH THE POINT THAT DESCRIPTION AND MECHANICS GO HAND IN HAND... BEFORE YOU MADE IT.

Sorry about the size, but when someone is ignoring the mack truck coming at them to focus on the mosquito on their arm, it's helpful to use an illustrated size difference as a way to draw attention to what's important.

Kioran
2008-02-27, 04:56 AM
Are you going to keep getting angry about a standard term on the forums? Because that seems like a senseless reason to up your blood pressure. It's a /word/. Fluff doesn't mean it's unimportant.

"Die grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, roughly translated:
"The boundaries of my language define the boundaries of my world"

The way you call something is the product of the attitude the name-giver has towards it. If you adopt a name, the name will shape your perception of the object. Try it. Try secretly calling and thinking of the same relative or acquaintance of yours as "Herbert" or "Gnarshubbel" for a week instead of his real name. It will alter your mental associations with that person.

Same goes here. Background deserves a name that doesnīt sound ridiculous, or people will assume, sooner or later, that it is ridiculous.


Also, you have completely gotten the order DnD does things in wrong; The rules were made before a setting ever was.

Anyway, fluff is seperate from the rules in DnD; It almost has to be. SRD notwithstanding, DnD has fairly little fluff entwined with its mechanics, in a general sense (Though there /are/ Paladins..)

Oh boy, are you ever wrong on this count. The first thing that existed, even before the first set of rules for Chainmail got written down, was the images in the heads of Mr. Arneson and Mr. Gygax. Their mental images of medieval Knights and footmen bashing each other, or selfsame battling a medusa or whatever, existed before the Medusaīs stat-block or even the Iconic six abilities.
Keep that in mind. The Conventions of the genre existed before Monte Cook put his name on the cover of the DMG, and he was aware of it and shaped the rules accordingly. And even of they copied and modified the D&D rules from previous editions, these rules were based on imagery and conventions, or what you call "fluff", and I call background.
Background. Says it all. Try designing a game yourself. You will, face it, start out with a background and create rules accordingly. One can modify a game without such ideas, but then, one uses a game based in "fluff".

The SRD is most of the flavor stripped from the system, retroactively, but itīs still there and palpable, like the marrow and bones in a soup after boiling them, even if you remove them, or like the footprint in the sand, even thought they foot is gone. The SRD could not, without modification, be used to replace Warhammer Fantasy-RP. youīd have to modify it, which, once again, leaves the imprint of the background upon your rules, or modify your chosen background.
Regardless, mechanics and background are inseperable.


Basically, if I can represent the same concept in multiple ways mechanically, fluff is not heavily tied to crunch. Likewise, if the same crunch can have multiple, and quite varied, fluff interpretations (This /isn't/ a DnD thing) we can also surmise that the system doesn't tie crunch and fluff very much together.

In most systems I'm aware of, one or both of these are true, so..

See above. Nothing left to say.

Talic
2008-02-27, 05:16 AM
Fluff may have inspired the system, but the core of the system is mechanics. Games need rules, or it's nothing more than kids in the back yard shouting, "I shot you!" "Nuh uh, you missed!" Rules are the core to any game.

While Fluff may be good for the imagination and sole, the system was initially designed as a tactical strategy game. Heavy on mechanics.

As for your saying, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Roughly translated as, "It is what it is, whatever you may call it."

Try your exercise above. Then, when you're done, ask if your secret renaming had any actual effect on who the person was. It doesn't. Just because you see something differently doesn't mean that it is different. Just your understanding. And pretty much everyone has a flawed understanding, so six inches one way or the other won't make a whole lot of difference.

Funkyodor
2008-02-27, 05:31 AM
Maybe I wan't clear about the point I was trying to make after all. Some of the things you listed are subjectivly descriptive or mechanical. Like if the only thing that mattered was breakfast, then what was consumed is descriptive. But if allergys are involved what was consumed becomes mechanical. Or if the wagon is struck by an attack, the wood becomes mechanical. But if no one ever targets it, it stays descriptive. The problems I see is when there is some descriptive text (commonly refered to as Fluff), then another section follows to describe how this relates to everyone/thing/place (commonly refered to as Crunch), and someone notices that they conflict (like a monk being playable) or not accurately relate to some other specific rule (like a time stop being maximizable). This forms a loop hole (to the joy of tax payers everywhere). Some try and enforce the hole, and others try to close it. Some acknowlege that it's there but shouldn't be, and others say that's what was intended from the beginning. But the two sides rarely ever see eye-to-eye.

I guess what I tried to do was better Crunchify your previous Fluffication. :smalltongue:

Kioran
2008-02-27, 05:35 AM
Fluff may have inspired the system, but the core of the system is mechanics. Games need rules, or it's nothing more than kids in the back yard shouting, "I shot you!" "Nuh uh, you missed!" Rules are the core to any game.

While Fluff may be good for the imagination and sole, the system was initially designed as a tactical strategy game. Heavy on mechanics.

Oversimplification. The rules are still made for the needs of the game. Even if you make rules for Cowboys&Indians with kids in the backyard, the kids and their game came first, and it is that background that made the game and set the mark for the rules.
Before Chainmail, even the first variant of Proto-D&D came out, there was the image of Knight bashing each other. The rules are made to enable the game. The Idea defines what the game is about. One can repurpose the rules and adapt them to a new background, but there is a background that gave rise to them.


As for your saying, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Roughly translated as, "It is what it is, whatever you may call it."

Try your exercise above. Then, when you're done, ask if your secret renaming had any actual effect on who the person was. It doesn't. Just because you see something differently doesn't mean that it is different. Just your understanding. And pretty much everyone has a flawed understanding, so six inches one way or the other won't make a whole lot of difference.

But my perceptions affect my dealing with something, and my dealings with something affect itīs dealing with me. So does my name have a minor, but undeniable influence on the subject itself. Naming is crucial to some things. These six inches, expectation and associations can cause wars or peace. Marking badly rated mortgages as CDOs altered their perceptions and created a flase trust and an unjustified value.

Muyten
2008-02-27, 05:43 AM
The way you call something is the product of the attitude the name-giver has towards it. If you adopt a name, the name will shape your perception of the object. Try it. Try secretly calling and thinking of the same relative or acquaintance of yours as "Herbert" or "Gnarshubbel" for a week instead of his real name. It will alter your mental associations with that person.

Same goes here. Background deserves a name that doesnīt sound ridiculous, or people will assume, sooner or later, that it is ridiculous.


Well I don't think it's that simple. Words like geek and nerd were also originaly used as negative terms for a certain type of person but those persons have today mostly adopted the terms themselves and are proud to call themselves nerds or geeks (that includes me by the way).

I certainly don't think of fluff as something negative. I love fluff!
I think the terms are here to stay wether you like it or not and I don't think you are right about those words influencing peoples perceptions in a negative direction.

Talic
2008-02-27, 05:47 AM
Oversimplification. The rules are still made for the needs of the game. Even if you make rules for Cowboys&Indians with kids in the backyard, the kids and their game came first, and it is that background that made the game and set the mark for the rules.
Before Chainmail, even the first variant of Proto-D&D came out, there was the image of Knight bashing each other. The rules are made to enable the game. The Idea defines what the game is about. One can repurpose the rules and adapt them to a new background, but there is a background that gave rise to them.

Fallacy. There is a difference between what inspired something, and what it is. Chickens lay eggs. That does not mean that eggs are mostly chickens.

Children are inspired largely by overamorous adults. That doesn't mean children are mostly adult, nor does it mean they're mostly overamorous. The cause for creation of something, and that thing's identity, what it is, they're totally seperate.



But my perceptions affect my dealing with something, and my dealings with something affect itīs dealing with me. So does my name have a minor, but undeniable influence on the subject itself. Naming is crucial to some things. These six inches, expectation and associations can cause wars or peace. Marking badly rated mortgages as CDOs altered their perceptions and created a flase trust and an unjustified value.
With CDO's and such, there is deliberate deception. All we're talking about here, at least, all I'm talking about, when I refer to fluff, is descriptive information without concrete guidelines. No deception. Bad analogy.

Perceptions affect your choices? Preposterous! Inconceivable! When you name something, it may affect how you treat it, and they may in turn treat you differently for that. 99% of the time, the effects are so minor as to be largely unimportant. The other one? Well, it will turn wars to peace about as often as peace to war. The problem with dealing with unknown variables such as this, is, ultimately, and obviously, that you don't know. You don't know how each decision you make will affect other things. But that decision is always made, and the effect always happens. Since you can't go back and try again, with a different decision, it's impossible to predict accurately that it will actually change anything. Which makes your entire point a bunch of semantic nonsense that has nothing to do with the issue at hand. If you aren't harboring a negative view of the fluff, the skin, the potatoes, whatever you like calling it, and I'm not harboring a negative view of it, then the whole point is moot. Now, rather than nitpick the name chosen, would you care to make an actual point?

Telonius
2008-02-27, 08:10 AM
Crunch is the hardware and Fluff is the software. The mechanical elements of the game set the parameters of what's achievable by the descriptive elements. If you have a great mechanical system but terrible description, it's like playing Pac-Man on a Wii. Yeah, it works, but you could be doing so much more. If you have an amazing description but don't have mechanical elements to support that story, it's like trying to play a modern RPG on an Atari. Just doesn't work.

So, you have a couple choices. You can look at your mechanical elements and tailor the story to that. You could look at your story and modify the mechanical elements to fit it. Or you could do some combination of the two. Some people find it easier to modify fluff; others find it easier to modify crunch; others can work out a compromise between the two.

Matthew
2008-02-27, 08:26 AM
Crunch is the hardware and Fluff is the software. The mechanical elements of the game set the parameters of what's achievable by the descriptive elements. If you have a great mechanical system but terrible description, it's like playing Pac-Man on a Wii. Yeah, it works, but you could be doing so much more. If you have an amazing description but don't have mechanical elements to support that story, it's like trying to play a modern RPG on an Atari. Just doesn't work.

So, you have a couple choices. You can look at your mechanical elements and tailor the story to that. You could look at your story and modify the mechanical elements to fit it. Or you could do some combination of the two. Some people find it easier to modify fluff; others find it easier to modify crunch; others can work out a compromise between the two.

Well said. I strongly agree with this viewpoint.

Talic
2008-02-27, 08:35 AM
Well said. I strongly agree with this viewpoint.

I don't. The RPG's on the NES were so much better than the crap they have now. I don't want a 9 minute animation of the planets aligning and raining fire upon my foes every time I attack. I don't want 80% movie, 20% game. I get a game to play it. Not to watch it.

Raum
2008-02-27, 08:39 AM
I have to agree with Kioran on the perception / terminology issue. The phrase "Perception is reality." is cliche for a reason. Term definitions do change when perception of the group referred to changes but it's more common for people to limit critical thought on a subject by the terms used to describe it.

Rutee
2008-02-27, 08:46 AM
Crunch is the hardware and Fluff is the software. The mechanical elements of the game set the parameters of what's achievable by the descriptive elements. If you have a great mechanical system but terrible description, it's like playing Pac-Man on a Wii. Yeah, it works, but you could be doing so much more. If you have an amazing description but don't have mechanical elements to support that story, it's like trying to play a modern RPG on an Atari. Just doesn't work.

So, you have a couple choices. You can look at your mechanical elements and tailor the story to that. You could look at your story and modify the mechanical elements to fit it. Or you could do some combination of the two. Some people find it easier to modify fluff; others find it easier to modify crunch; others can work out a compromise between the two.
I like that post as an explanation, yeah.


The way you call something is the product of the attitude the name-giver has towards it. If you adopt a name, the name will shape your perception of the object. Try it. Try secretly calling and thinking of the same relative or acquaintance of yours as "Herbert" or "Gnarshubbel" for a week instead of his real name. It will alter your mental associations with that person.

Same goes here. Background deserves a name that doesnīt sound ridiculous, or people will assume, sooner or later, that it is ridiculous.

Say on this forum that fluff is utterly ridiculous; See who agrees with you besides hard gamists.


Oh boy, are you ever wrong on this count. The first thing that existed, even before the first set of rules for Chainmail got written down, was the images in the heads of Mr. Arneson and Mr. Gygax. Their mental images of medieval Knights and footmen bashing each other, or selfsame battling a medusa or whatever, existed before the Medusaīs stat-block or even the Iconic six abilities.
Keep that in mind. The Conventions of the genre existed before Monte Cook put his name on the cover of the DMG, and he was aware of it and shaped the rules accordingly. And even of they copied and modified the D&D rules from previous editions, these rules were based on imagery and conventions, or what you call "fluff", and I call background.
Background. Says it all. Try designing a game yourself. You will, face it, start out with a background and create rules accordingly. One can modify a game without such ideas, but then, one uses a game based in "fluff".
"The conventions of the genre". Well freaking gee, that's Totally a hard setting. I've looked at systems designed in a genre vacuum; They're possible. I have no doubts DnD was made with a genre in mind. You said setting; Setting and genre cliches are completely different things, except in the Forgotten Realms.


The SRD is most of the flavor stripped from the system, retroactively, but itīs still there and palpable, like the marrow and bones in a soup after boiling them, even if you remove them, or like the footprint in the sand, even thought they foot is gone. The SRD could not, without modification, be used to replace Warhammer Fantasy-RP. youīd have to modify it, which, once again, leaves the imprint of the background upon your rules, or modify your chosen background.
Regardless, mechanics and background are inseperable.
*Facepalm* (http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/8967/facepalmrr9.jpg)
You just admitted modification was possible, and yet they're inseperable? You use that word a lot. I do not think it means what you think it means.

DnD's system isn't going to match WFRP by sheer virtue of not being grim and gritty. New mechanics would need to be made to match the genre type; All that says is crunch is mutable. We can show Fluff is mutable by playing DnD in a setting that isn't Greyhawk; Which happens to be most games of DnD, to my knowledge.


I have to agree with Kioran on the perception / terminology issue. The phrase "Perception is reality." is cliche for a reason. Term definitions do change when perception of the group referred to changes but it's more common for people to limit critical thought on a subject by the terms used to describe it.
He would be more correct if it was not, in fact, an established community term within that context. His point dies in the face of that though.

Raum
2008-02-27, 08:59 AM
He would be more correct if it was not, in fact, an established community term within that context. His point dies in the face of that though.Established or not doesn't change how terminology affects perception. What changes it is whether or not you attach negative connotations to the term "fluff". Frankly I don't think of the same negative connotations Kioran seems to describe, but it always reminds me of the verb "fluff" used in another industry...

I like Matthew's description best I think, "flesh and bones"!

Starbuck_II
2008-02-27, 09:02 AM
*Facepalm* (http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/8967/facepalmrr9.jpg)

I only recognize 1/2 of those pictures (is that Zentarri from Robotech?). Cool image though.


He would be more correct if it was not, in fact, an established community term within that context. His point dies in the face of that though.

Yeah, that is the Strange thing. Shakespeare says a rose by any other name; and yet others disagree that the name is more important...

What is most important one puts on empathize of these names.
Like how being a Doctor/having a Doctorate sounds fancy. While being a janitor doesn't even if have same education (possible even if unlikely).

Telonius
2008-02-27, 09:04 AM
I don't. The RPG's on the NES were so much better than the crap they have now. I don't want a 9 minute animation of the planets aligning and raining fire upon my foes every time I attack. I don't want 80% movie, 20% game. I get a game to play it. Not to watch it.

It's possible to have a great story fit to the medium. Stuff like Crystalis did this extremely well - IMO that particular game got about as much strorytelling out of the hardware as it was possible to get. (Secret of Mana did the same with the SNES). That kind of game is exceptional, and everybody rightly remembers it for being awesome. There were also things like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy 1. Both very good games, but there's only a minimal amount of storytelling. It's mostly about wandering around, finding random monsters, killing them to get gp, and levelling up. They aren't everything they could be. Like I said, very good games, but they don't quite reach the level of awesomeness as Crystalis or Secret of Mana. And beneath FF1 and Dragon Warrior are a slew of entirely forgettable RPGs that don't even use the hardware well, let alone get the story right.

Same way with other roleplaying. If you can get a gaming system, setting, and DM that can achieve a Secret of Mana-style balance, you will forever remember it as an awesome game.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-27, 09:16 AM
"Fluff" and "crunch" interact in more ways than people think.

Over on the "builds for a fencer type" thread, people tended not to like the idea that a light, single handed weapon could deal as much damage as a big two handed one. They frequently cited genre convention as their reason: "heroes don't die from a pinprick" and so on.

The funny thing is, of course, that the only reason people see rapier thrusts and stabs from daggers as "pinpricks" is because they are, conventionally, modelled as such in the "crunch" of RPGs.

The mechanics you use, and the mechanics you are used to using, actually affect the way you expect your fictional world to work, to the extent that most D&D players would think the idea of a dagger dealing the same damage as a greatsword was completely ludicrous, even though actually getting stabbed with a dagger is going to mess you up just as much as getting whacked with a great big sword.

The mechanics frame not only what *happens* the game game-world, but also the way people *think* about what happens in the game world and what sorts of things people expect to have happen in a game world.

Talic
2008-02-27, 09:30 AM
Blarg. FF2 was the best FF. That's my opinion. Also one of the best RPG's ever. Most of these "next gen" RPG's are nothing more than watching a DBz movie, except occasionally you push a couple buttons.

That said, I doubt anyone in this thread carries a concept of fluff as ridiculous. It's vital to a good story, which is pretty darn important to most players of D&D. But the specific fluff isn't important. That can all change. What is important is that it's there. Whether you have Greyhawk, where the wanderers worship Fhalarghn, the god of travelling and unspellable names, the necros worship Vecna, and the elves worship Corellon; or you have FR, where the righteous worship Tyr, the necros venerate Velsharoon, and the elves worship Corellon... WTH? What the ****'s he doing there!?

Well, that aside, the specifics of the world aren't nearly as important as the fact that there is one. Fluff for fluff's sake is like cotton candy. Looks pretty, but at the end, you want more, and you've got a sticky face. Fluff for story's sake? That's like buttery garlic mashed potatoes... It goes down so smooth with that steak.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-27, 09:35 AM
That said, I doubt anyone in this thread carries a concept of fluff as ridiculous. It's vital to a good story, which is pretty darn important to most players of D&D. But the specific fluff isn't important. That can all change. What is important is that it's there. Whether you have Greyhawk, where the wanderers worship Fhalarghn, the god of travelling and unspellable names, the necros worship Vecna, and the elves worship Corellon; or you have FR, where the righteous worship Tyr, the necros venerate Velsharoon, and the elves worship Corellon... WTH? What the ****'s he doing there!?

Well, that aside, the specifics of the world aren't nearly as important as the fact that there is one. Fluff for fluff's sake is like cotton candy. Looks pretty, but at the end, you want more, and you've got a sticky face. Fluff for story's sake? That's like buttery garlic mashed potatoes... It goes down so smooth with that steak.

Thing is, you'll notice that in both settings you have necros and elves. Because they're part of the system. D&D "crunch" incorporates a lot of "fluff". Fluff isn't just "who worships which god" it's also "what does worshipping the Gods get you, and who's doing the worshipping in the first place".

You *don't* for example, get many D&D settings where the priesthood don't have magic powers.

Talic
2008-02-27, 09:37 AM
"Fluff" and "crunch" interact in more ways than people think.

Over on the "builds for a fencer type" thread, people tended not to like the idea that a light, single handed weapon could deal as much damage as a big two handed one. They frequently cited genre convention as their reason: "heroes don't die from a pinprick" and so on.

The funny thing is, of course, that the only reason people see rapier thrusts and stabs from daggers as "pinpricks" is because they are, conventionally, modelled as such in the "crunch" of RPGs.

The mechanics you use, and the mechanics you are used to using, actually affect the way you expect your fictional world to work, to the extent that most D&D players would think the idea of a dagger dealing the same damage as a greatsword was completely ludicrous, even though actually getting stabbed with a dagger is going to mess you up just as much as getting whacked with a great big sword.

Incorrect. A well-aimed dagger can be just as lethal to a human as an axe, or a maul. However, in terms of actual physical force potential, heavier weapons transmit more force. That's not expectations, that's physics. Stab a person in the arm with a bowie knife, and they lose a lot of blood and will be screaming. Hit them with a hand and a half sword, same location, and they lose everything below the elbow. Daggers get their lethal damage from placement and precision, which is what D&D tries to model light fighters for, with sneak attack, precise strike, and the like. The difference between D4 and D12 is, on average, 4 points. Both, on a solid hit, will kill a commoner in one shot. But there's a greater chance of severe damage with the heavier weapon, even on a glancing hit, because of the added damage potential of the mass of the object.

Talic
2008-02-27, 09:40 AM
Thing is, you'll notice that in both settings you have necros and elves. Because they're part of the system. D&D "crunch" incorporates a lot of "fluff". Fluff isn't just "who worships which god" it's also "what does worshipping the Gods get you, and who's doing the worshipping in the first place".

You *don't* for example, get many D&D settings where the priesthood don't have magic powers.

This is true. There are mechanical benefits offered to traditional archetypes. Which is why I described above that mechanics were descriptions with concrete guidelines, and fluff was a description without a concrete guideline.

ColdBrew
2008-02-27, 09:43 AM
I don't think fluff is ridiculous at all. In fact, I'd say it's vital to making an engaging game. I also recognize that it can be divorced from the mechanics or molded to fit them easily. My group likes rules. We're mostly programmers, so when we want to do some nontrivial task ingame, we look first to the mechanics. When I DM, I allow players to build their characters using crunch (feats/spells/etc.) from any official book. I don't care if you show up with a Warforged with levels in Telflammar Shadowlord, a few soulmelds, and the ability to execute frankly outrageous maneuvers during combat. If the descriptions of those abilities don't match the setting, they will be changed. You just find the mechanics that best represent your character concept, and we'll make the fluff fit.

So you didn't learn your sneaky-teleporting-pouncing abilities from the uberthieves of Telflam. Instead, you learned it among the peoples of the Grey Ranges, a perpetually twilit mountain that actually exists in my world. You'll still look at the exact same rules to decide when and how you may *bamf*, unless I have a reason to alter them.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-27, 09:49 AM
Incorrect. A well-aimed dagger can be just as lethal to a human as an axe, or a maul. However, in terms of actual physical force potential, heavier weapons transmit more force.

That's sort of the point, though. "Damage" in combat is "physical injury" not "structural damage". A dagger in the gut should do more damage than a greatsword clashing into your shield. It doesn't.

[uote]That's not expectations, that's physics. Stab a person in the arm with a bowie knife, and they lose a lot of blood and will be screaming. Hit them with a hand and a half sword, same location, and they lose everything below the elbow.[/quote]

Thing is, in D&D, neither of those will have the effect you describe. A two handed sword will do 1D12 damage and have no lasting effect. A dagger will do 1D4 damage and have no lasting effect.


Daggers get their lethal damage from placement and precision, which is what D&D tries to model light fighters for, with sneak attack, precise strike, and the like. The difference between D4 and D12 is, on average, 4 points. Both, on a solid hit, will kill a commoner in one shot. But there's a greater chance of severe damage with the heavier weapon, even on a glancing hit, because of the added damage potential of the mass of the object.

*All* weapons get their lethal damage from placement and precision. A baseball bat to the head will kill you. A baseball bat to the leg will just hurt. I'd argue that it's actually *easier* to inflict a lethal blow on somebody with a dagger (stick it in the gut and twist, it isn't rocket science) than with a hand-and-a-half sword.

Point is people don't even *consider* the idea that a dagger could be an effective weapon. It's small, in D&D small weapons are mechanically ineffective, and that's where it gets left.

ColdBrew
2008-02-27, 09:53 AM
You *don't* for example, get many D&D settings where the priesthood don't have magic powers.
But you could, which is all that matters. Even calling them priests (or clerics) is fluff. I can call them "Belief-Mediated Mages" and decide their casting ability derives from their unshakable faith in their ability to cast. They can turn undead because "they shouldn't be doing that." Bam, I've just turned clerics into mages based on circular logic. Hell, let's say haste, expeditious retreat, and any other spells that increase speed also color the subject red. 'Cause we all know red makes things faster. I can reflavor the class and its abilities based on spurious logic, with no connection to divinity, but it will still use the rules of divine magic because I like them.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-27, 09:59 AM
But you could, which is all that matters.

That's the thing, though. It *isn't* all that matters.

In *practice* D&D has spellcasting priests, wizards who memorize spells out of books, and of course adventurers who roam the countryside killing monsters for treasure and XP.

These are all honking big "fluff" elements of your setting which are totally hardwired into the game system.

ColdBrew
2008-02-27, 10:01 AM
A dagger in the gut should do more damage than a greatsword clashing into your shield. It doesn't.
Of course it does. What do you think critical hits and precision damage represent? A dagger in the gut is a fluff description of a good damage roll on a critical hit, sneak attack dice, etc. A greatsword clashing into your shield does less damage when that's the description you use for rolling snake eyes on your greatsword's damage roll.

D&D combat is abstract. There are no hit location rules, so you describe hits in ways that makes sense given that you already know their effect on the person's ability to fight/take more hits.

ColdBrew
2008-02-27, 10:07 AM
In *practice* D&D has spellcasting priests, wizards who memorize spells out of books, and of course adventurers who roam the countryside killing monsters for treasure and XP.

These are all honking big "fluff" elements of your setting which are totally hardwired into the game system.
Not at all. Just because I use the mechanic "you prepare your spells at a certain time of day, and they have no somatic components" does not force me to call it "divine magic". Similarly, the XP system describes how, mechanically, to mete out increases in power. The system does not require that I give out XP for roaming the countryside killing things. Maybe XP is an explicit part of my setting, and I call it "soul energy". Maybe it gradually accumulates in everyone at different rates, and can be transferred at will. Perhaps there's an entire XP economy in-game, and killing something dissipates its soul energy uselessly.

edit: And maybe I've just given away the central conceit of my next campaign setting.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-27, 10:08 AM
Of course it does. What do you think critical hits and precision damage represent? A dagger in the gut is a fluff description of a good damage roll on a critical hit, sneak attack dice, etc. A greatsword clashing into your shield does less damage when that's the description you use for rolling snake eyes on your greatsword's damage roll.

Snake eyes on your greatsword's damage roll is still probably 7 points of damage when you take the Strength bonus into account. Meanwhile a max-damage crit from a dagger is only 8 damage.


D&D combat is abstract. There are no hit location rules, so you describe hits in ways that makes sense given that you already know their effect on the person's ability to fight/take more hits.

*Exactly* - it's an abstract, and Hit Points are an abstract, and damage is an abstract. Thing is, in an abstract system, no weapon should be obviously superior to any other. A dagger is good if you can get in close, a greatsword is good further away, or if you absolutely positively have to chop through something big and thick.

Yet the system carries the assumption that a Greatsword is a flat out better weapon than the dagger.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-27, 10:15 AM
Not at all. Just because I use the mechanic "you prepare your spells at a certain time of day, and they have no somatic components" does not force me to call it "divine magic". Similarly, the XP system describes how, mechanically, to mete out increases in power. The system does not require that I give out XP for roaming the countryside killing things. Maybe XP is an explicit part of my setting, and I call it "soul energy". Maybe it gradually accumulates in everyone at different rates, and can be transferred at will. Perhaps there's an entire XP economy in-game, and killing something dissipates its soul energy uselessly.

edit: And maybe I've just given away the central conceit of my next campaign setting.

But at that point you're still keeping the fluff. You can't change the fluff in a *meaningful* way without changing the mechanics.

I think maybe we need to accept that there are multiple levels of "fluff".

You can totally run a D&D game in which clerics aren't called clerics, but without ditching the class (and de facto changing the rules) you can't run a game in which there aren't alignment-restricted magic users who specialise in healing and turning undead, and you *certainly* can't run a D&D game in which - for example - Clerics get a small number of highly thematic powers instead of a broad number of generic ones without changing the rules.

If you define "fluff" as only "the explaination for why things work a particular way IC" then Fluff and Crunch are unrelated. If you define "fluff" as the way things work IC then Fluff and Crunch have *got* to be related.

ColdBrew
2008-02-27, 10:16 AM
Snake eyes on your greatsword's damage roll is still probably 7 points of damage when you take the Strength bonus into account. Meanwhile a max-damage crit from a dagger is only 8 damage.
For starters, you can't get +5 damage from strength on a 2-handed weapon, so let's call it 8 total damage. That implies you have a +4 strength bonus, and are pretty much an Olympic bodybuilder. Meanwhile, that 8 damage max crit with the dagger implies you have a +0 strength bonus. So the peasant who just slipped a knife in your gut did as much damage as Conan the Fumbler who landed a glancing-but-crushingly-strong blow. If CtF had been wielding the dagger, you'd be looking at 16 damage.



*Exactly* - it's an abstract, and Hit Points are an abstract, and damage is an abstract. Thing is, in an abstract system, no weapon should be obviously superior to any other.
So a rusty spoon should be just as deadly as Goatcleaver, Sword of a Thousand Woes?


A dagger is good if you can get in close, a greatsword is good further away, or if you absolutely positively have to chop through something big and thick.

Yet the system carries the assumption that a Greatsword is a flat out better weapon than the dagger.
The system doesn't have the granularity to represent differences in reach that small. Remember, the game tracks characters' positions in 5' squares. Also, the dagger is a better weapon for dual-wielding, throwing, hiding, etc. If all you're doing is flailing around with it, of course it's not going to hurt as much as the giant slab of metal.

edit:

If you define "fluff" as only "the explaination for why things work a particular way IC" then Fluff and Crunch are unrelated. If you define "fluff" as the way things work IC then Fluff and Crunch have *got* to be related.
Then we've failed to properly define our terms. Obviously, I go with the first definition. If we're talking about how things work, as opposed to the reason they work, then I'd call that mechanics, or crunch. Obviously fluff and crunch are often related. If I want an anti-werewolf spell designed by an ancient order of lycanthrope hunters for setting purposes, so I make a spell that mechanically inflicts +50% damage to creatures with the [lycanthrope] type, then fluff has informed my crunch. However, I could also justify the mechanical effect by saying the spell, quite by accident, is exceptionally harmful to those creatures because the wizard who designed it simply didn't consider the implications of the spell matrix he was magicifying in his laboratorium, and used werewolf blood as a reagent, etc.

ZekeArgo
2008-02-27, 11:53 AM
Blarg. FF2 was the best FF. That's my opinion. Also one of the best RPG's ever. Most of these "next gen" RPG's are nothing more than watching a DBz movie, except occasionally you push a couple buttons.

You just quoted the worst designed, most abuseable, and nearly the most cliche (since FF1 is indeed the "most cliche") FF game system as the best one? Your dead to me Talic. Everyone knows that FFVI was the best, followed by FFIV, V, and Tactics.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-27, 11:55 AM
No, Fluff and the Rules are the exact same thing and are fundamentally the most important thing in the entire game. By changing any piece of fluff, at all, you are ruining D&D forever, for everyone.

Talya
2008-02-27, 11:55 AM
Mechanics define a concept.

Descripion (fluff) explains the concept.

The concept, to be effective, must incorporate both seemlessly. The mechanics should directly support the descriptive elements, and the description should add depth and understanding to the mechanics.


This is exactly how I feel. Too many people view them as entirely separate things, but you seriously hurt the atmosphere of the game if the two do not synergize well and support each other.

Starbuck_II
2008-02-27, 11:56 AM
Blarg. FF2 was the best FF. That's my opinion. Also one of the best RPG's ever. Most of these "next gen" RPG's are nothing more than watching a DBz movie, except occasionally you push a couple buttons.

You mean FF2J (since in America they didn't give us FF2, they renamed 4 2)
Or FF4 (which was FF2 non-J)?

Anyhoo, I thought FF4 was best.
I still remember my favorite line, " Never again, even if ordered by the King."

ZekeArgo
2008-02-27, 11:59 AM
You mean FF2J (since in America they didn't give us FF2, they renamed 4 2)
Or FF4 (which was FF2 non-J)?

Actually FFJ2 was released in America in Remastered Editions: Final Fantasy Origins, packaged with FF1.

Like I said, FFJ2 was effing horrible.

DeathQuaker
2008-02-27, 12:01 PM
These things get so philosophical and dive so much into semantics it's hard to answer theoretically.

I'll just say this: I took the crunch only from D&D core and then designed a campaign setting, being sure to allow for the existence of all the core races, monster manual monsters, etc. If I kept any "fluff" from the original it was stuff like, "dwarves have this color hair..." -- nothing extensively challenging.

I did not find it difficult to write fluff that suited the core material, and likewise didn't need to alter rules to make my fluff any better than it was. This may reflect more on how I worked with the core materials than on how fluff and crunch generally relate in other peoples' minds--and may also depend, dramatically, upon game setting and rules in general.

Matthew
2008-02-27, 12:22 PM
I don't. The RPG's on the NES were so much better than the crap they have now. I don't want a 9 minute animation of the planets aligning and raining fire upon my foes every time I attack. I don't want 80% movie, 20% game. I get a game to play it. Not to watch it.

Well, everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but I don't think Telonius was making any judgment as to which games are intrinsically 'better'. That's obviously entirely subjective. The point was that bones do have an impact on how flesh appears and that the skeleton needs to fit the form for which it is intended. You can change some aspects of the flesh, the surface details mainly, and still retain a good fit, but the flesh is not completely mutable and the skeleton will strain to support some concepts.

Deepblue706
2008-02-27, 12:29 PM
Fluff and Rules can easily be seperated, but if you say my 1d3 Dagger is actually a super awesome boomerang sword-gun, despite it lacking any kind of capabilities such a weapon would have, then things are just getting silly.

I believe fluff can be substituted generally by synonomous phrases or other concepts that share similar aspects. I don't care if someone changes "Rage" to "Berserk", or something to that effect - but when there's a penalty to AC involved with the mechanic, it doesn't seem to follow that someone should declare it "Ultimate Dueling Maneuver of Uncanny Defense", or something in that vein. As long as there's some deal of consistency between the rules and the descriptor, I don't see why adjustments cannot be made.

Of course, consistency can be hard to determine - but I guess you should do what your group is most comfortable with. I generally don't adjust fluff, but if I'm convinced (or at least, enough of my fellow players are) it makes sense with the mechanics established, then it's acceptable.

Talic
2008-02-27, 12:30 PM
That's sort of the point, though. "Damage" in combat is "physical injury" not "structural damage". A dagger in the gut should do more damage than a greatsword clashing into your shield. It doesn't.
Incorrect again. Greatswords that only hit shields do 0 damage. Daggers to the gut deal at least a little more than that.



Thing is, in D&D, neither of those will have the effect you describe. A two handed sword will do 1D12 damage and have no lasting effect. A dagger will do 1D4 damage and have no lasting effect.

Because most DM's don't have advanced degrees in anatomy. And Hackmaster's d10,000 critical hit table is just silly. Plus, if the game had that level of lethality, it'd be hard to hold onto any character for more than 1-2 sessions.


*All* weapons get their lethal damage from placement and precision. A baseball bat to the head will kill you. A baseball bat to the leg will just hurt. I'd argue that it's actually *easier* to inflict a lethal blow on somebody with a dagger (stick it in the gut and twist, it isn't rocket science) than with a hand-and-a-half sword.

The difference is, some weapons are brutally lethal, even with imperfect placement. Watch someone get hit in the shoulder with a .22. Watch someone get hit in the shoulder with a .357. The first will slow someone. The second, they've got a hole in them, and are on the ground. D&D doesn't have such rules, as they would invariably be too complex. However, they use increased average damage to show a more lethal wound.

It's easy to say that a dagger = a hand and a half sword = a battle ax = a crossbow. Common usage proves otherwise. The advantages in reach and mass give wielders of larger weapons a distinctly larger advantage, and is why the knights of old didn't charge across the fields of battle, their mighty boot knives glinting in the early dawn's light. Increased mass + increased length = increased danger.

Dagger wounds will kill level 1-2 commoners and experts. Guess what? almost everyone in the D&D world is a level 1-2 commoner, or expert. So in D&D also, among the commoners, daggers and greatswords are equally lethal. And by equally, I mean very.


Point is people don't even *consider* the idea that a dagger could be an effective weapon. It's small, in D&D small weapons are mechanically ineffective, and that's where it gets left.
I consider and accept that it can be effective. I reject the idea that it has the same damage potential as something moving nearly as fast, with 10x the weight. That defies the laws of physics.

Talic
2008-02-27, 12:32 PM
You mean FF2J (since in America they didn't give us FF2, they renamed 4 2)
Or FF4 (which was FF2 non-J)?

Anyhoo, I thought FF4 was best.
I still remember my favorite line, " Never again, even if ordered by the King."

Stop it. Things labeled "2" in other countries don't count. Everyone knows America is best.

Jack Zander
2008-02-27, 12:47 PM
But wait! Daggers are more effective than greatswords if you can get close. That's what grapple rules represent. Remember, when two people are grappling, there is nothing in the rules that say they are prone, and rolling around don the ground, unless of course, you pin them. You simply moving in close and sticking with your opponent, too close for them to swing at you could be the fluff description of a grapple.

ColdBrew
2008-02-27, 01:37 PM
Incorrect again. Greatswords that only hit shields do 0 damage.
Nonsense. It's an abstract system, and you should describe the results after rolling. You can claim that "sword hits shield" is what happens when your shield bonus to AC is >= (AC - attack roll), when the hit does little damage, or when it drops you. In the first case, you harmlessly deflected it. In the second, the blow was so powerful you sustained a minor injury despite avoiding the worst of it, and in the third, your shield was driven back into your skull and fractured it. Stop hitting yourself, btw.

Tengu
2008-02-27, 01:42 PM
Stop it. Things labeled "2" in other countries don't count. Everyone knows America is best.

In America.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-27, 02:29 PM
Then we've failed to properly define our terms. Obviously, I go with the first definition. If we're talking about how things work, as opposed to the reason they work, then I'd call that mechanics, or crunch. Obviously fluff and crunch are often related. If I want an anti-werewolf spell designed by an ancient order of lycanthrope hunters for setting purposes, so I make a spell that mechanically inflicts +50% damage to creatures with the [lycanthrope] type, then fluff has informed my crunch. However, I could also justify the mechanical effect by saying the spell, quite by accident, is exceptionally harmful to those creatures because the wizard who designed it simply didn't consider the implications of the spell matrix he was magicifying in his laboratorium, and used werewolf blood as a reagent, etc.

Basically I think the problem is that "fluff" has two distinct elements, being (roughly) form and function (not the best terms, but pleasingly alliterative).

It's totally possible to change the form of your fluff, without reference to the mechanics: you can say that clerics get their powers from alien parasites that live in their brains and call them "Zoig-Masters" instead of Clerics, and it doesn't affect the mechanics one bit. The thing is, though, that functionally you still have clerics. You still have healing, heavy armour wearing undead turners.

On the other hand, if you wanted to make your clerics functionally different, rather than just give them a different name, then you have to change the mechanics. If you want - say - Clerics whose powers are totally different depening on which God they follow, or who don't cast spells as prepared casters, you have to hack stuff about a whole lot more.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-27, 02:31 PM
But wait! Daggers are more effective than greatswords if you can get close. That's what grapple rules represent. Remember, when two people are grappling, there is nothing in the rules that say they are prone, and rolling around don the ground, unless of course, you pin them. You simply moving in close and sticking with your opponent, too close for them to swing at you could be the fluff description of a grapple.

But they still don't *actually* do any more damage. Even if you're holding somebody by the hair with one hand, your dagger is still fundamentally non-threatening.

In D&D, somebody grabbing you, holding you down, and stabbing you with a dagger is still less dangerous than somebody swinging a greatsword at you from five feet away.

Talic
2008-02-27, 02:36 PM
But wait! Daggers are more effective than greatswords if you can get close. That's what grapple rules represent. Remember, when two people are grappling, there is nothing in the rules that say they are prone, and rolling around don the ground, unless of course, you pin them. You simply moving in close and sticking with your opponent, too close for them to swing at you could be the fluff description of a grapple.
If a weapon requires specific special circumstances to achieve parity, then it is not as effective.

Nonsense. It's an abstract system, and you should describe the results after rolling. You can claim that "sword hits shield" is what happens when your shield bonus to AC is >= (AC - attack roll), when the hit does little damage, or when it drops you. In the first case, you harmlessly deflected it. In the second, the blow was so powerful you sustained a minor injury despite avoiding the worst of it, and in the third, your shield was driven back into your skull and fractured it. Stop hitting yourself, btw.
BS. You "can claim" anything you like. However, by RAW, you only suffer damage from a greatsword when the greatsword hits you. All other descriptive terminology is irrelevant to the damage sustained, excepting that your blow described a situation wherein the greatsword did not hit you, and thus, by RAW, could not have caused you damage. You fail.

In America.
It's the only place I am, baby. The only place I am.

Rutee
2008-02-27, 02:37 PM
But wait! Daggers are more effective than greatswords if you can get close. That's what grapple rules represent. Remember, when two people are grappling, there is nothing in the rules that say they are prone, and rolling around don the ground, unless of course, you pin them. You simply moving in close and sticking with your opponent, too close for them to swing at you could be the fluff description of a grapple.

People understand those byzantine rules?

Deepblue706
2008-02-27, 03:00 PM
It's totally possible to change the form of your fluff, without reference to the mechanics: you can say that clerics get their powers from alien parasites that live in their brains and call them "Zoig-Masters" instead of Clerics, and it doesn't affect the mechanics one bit.

HEY! You totally ripped-off the biggest feature of my new D&D campaign setting!! How did you find my notes?!

RukiTanuki
2008-02-27, 03:10 PM
I'll avoid the litigious terminology, and refer to "rules" and "flavor text."

The rules are necessary, because they dictate what goes on at the table (what numbers to add together, where to move, what options are available to the player, when the opponents stop fighting, etc.)

The flavor text is necessary, because it dictates what's actually taking place in the world being created through the DM and the players.

Synergy between the two, whenever possible, is an utmost goal.

It's preferred to keep the rules consistent (and usually close to what's presented in the book) as a way to keep players consistently aware of their options and what they can expect. However, homebrewing and house rules are recommended any time the rules are getting in the way of the specific type of game (or character, etc.) you're trying to play.

It's preferred to keep the flavor text consistent (and, often, close to what's presented in the book) as a way to keep the players consistently aware of the game world and how it works, so they can have some of the knowledge their characters have. However, redefining and outright rewriting of flavor text is recommended anytime the rules work, but the flavor text isn't quite what is desired.

Example: d20 Modern has the following weapons:
* Cleaver: 1d6 damage, 19-20 crit, slashing, Small Simple weapon.
* Machete: 1d6 damage, 19-20 crit, slashing, Small Martial weapon.
* Ninja-to: 1d6 damage, 19-20 crit, slashing, Small Exotic weapon.

The Ninja-to has a footnote: it includes a sheath that can be used as a blowgun (Simple weapon) or a club (Simple weapon). Other than those secondary functions and minor one-pound weight variances, the three are identical.

I have a player who wants to use a ninja sword, but taking Exotic Weapon Proficiency will prevent the PC from taking all the feats necessary to fill their niche in the party. The player could just buy a cleaver, club, and blowgun instead, but that looks ridiculous. As a DM, I'm not going to enforce any mechanical difference between carrying a ninja-to, and carrying a cleaver/club/blowgun combo. I also don't track equipment weight terribly closely, within reason. As a result, it's silly to make my players spend Exotic Weapon Proficiency for a ninja-to. Their Simple Weapon Proficiency allows them to do everything they want; they can use the cleaver stats (which were identical anyway) and represent their weapon as a ninja blade.

In short, if you have the mechanics you need but not the flavor text, rewrite or repurpose the flavor text. It's equally important; however, it's easier to create, a good deal easier to balance, and malleable enough for you to focus on the primary goal (ensuring the two remain synergistic).

ColdBrew
2008-02-27, 03:11 PM
by RAW, you only suffer damage from a greatsword when the greatsword hits you.
Actually, by RAW, you suffer damage when an opponent's attack roll is greater than or equal to your armor class, and his damage roll is greater than your damage reduction (if any). That's all the RAW has to say about it. Nothing says the sword has to make contact with your flesh even, and when you consider the case of clubs vs. full-plate, the limitations of simple, abstract systems like D&D become apparent.


All other descriptive terminology is irrelevant to the damage sustained, excepting that your blow described a situation wherein the greatsword did not hit you, and thus, by RAW, could not have caused you damage.
Of course it hit you. It just hit you on the shield, as opposed to on the breastplate, on the helmet, on the assless leather chaps, etc. Use some imagination for once. All the dice tell you is that you hurt the man with your pokey stick. It's up to you to describe the situation, and the fact that he's using a shield can certainly be worked into the narrative in a believable manner.

Also, everyone now gets shield bonuses to their touch AC, since hitting their shield isn't the same as hitting them.


You fail.
no u

Malachite
2008-02-27, 08:55 PM
Fluff and crunch can largely be separated IMO. Though obviously there needs to be some fluff, specifics are not so important. If fluff was inseperable from the crunch, no-one in my campaign setting could cast Melf's Acid Arrow, because there's no Melf.

Is it worth arguing over?

Titanium Dragon
2008-02-27, 11:56 PM
Fluff is not seperate from rules in any game; they represent a type of world. This may be very specific (Paranoia), fairly specific (World of Darkness), somewhat specific (D&D), somewhat general (Alternity), or very general (GURPS) - but even GURPS, with all its claims to generic universality involves some fluff. Paranoia is set in a specific world; World of Darkness is also set in a specific world but the mechanics can be somewhat generalized - that said though, its mechanics do strongly suggest and represent certain things (werewolves, vampires, ect.). D&D does midieval high fantasy well, and pretty much nothing else - moving outside of that makes it not really work at all. All of it assumes midieval high fantasy.

Alternity assumes a present to future setting, and deals with them quite well. It has a certain level of realism, though (cinematic) and doesn't go back into the past too far very well.

GURPS assumes very little, but represents some things better than others and its realism setting is set. You can shift stuff around but things can and do get weird if you do so; it doesn't represent the same kind of high fantasy D&D does very well at all.

So fluff and crunch are related, but the level of specificity of the crunch varies. I'd say D&D is moderately crunch-fluff related; it is intended for a high fantasy midieval setting and doesn't do well outside of that. So, the answer is "only somewhat".

Kioran
2008-02-28, 04:02 AM
Actually, by RAW, you suffer damage when an opponent's attack roll is greater than or equal to your armor class, and his damage roll is greater than your damage reduction (if any). That's all the RAW has to say about it. Nothing says the sword has to make contact with your flesh even, and when you consider the case of clubs vs. full-plate, the limitations of simple, abstract systems like D&D become apparent.


Of course it hit you. It just hit you on the shield, as opposed to on the breastplate, on the helmet, on the assless leather chaps, etc. Use some imagination for once. All the dice tell you is that you hurt the man with your pokey stick. It's up to you to describe the situation, and the fact that he's using a shield can certainly be worked into the narrative in a believable manner.

Also, everyone now gets shield bonuses to their touch AC, since hitting their shield isn't the same as hitting them.

By RAW, that attack roll beating your AC is sufficient to deliver injury-type poison, which strongly implies the blade made contact........

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-28, 05:10 AM
HEY! You totally ripped-off the biggest feature of my new D&D campaign setting!! How did you find my notes?!

I'm in ur base readin ur notez.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-28, 05:40 AM
Because most DM's don't have advanced degrees in anatomy. And Hackmaster's d10,000 critical hit table is just silly. Plus, if the game had that level of lethality, it'd be hard to hold onto any character for more than 1-2 sessions.

Only if you have fights every session.


The difference is, some weapons are brutally lethal, even with imperfect placement.

Yes, and knives are one such weapon.


Watch someone get hit in the shoulder with a .22. Watch someone get hit in the shoulder with a .357. The first will slow someone. The second, they've got a hole in them, and are on the ground. D&D doesn't have such rules, as they would invariably be too complex. However, they use increased average damage to show a more lethal wound.

I'm fairly sure that a .22 round will drop most people, actually. Hell a solid *punch* will drop most people.


It's easy to say that a dagger = a hand and a half sword = a battle ax = a crossbow. Common usage proves otherwise. The advantages in reach and mass give wielders of larger weapons a distinctly larger advantage, and is why the knights of old didn't charge across the fields of battle, their mighty boot knives glinting in the early dawn's light. Increased mass + increased length = increased danger.

In an arena fight or field battle between a man with a dagger and a man with a longsword, my money would be on the longsword, because of the reach advantage.

In a pub brawl, my money would be squarely on the man with the dagger. The longsword-wielder doesn't have the room to use his sword properly, so the reach advantage is meaningless.

The whole point of this example was to illustrate the way in which the mechanics affect the assumptions people make about how things work. D&D assumes that all fights, ultimately, take place between two people standing five feet apart and taking turns swinging at each other. Of *course* a guy with a greatsword has an advantage if the guy with the dagger tries to *use* it like a greatsword.

The point is that the D&D rules render the dagger (and the short-sword for that matter) an ineffective weapon. This in turn has tremendous knock-on effects for the "flavour" or "fluff" of the game.


Dagger wounds will kill level 1-2 commoners and experts. Guess what? almost everyone in the D&D world is a level 1-2 commoner, or expert. So in D&D also, among the commoners, daggers and greatswords are equally lethal. And by equally, I mean very.

Now you're trying to have your cake and eat it. You're trying to say that on the one hand, Daggers are just as lethal to commoners as Greatswords, which make sense, while at the *same time* trying to say that it doesn't make sense for the *same* parity to apply to high level characters.


I consider and accept that it can be effective. I reject the idea that it has the same damage potential as something moving nearly as fast, with 10x the weight. That defies the laws of physics.

So by the same logic a Longspear (weight 9lb) should do more damage than a Greatsword (weight 8lb). A Great *Axe* (weight 12lb) should do more damage than either. A heavy *mace* (8lb also) should do as much damage as a greatsword.

Damage isn't about Kinetic Energy, it can't be, since Hit Points don't literally represent you having bits hacked off your body until you can stand no more. The Damage rules represent *qualitiative judgments* made by the system about what types of weapon they want to *encourage* people to use and what they want to *discourage*.

You simply cannot construct an argument, from either a real world or a genre-emulation standpoint which supports the idea that a Greatsword should be, in all circumstances, the superior weapon to the dagger. As morbo would have it, weapons do not work that way.

Talic
2008-02-28, 06:07 AM
I'm fairly sure that a .22 round will drop most people, actually. Hell a solid *punch* will drop most people.

Yes, because most people are fragile. A strong person with a dagger will likely be able to kill the average man in one thrust. An incredibly fit and trained individual? Likely not.


In an arena fight or field battle between a man with a dagger and a man with a longsword, my money would be on the longsword, because of the reach advantage.

In a pub brawl, my money would be squarely on the man with the dagger. The longsword-wielder doesn't have the room to use his sword properly, so the reach advantage is meaningless.


And similarly, in areas deemed cramped in D&D, daggers have an advantage. Go fig.


The whole point of this example was to illustrate the way in which the mechanics affect the assumptions people make about how things work. D&D assumes that all fights, ultimately, take place between two people standing five feet apart and taking turns swinging at each other. Of *course* a guy with a greatsword has an advantage if the guy with the dagger tries to *use* it like a greatsword.

With ya so far... except for that assuming part. D&D actually assumes two people standing 5 feet away from each other, working together, hitting something with 10 foot reach, as the mage nukes it from relative safety.


The point is that the D&D rules render the dagger (and the short-sword for that matter) an ineffective weapon. This in turn has tremendous knock-on effects for the "flavour" or "fluff" of the game.

Odd, I've built more than one highly effective character around daggers. Master throwers, whisperkinves, there are options for light weapons. That you don't USE them is your fault.


Now you're trying to have your cake and eat it. You're trying to say that on the one hand, Daggers are just as lethal to commoners as Greatswords, which make sense, while at the *same time* trying to say that it doesn't make sense for the *same* parity to apply to high level characters.

In a fantasy setting, damn straight. The amount of time you've had to grow attached to your character should be directly proportional to the difficulty to kill him. Again, the difference, by D&D standards, between a greatsword and a dagger, is, on average 4 points of damage. There's also the finesse versus power attack issue, but that's an issue about feat comparison, not weapon effectiveness.



So by the same logic a Longspear (weight 9lb) should do more damage than a Greatsword (weight 8lb). A Great *Axe* (weight 12lb) should do more damage than either. A heavy *mace* (8lb also) should do as much damage as a greatsword.

Really? Thrust of a longspear does not allow for the weight to be brought with as great an effectiveness as weapons that are swung. Go out and try it sometime. Further, mass isn't the only factor, though in the case of a dagger, the difference is so great that it's a major one. sharpness, weapon length, and overall pattern of attack must be figured in. Thrust weapons don't deal as much force overall, but are more likely when they hit somewhere important, to really wreck what they hit. Sharp weapons tend to deal more than dull ones.

Try this one. Thrust a dagger into a concrete wall. Now swing a maul at it. Which did more damage? Bear in mind, D&D is often not about hitting the other person. Often, it's about hitting the golem, or the 8,000 pound dinosaur. and weapons like daggers, in those situations, don't have the penetrating power to deal severe damage in just any location. Heavier weapons do.


Damage isn't about Kinetic Energy, it can't be, since Hit Points don't literally represent you having bits hacked off your body until you can stand no more. The Damage rules represent *qualitiative judgments* made by the system about what types of weapon they want to *encourage* people to use and what they want to *discourage*.

Sir Isaac Newton would disagree with you. So would most conventional scientific thinking. And further, you're starting to sound like some loony conspiracy theorist. "Oh those illuminati at wizards want to make the dagger unpopular, and are using D&D to do it! Oh noes, it's a conspiracy against the public!"


You simply cannot construct an argument, from either a real world or a genre-emulation standpoint which supports the idea that a Greatsword should be, in all circumstances, the superior weapon to the dagger. As morbo would have it, weapons do not work that way.
And a greatsword is not a superior weapon in all circumstances. Cramped quarters and grapples give the edge to daggers.

However, in D&D, morbo could not make that statement. Because in D&D, weapons do work that way. Don't like it? Sorry. Deal with it, make a homebrew, I don't care. Won't change the facts.

Fact is, D&D needs a reliable system to allow fighters to hit harder than wizards. Weapon classifications (simple, martial, etc) and damage type all factor into that.

What system would you prefer?
If you're hit in combat, roll a d100.
1-50: incapacitated, and bleeding out. You'll die in 1d4 rounds.
51-75: Dead, sorry he hit ya good.
76-90: conscious, but considered helpless, and dying. Make a death speech.
91-100: Congrats! It was not entirely fatal. Lose 1/2 your life and take a -8 penalty on all rolls.

There, that makes all weapons lethal, on a level similar to the real world. Go ahead, incorporate THAT one into your games, and see how fast your players jump ship.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-28, 07:10 AM
Yes, because most people are fragile. A strong person with a dagger will likely be able to kill the average man in one thrust. An incredibly fit and trained individual? Likely not.

Because fit, trained individuals don't have hearts or throats?


And similarly, in areas deemed cramped in D&D, daggers have an advantage. Go fig.

Where's this rule exactly?


With ya so far... except for that assuming part. D&D actually assumes two people standing 5 feet away from each other, working together, hitting something with 10 foot reach, as the mage nukes it from relative safety.

Which is basically the same assumption.


Odd, I've built more than one highly effective character around daggers. Master throwers, whisperkinves, there are options for light weapons. That you don't USE them is your fault.

Again, this misses the point. The point is that in D&D the ability to kill a living being with a sharp object is somehow supposed to be a rare and unusual character trait possessed only by weird prestige classes.


In a fantasy setting, damn straight. The amount of time you've had to grow attached to your character should be directly proportional to the difficulty to kill him. Again, the difference, by D&D standards, between a greatsword and a dagger, is, on average 4 points of damage. There's also the finesse versus power attack issue, but that's an issue about feat comparison, not weapon effectiveness.

That's still about weapon effectiveness, particulary since double-handed weapons mprove the effectiveness of Power Attack.


Really? Thrust of a longspear does not allow for the weight to be brought with as great an effectiveness as weapons that are swung. Go out and try it sometime.

Have done. A thrust moves just as fast as a swing. And you get your body weight behind it more effectively.


Further, mass isn't the only factor, though in the case of a dagger, the difference is so great that it's a major one. sharpness, weapon length, and overall pattern of attack must be figured in. Thrust weapons don't deal as much force overall, but are more likely when they hit somewhere important, to really wreck what they hit. Sharp weapons tend to deal more than dull ones.

And daggers tend to be sharper than greatswords.


Try this one. Thrust a dagger into a concrete wall. Now swing a maul at it. Which did more damage? Bear in mind, D&D is often not about hitting the other person. Often, it's about hitting the golem, or the 8,000 pound dinosaur. and weapons like daggers, in those situations, don't have the penetrating power to deal severe damage in just any location. Heavier weapons do.

Swing a greatsword at a concrete wall. Now swing a pick at it. Picks only do 1D8 damage.


Sir Isaac Newton would disagree with you.

Isaac Newton knew jack about martial arts.


So would most conventional scientific thinking. And further, you're starting to sound like some loony conspiracy theorist. "Oh those illuminati at wizards want to make the dagger unpopular, and are using D&D to do it! Oh noes, it's a conspiracy against the public!"

It's not a conspiracy theory to say that a game is designed specifically to make some weapons better than others.

The point is that *because* daggers are mechanically ineffective, people assume that they're ineffective in-setting. People talk about dagger wounds in terms of "scratches" and "pinpricks". It's self-supporting.


And a greatsword is not a superior weapon in all circumstances. Cramped quarters and grapples give the edge to daggers.

I can't find any "cramped conditions" rules in the SRD, in a grapple you're *still* better off getting *out* the grapple and using a greatsword than staying *in* the grapple and plinking away with your dagger.


However, in D&D, morbo could not make that statement. Because in D&D, weapons do work that way. Don't like it? Sorry. Deal with it, make a homebrew, I don't care. Won't change the facts.

Umm... that's sort of exaclty my point. The way weapons work in D&D is a "crunch" element that totally alters the "fluff" of the setting.

You can't say "that's how the rules are" to justify the way the rules are.


Fact is, D&D needs a reliable system to allow fighters to hit harder than wizards.

Be nice if it had one, really...


Weapon classifications (simple, martial, etc) and damage type all factor into that.

Except it doesn't work.


What system would you prefer?
If you're hit in combat, roll a d100.
1-50: incapacitated, and bleeding out. You'll die in 1d4 rounds.
51-75: Dead, sorry he hit ya good.
76-90: conscious, but considered helpless, and dying. Make a death speech.
91-100: Congrats! It was not entirely fatal. Lose 1/2 your life and take a -8 penalty on all rolls.

There, that makes all weapons lethal, on a level similar to the real world. Go ahead, incorporate THAT one into your games, and see how fast your players jump ship.

Actually, most of the games I actually *play* have combat systems that work almost exactly like that. It doesn't cause problems because I don't play dungeon crawls.

Which, incidentally, is yet another way in which the "crunch" of the combat system influences the "fluff" of the setting.

ZekeArgo
2008-02-28, 08:35 AM
Actually, most of the games I actually *play* have combat systems that work almost exactly like that. It doesn't cause problems because I don't play dungeon crawls.

Which, incidentally, is yet another way in which the "crunch" of the combat system influences the "fluff" of the setting.

So you use a gameist system to simulate an environment in which the gameist elements are mostly unneeded?

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-28, 11:52 AM
So you use a gameist system to simulate an environment in which the gameist elements are mostly unneeded?

Since you introduced Forge terminology:

Game mechanics are not, by definition, gamist. They are only gamist if - like D&D - they are designed to present an OOC strategic challenge. This, again, is part of the reason for D&D's variable weapon damage, the choice between using a Greatsword (2D6) and a Greataxe (1D12) is as much a strategic one as a style one.

A system which seeks to realistically model the effects of being struck with a sword or stabbed with a dagger - or a system which seeks to model those effects within the confines of a particular genre - is simulationist, not gamist.

A great many games use detailed, complex, lethal systems for combat. In these games, combat is best avoided, because it will get you killed.

I actually don't have anything *against* D&D's combat system. It's very good for what it is, which is a fun minigame played as part of an RPG. It is not, however, remotely realistic *or* remotely true to genre (in most high fantasy, the dagger is the deadliest weapon imaginable - Shelob and Saruman both go down to daggers in the end). As an element in a tactical wargame, variable weapon damage is great, it provides strategic choices (do I play a greatsword-wielding Power Attacker or a shortsword-fighting sneak-attacker).

The point, however, is that it's purely an artifact of the game-mechanics, but it affects the "fluff" of the game on a fundamental level. A great many D&D players seem unable to accept the idea of a light weapon as a major source of damage outside the context of sneak attack. Again this is reflected in the way they talk and think about light weapons - pinpricks and scratches as opposed to the deep, manly wounds left by larger weapons.

Solo
2008-02-28, 11:57 AM
View Post
I'm fairly sure that a .22 round will drop most people, actually. Hell a solid *punch* will drop most people.

You know, shooting someone somewhere else than in a major blood vessel, organ, or the central nervous system is not likely to provide immediate incapacitation. It's just not going to do enough damage.

The psychological effects may stop them from, say, fighting, but going by damage alone, hitting someone with any sort of bullet outside of something important isn't likely to produce much of an effect.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-28, 12:12 PM
You know, shooting someone somewhere else than in a major blood vessel, organ, or the central nervous system is not likely to provide immediate incapacitation. It's just not going to do enough damage.

The psychological effects may stop them from, say, fighting, but going by damage alone, hitting someone with any sort of bullet outside of something important isn't likely to produce much of an effect.

I take it that you're including "pain" as a "psychological effect"?

Sure, a bullet that doesn't hit a vital area won't physically destroy your body. Neither does a hard boot in the groin, it still stops most people in their tracks.

Of course D&D characters don't feel pain, which sort of supports my overall point.

[Edited to add]

But this is getting way off topic, I think I'll start a new thread about the whole "Variable Weapon Damage" thing.

ZekeArgo
2008-02-28, 12:31 PM
The point, however, is that it's purely an artifact of the game-mechanics, but it affects the "fluff" of the game on a fundamental level. A great many D&D players seem unable to accept the idea of a light weapon as a major source of damage outside the context of sneak attack. Again this is reflected in the way they talk and think about light weapons - pinpricks and scratches as opposed to the deep, manly wounds left by larger weapons.

Heres the thing: it doesnt matter if IRL weapon A is capable of X and weapon B is capable of Z. Within DnD's rules Weapon A follows it's statblock and Weapon B does the same. DnD isn't a FNFF/highly detailed system. It's ambiguious, doubly so with the HP pool and the lack of a system shock save whenever damage is taken.

What I'm trying to say is that arguing that players are unable to accept something that isn't relevant to the system they're playing in, dispite how things might work in real life, seems a bit silly to me. If they were worried about accuracy they'd be playing a game that simulates that.

And honestly that isn't how it's played. If your building around using light weapons, you make a character who *can* deliver those huge sucking chestwounds with them. Just because the rules say it requires sneak attack/extra damage doesn't matter, because the huge-weapon wielder needs a similar way to boost his damage: namely Power Attack and tactical/PA boosting abilities.

In the end it's two sides of the same coin.

Solo
2008-02-28, 01:16 PM
I take it that you're including "pain" as a "psychological effect"?

Sure, a bullet that doesn't hit a vital area won't physically destroy your body. Neither does a hard boot in the groin, it still stops most people in their tracks.



Yup, pain is psychological to some extent. Pump yourself up on the right drugs, or adrenaline, and you'll feel less of it. There have been cases of people high on adrenaline getting injured (broken bones, being shot) and not noticing till later.

The jury is out on whether adrenaline will also offset the consequences of getting kicked in the groin.

Talic
2008-02-28, 01:44 PM
Actually, by RAW, you suffer damage when an opponent's attack roll is greater than or equal to your armor class, and his damage roll is greater than your damage reduction (if any). That's all the RAW has to say about it. Nothing says the sword has to make contact with your flesh even, and when you consider the case of clubs vs. full-plate, the limitations of simple, abstract systems like D&D become apparent.



"An attack roll represents your attempt to strike your opponent on your turn in a round. When you make an attack roll, you roll a d20 and add your attack bonus. (Other modifiers may also apply to this roll.) If your result equals or beats the target’s Armor Class, you hit and deal damage.

The parts I will be using are bolded.
The first bold part states that yes, you are indeed trying to strike your opponent. Not his shield, not his hatchet, not his little latin american girlfriend. That's all the rules have to say about it.
The second part shows that, if the result equals or beats AC, you hit. Hit what, you ask? Why it referenced it earlier, and wouldn't you know it, that's the first bolded part. If your attack roll beats your AC, by RAW, you hit your opponent. Anything else, ricocheting the arrow off the wall, into his shield, and deafening him with noisy pain, that's not RAW. That's homebrew. Further, if your opponent's greatsword hits you, it's slashing damage. If your own shield is driven into your face, it's entirely bludgeoning. [scrubbed]


Of course it hit you. It just hit you on the shield, as opposed to on the breastplate, on the helmet, on the assless leather chaps, etc. Use some imagination for once. All the dice tell you is that you hurt the man with your pokey stick. It's up to you to describe the situation, and the fact that he's using a shield can certainly be worked into the narrative in a believable manner.

Buzz. Wrong. There's a term in D&D for attacks that can contact armor only and still be considered to have hit. They're called touch attacks. Greatswords don't usually get to make them. Again, look above for what the SRD actually tells you. Don't just assume it says what's convenient for your arguement.


Also, everyone now gets shield bonuses to their touch AC, since hitting their shield isn't the same as hitting them.



Some attacks disregard armor, including shields and natural armor. In these cases, the attacker makes a touch attack roll (either ranged or melee). When you are the target of a touch attack, your AC doesn’t include any armor bonus, shield bonus, or natural armor bonus. All other modifiers, such as your size modifier, Dexterity modifier, and deflection bonus (if any) apply normally.
{scrubbed}

ColdBrew
2008-02-28, 02:19 PM
blah blah words, amateurish trolling
You really need to figure out what "abstract" means. Go do that first; maybe then you'll be ready to contribute. We'll wait.


Buzz. Wrong. There's a term in D&D for attacks that can contact armor only and still be considered to have hit. They're called touch attacks.
You seem to be laboring under the impression that hitting someone always means making contact with their flesh. Again, I refer you to club vs. full-plate. Are you implying a stout stick penetrates steel armor every time such an attack deals damage? I picture you poking your friends acquaintances people who tolerate your presence repeatedly, and when they ask you to stop, replying, "Oh no, I'm not poking you. I'm only poking your shirt." Tell you what, since we're playing the "show me in the SRD" game, why don't you show me where a melee attack that reduces an opponents hit points must always mean contact between your weapon and their flesh.


Wow, you're just battin 1000 on this failure thing. Hey, at least you're consistent.
I understand that sarcasm may be a little too complicated for you, considering you fail to understand the level of abstraction present in these rules. I'll do you a favor and break it down: You claim that striking someone's shield could not possibly be referred to as "hitting them". Well, since you still need to "hit" them to deliver a touch attack, then by your logic they should be able to prevent that with the use of a shield. Hence, "everyone now gets shield bonuses to their touch AC, since hitting their shield isn't the same as hitting them."

I understand why you didn't recognize that as a natural consequence of your redefining "hit". Thinking is apparently not your strong suit. I won't hold it against you.

Dervag
2008-02-28, 04:20 PM
Sir Isaac Newton would disagree with you. So would most conventional scientific thinking.I'm not arguing with your point directly, but the way you phrased it reminded me of an interesting history of science factoid:

Actually, Newton would not disagree, because he didn't believe in kinetic energy. It sounds really dumb in hindsight, but the problem went like this:

Newton made some brilliant physics discoveries. Among them, he discovered the mathematical law that we now call the "law of conservation of momentum". Momentum is equal to mass times speed.

Meanwhile, in Germany a guy named Leibnitz was also making some brilliant physics discoveries. Among them was his discovery that for some purposes, the effect of an object striking another object was proportionate to the square of its speed. This was because of what we now call "kinetic energy."

Thing is, Newton hated Liebnitz and vice versa. So Newton continued to deny that this "speed squared" thing was actually important, as did a number of his followers, for several decades. They were so focused on momentum (which was real) that they decided that there couldn't be something else, similarly real and important, related to the square of the speed.

Just a random aside.


Yup, pain is psychological to some extent. Pump yourself up on the right drugs, or adrenaline, and you'll feel less of it. There have been cases of people high on adrenaline getting injured (broken bones, being shot) and not noticing till later.

The jury is out on whether adrenaline will also offset the consequences of getting kicked in the groin.Possibly because no one in the jury is willing to try it and find out.

[ouch!]

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-29, 03:22 AM
What I'm trying to say is that arguing that players are unable to accept something that isn't relevant to the system they're playing in, dispite how things might work in real life, seems a bit silly to me. If they were worried about accuracy they'd be playing a game that simulates that.


(I've started another thread for this now, but since you've replied here...)

I'm *absolutely* not saying that there's anything wrong with daggers doing less damage than greatswords in D&D I'm just saying that the *fact* that daggers do less damage than greatswords in D&D affects the way people think about daggers IC, right down to determining their assumptions about genre conventions. The example was brought up originally as an example of how the "Crunch" affects the "Fluff".

D&D (IMO artificially) makes big two handed weapons more mechanically effective than light one-handed weapons. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it makes some character archetypes significantly harder to build than others. A dagger or rapier wielder can dish out a reasonable amount of damage with Sneak Attack, but not everybody wants the flavour of Sneak Attack (skulking around the flanks, trying to take people by surprise, suddenly being useless against the undead and Golems). D'Artagnan is harder to build in D&D than Conan, the Court of the Sun King is a harder setting to model than the Hyperborean Age.

That's all I was getting at.

Charity
2008-02-29, 05:52 AM
Tell you what, since we're playing the "show me in the SRD" game, why don't you show me where a melee attack that reduces an opponents hit points must always mean contact between your weapon and their flesh.


Er much as I hate to get involved, though it is not explicitly stated it might be implied.
If one were to consider the case of a poisoned weapon for example, whenever that weapon hits, the victim will make a poison save, that would be hard to justify under your abstraction.

Starbuck_II
2008-02-29, 06:51 AM
Er much as I hate to get involved, though it is not explicitly stated it might be implied.
If one were to consider the case of a poisoned weapon for example, whenever that weapon hits, the victim will make a poison save, that would be hard to justify under your abstraction.

Unless you have DR which blocks poison is no damage given.

Talic
2008-02-29, 07:09 AM
Because fit, trained individuals don't have hearts or throats?

Sigh, yes, they do. But they also generally protect them better, deflecting attacks to less critical areas, or blocking them entirely.


Where's this rule exactly?

I'll look for it later. My supply of "I care" is out right now, so I'm rather apathetic to this whole issue.


Which is basically the same assumption.

Not really. The game isn't meant to draw comparisons in the field. You usually both are attacking the 2 headed fire breathing beastie. Weapon finesse rewards agile players with the ability to be able to hit as good as strong ones. Such characters generally get bonus damage from accuracy, such as sneak attack.


Again, this misses the point. The point is that in D&D the ability to kill a living being with a sharp object is somehow supposed to be a rare and unusual character trait possessed only by weird prestige classes.

No, it doesn't. The ability to slip past someone's defenses with a weapon that has inferior reach is the realm of a highly trained individual. See how much more sense it makes when you describe the weapon a bit more clearly and stuff?


That's still about weapon effectiveness, particulary since double-handed weapons mprove the effectiveness of Power Attack.

And finesse weapons generally get sneak attack applied to them. It's a trade off. Dexterity also gives you more bang for your buck, improving accuracy, evasiveness, and more useful skills. That it comes with a tradeoff is no surprise.


Have done. A thrust moves just as fast as a swing. And you get your body weight behind it more effectively.

Only if you want to telegraph to the world what you're aiming at.


And daggers tend to be sharper than greatswords.

True, on that point. But the sharper nature of the weapon does not change the fact that it transmits less force to the target. Less force = less damage potential. Remember, you're looking solely at the weapon from the point of killing a human. What about a rhino? An elephant? Many, if not most, of the creatures you fight in D&D are larger than you. how does that "dagger lethality" stack up against a 9 foot kodiak? It doesn't. Heavier weapons will transmit more force through the skin of the beast (grizzlies have loose skin, FYI, to better defend against piercing attacks, such as teeth), and do more damage. Daggers will perhaps hurt the creature, but by no means drop it.


Swing a greatsword at a concrete wall. Now swing a pick at it. Picks only do 1D8 damage.

Greatsword will do more damage. Pick will go deeper in a localized area.


Isaac Newton knew jack about martial arts.

Doesn't change the fact that:
massXvelocity = force.
Force/area = pressure.

Now, even doubling the dagger's pressure on an individual area, for it's sharper blade, it is so far behind in mass, that it needs to move about 15 times faster to make it up. It's not going to do that.

Whatever esoteric theories you'd like to present, they fall in the face of those physics, pure and simple. You're arguing thought. What I put above? That's truth. Cold, hard, undeniable truth.


It's not a conspiracy theory to say that a game is designed specifically to make some weapons better than others.

Yes it is, when it's not true. A game is designed specifically to have fun. I doubt 4 people made it, sitting in a back room, cackling and saying, "This'll show those dagger lovers!! HAHAHAHAHAHA".


The point is that *because* daggers are mechanically ineffective, people assume that they're ineffective in-setting. People talk about dagger wounds in terms of "scratches" and "pinpricks". It's self-supporting.

Kill a PC with a dagger. They'll quiet down about it. Experience always trumps assumption.


I can't find any "cramped conditions" rules in the SRD, in a grapple you're *still* better off getting *out* the grapple and using a greatsword than staying *in* the grapple and plinking away with your dagger.

Ah, it is usually better to escape the grapple. Unless you're grapple specialized, and holding an enemy off while the party deals with something else. Or unable to escape the grapple, and thus waste three actions trying, while that dagger wielder is plunking away for damage.


Umm... that's sort of exaclty my point. The way weapons work in D&D is a "crunch" element that totally alters the "fluff" of the setting.

Blah. Some of several setting's greatest killers use daggers.


You can't say "that's how the rules are" to justify the way the rules are.

Not trying to justify it. I'm pretty sure I could come up with a perfect arguement eventually, that would cause any open minded individual to say, "Hey, I see your point now." I'm equally sure, you wouldn't. Justification doesn't work on individuals who have made up their mind, and are not open to change.


Be nice if it had one, really...

It does. I never said that wizards can use spells in that. The proficiency and weapon system limits non-melee classes to less effective weapons. That seems reliable enough to me. Not my fault, again, that you don't LIKE that system. It is what it is. Perhaps it's not as realistic as you'd like. By all means, develop a d10,000 critical hit table. Kill any player in your game foolish enough to get into an altercation in a high fantasy setting.

Just don't tromp on other people's desire to do it the way D&D designed it, mmkay?


Except it doesn't work, in my opinion.

Edited for correctness.


Actually, most of the games I actually *play* have combat systems that work almost exactly like that. It doesn't cause problems because I don't play dungeon crawls.

Which, incidentally, is yet another way in which the "crunch" of the combat system influences the "fluff" of the setting.
Interesting. That does explain it. You hate combat, then? Most people enjoy it. Increasing the lethality of a game that is, after all, designed around combat (just look at the rules space devoted to it), well, that's fine, for people who like it that way. That said, there are probably other systems that will work better for you.

But again, those people who like those aspects of the game don't WANT 100% realism. They get that every day at their 9 to 5, or at school, or taking care of three screaming kids. They want to be a hero, be able to kick in the door and tell the BBEG to surrender. They want the combat. Yes, that requires fluff.

It also requires mechanics that don't PUNISH that play style, which yours does. In the end, this is really about playstyle. Your system ensures that anyone that seeks combat will lose many characters. The system everyone else uses is designed to allow players to explore dungeons, and kill dragons.

PnP Fan
2008-02-29, 02:20 PM
Doesn't change the fact that:
massXvelocity = force.
Force/area = pressure.


Actually.. .
Mass X Velocity = Momentum
Mass X Acceleration = Force
0.5 x Mass X Velocity ^2 = Kinetic Energy

I've not done a formal study of the subject, but I would suspect that, for the three different types of damage we're talking about, different physical calculations come into play.

For bludgeoning damage, you're probably interested in Kinetic Energy and Momentum, since they measure the exchange of forces and energy during a collision.

Piercing and slashing weapons are probably more dependent upon pressure, as compared to the shear strength of flesh (though I can imagine an argument being made for tensile stregth of flesh as well).

Just a technical correction. Carry on with the argument.

PnP Fan
2008-02-29, 02:41 PM
Addressing the OP:

I think the relationship between crunch and fluff ranges in stregth, depending on exactly what level of the setting you are talking about.

For example, if your basic assumption about how magic operates, is that is funcitons much like a physical process (say a chemical reaction or gravity), you wind up with crunch that work more or less the way D&D magic works. Very static, with durations independant of the caster (or with some dependency on skill level, much the way the results of an experiment can vary with the skill level of the experimentor, but the basic process doesn't change).

On the other hand, if magic is dependent upon something else, such as the user bending reality with his will, you wind up with something that looks more like Mage, where magic is ultimately flexible, and spells are highly the result of player/dm cooperation.

So, mechanics can be highly dependant upon fluff, if the game designer wants his mechanic to represent the feel of the fluff.

On the other hand, when you look at smaller scale issues, say, the material your breastplate is made from. Generally speaking, there's no mechanic preventing you from deciding your breastplate is made from steel, or some particular type of steel from a particular city. No game effect, just fun. The armor is no more or less effective, it's pure flavor.

In the middle ground is something like creating a variant of Fireball, called Lightningball. Does the same damage, same saves, same level, but does electrical damage instead of fire damage. Some will say that it's a fair exchange, since lightning is of similar level, and already does similar damage. Others may say "well resistance to lightning isn't as common as fire, so the lightningball should do less damage to balance out." And that's fine, but the basic mechanic is flexible enough to model either spell.

So, I guess my answer is not yes or no, but sometimes either or.

Jayngfet
2008-03-01, 01:08 AM
"wagons are made of wood" carries the same weight as "wagons can carry 300 pounds".

what, now wagons made from congealed evil aren't an option, man...harsh