Fluff, huh. What is it good for? [All]

[The Big Dice]

Carrying on a discussion that sort of started on this page and was seemingly not in danger of derailing the thread, but I felt it does deserve a thread of its own.

The obvious first question is, what is fluff?

Roleplaying games are usually divided into two separate types of content. Crunch is the hard, mechanical stuff. The nuts and bolts of playing the game. Fluff, on the other hand, is the softer stuff. The things that aren't rules but that tend to deal with the playing a role side of roleplaying games.

These two things aren't set in stone, though. Some games have a certain amount of crossover between fluff and crunch. Others separate the two more or less completely.

The discussion started up because someone suggested refluffing the Whirling Frenzy Alternate Class Feature for Barbarians into something that can be done with a bow.

I took the position that Whirling Frenzy makes it implicit just by the name that you can't use it with archery. Whirling and being frenzied being states and actions that make shooting arrows with any kind of consistency near impossible.

Now this is purely in the realms of YMMV, and that's fine. But I think, once you start refluffing, where do you stop? It's a Whirling Frenzy refluffed for archery. It's a Wizard that doesn't use verbal, material or somatic components. It's not a spell, it's a class feature.

What does the Playground think?

[Lord Raziere]

well there are some things that more open to refluffing than others, and I agree with you upon the Whirling Frenzy thing, that and barbarian, they aren't really intended for ranged types anyways, for ranged fighting you go to the ranger.

other than that refluffing is more an art than a science.

[PersonMan]

I think that fluff is really mutable. If you don't like something, you can probably refluff it(unless it's a mechanical thing). That's as far as it goes, however. Yes, spells are class features-but stilled, silent spellcasting is mechanical-unless you accept that your silent, stilled spells don't work if you're tied up or Silenced. Essentially, you can change the fluff all you want, but if you change it in certain ways you get things like material-less casting that still needs materials.

[Trog]

The nice thing about the separation of fluff and crunch, to a large degree, is that it allows for more creative depictions of actions.

Take in 4e where, without fluff description of powers, the action seems a lot more crunchy. That is, the game system shows through more without the fluffy descriptions. Which for a game meant to emerge one in another world isn't good, I suppose. So long as the underlying crunch is valid and works the fluff can be whatever you want it to be. In that way it can be nice to repurpose certain effects by changing the fluff even though the game effects (crunch) stays the same.

Take that separation away and you have to make a rule to account for every nuance of description and while that might be possible it isn't a game I'd want to play in.

[The Rose Dragon]

Depends on the game, really. GURPS, for example has no fluff that you can divorce from the mechanics, but it has almost no fluff to begin with, and if you make fluff the skill of First Aid into calling healing bolts of lightning from the sky, then you are probably better off looking into an advantage.

((Strangely, the more fluff a game has, the easier it is to change that fluff.))

[Dienekes]

As I said a few times in the other thread my personal belief is:

Mechanics are meant to give you a framework and to be fairly balanced so that everyone can have fun.

Fluff is meant to explain those mechanics, in one possible way. They are also meant to be fun, but if they ever get in the way they can be fairly easily scrapped.

If a player has a concept that involves using mechanics in a way that makes sense for them, but the fluff doesn't allow then change the fluff. Ultimately the game is for the players. Changing a class abilities name and description don't unbalance anything and they can cause more fun than not.

Really I don't see a downside in letting the Whirling Archer work. The player gets a cool archery benefit (and with archery in dnd it's probably needed) and so long as the mechanics don't change there's no problem.

That is the major disagreement I have with your argument. There is a difference between saying "my barbarian gets really angry" or "my warrior poet lets himself sink into battle focus" and homebrew both examples are perfectly legitimate interpretations of the rage mechanics. The only thing getting in the way of the player seeing his level 1 barbarian as a calculating intelligent warrior is the GM claiming that the ability is called rage therefore he must be a screaming idiot with foam coming out of his mouth.

Also, homebrew is another useful tool but "it's a Wizard that doesn't use components" is altering the mechanics not refluffing. As is making a spell a class ability. Homebrew is trickier than refluffing sure, my own feeble attempts are testaments to that. But one of the great thing about tabletop games as opposed to video games is that we are not constrained by arbitrary rules and fluff. We can change things as we like, so I guess I don't see why anyone would cut off one of the benefits of the system.

[Eldan]

As long as the rules are the same, I have no problem whatsoever with refluffing anything as anything else. If you want, take an archer and call the arrows silent magical missiles that work in antimagic field. Sure.

[Saph]

I've always thought that the distinction between fluff and crunch is a bit artificial, and doesn't add anything to the game. I mean, the rulebooks don't actually have much distinction between the two. It's not like they're written in different coloured text or anything. If you "refluff" something, you're changing the rules just as much as if you alter the numbers.

So I don't see much distinction between altering one or the other. In both cases, it's a matter of a) does it make sense? b) is it balanced? c) will it create more or less work in the long run?

Of course fluff is mutable. The rules are mutable too, and so are the numbers, and everything else. Even the system is mutable: we can stop playing one RPG and start playing another. So saying that fluff is mutable is a bit meaningless, really.

[DeltaEmil]

Whirling Frenzy itself has mechanically no restriction that it must be used in melee, nor does Rage. In fact, refluffing is not even needed, and it's not and will never be against the spirit of the rules. You can use rage for your mighty composite bows and thrown weapons (and the picture of a strong guy throwing some deadly weapon so hard that it kills another guy is an accepted and popular scenario, as is that only he is strong enough to pull a freakish bow and starts killing people in anger after those people tried to marry his wife while he was away), and whirling frenzy, which is just meant as a nice alternative for those who don't want to deal with the hit point-increase because of the Constitution-modifier.
Just clinging on a random name to argue that it's not supposed to work like that is laughable. If they would have called it Combat Focus, Battle Rush, Martial Celerity, Uber-Frenzy or something like that, should there really also be a discussion about how a randomly chosen, not important fluff definition of a mechanical construct?

However, the example of a wizard not needing to use verbal, somatic or material components (if he doesn't have the necessary metamagic feats, of course) is not the same, because those are clear-defined rules-restriction. This is not refluffing.

Refluffing would be something like that instead of speaking eldritch words, he has to sing an eldritch song or speak an audible prayer to nature spirits, instead of wobbling with your hand, you have to eat a symbolic frog in a specific ritualistic way, and instead of using material components, you have to use fleeting incenses of various herbal plants mixed together to cast a spell. If the material component would have costed more than 1 gp, then the incense has to mechanically cost the same. That's refluffing.

[The Big Dice]

I've always thought that the distinction between fluff and crunch is a bit artificial, and doesn't add anything to the game. I mean, the rulebooks don't actually have much distinction between the two. It's not like they're written in different coloured text or anything. If you "refluff" something, you're changing the rules just as much as if you alter the numbers.

That depends on the rulebooks you're reading. Legend of the Five Rings has pretty clear distinctions between rules sections and story sections of the books.

In fact, the first edition Way of the Clans series were almost entirely fluff, with only one full chapter, sidebars in a second chapter and an appendix containing any rules information at all.

However, the example of a wizard not needing to use verbal, somatic or material components (if he doesn't have the necessary metamagic feats, of course) is not the same, because those are clear-defined rules-restriction. This is not refluffing.

Actually, that's exactly the advice I've seen given regarding Psionics. Refluff it as magic and you're good to go.

[Yukitsu]

This comes more from my experience as a war gamer than an RPG player, but fluff ends where mechanics begin.

[Saph]

That depends on the rulebooks you're reading. Legend of the Five Rings has pretty clear distinctions between rules sections and story sections of the books.

In fact, the first edition Way of the Clans series were almost entirely fluff, with only one full chapter, sidebars in a second chapter and an appendix containing any rules information at all.

Sure. But as a GM, if I'm trying to decide the outcome of something, I'm going to be using both. I'm just saying that I don't think it's helpful to treat one as fixed and the other as mutable, since in most consistent campaign worlds the two will generally interlock anyway.

Or to put it another way: If a player tells me he wants to refluff something, I'm going to look at changing the content of the rulebooks. If a player tells me he wants to change the crunch of something, I'm going to look at changing the content of the rulebooks. It's the exact same process either way.

[The Rose Dragon]

Or to put it another way: If a player tells me he wants to refluff something, I'm going to look at changing the content of the rulebooks. If a player tells me he wants to change the crunch of something, I'm going to look at changing the content of the rulebooks. It's the exact same process either way.

Yes, but one changes the game, while the other changes the roleplaying. The exact same process, but different results. Just like game theory and acting are different things.

[The Dark Fiddler]

However, the example of a wizard not needing to use verbal, somatic or material components (if he doesn't have the necessary metamagic feats, of course) is not the same, because those are clear-defined rules-restriction. This is not refluffing.

Even then there's still a tiny bit of room, if you have a nice DM. Perhaps instead of having to speak the words himself, the wizard's spells make a noise that substitute for the verbal components. No actual verbal components, but the effect is the same.

...kinda drawing a blank for the other two, though. I'm sure somebody else could think of examples if they tried.

[Eldan]

Actually, I agree with Saph here, up to a point. Both is written in the rulebook, after all, and both has large effects on what works or doesn't work in the game.

However, generally, the assumption is that the designers tried to design the rules in a balanced fashion, while the fluff is written to be appealing. Changing something from a competence bonus to a circumstance bonus (random example) can have further ramifications when a player then finds another competence bonus to add.

[DeltaEmil]

Actually, that's exactly the advice I've seen given regarding Psionics. Refluff it as magic and you're good to go.

That's because there is already a transparency rule for how psionics and regular magic interact.

Combining Psionic And Magical Effects

The default rule for the interaction of psionics and magic is simple: Powers interact with spells and spells interact with powers in the same way a spell or normal spell-like ability interacts with another spell or spell-like ability. This is known as psionics-magic transparency.
Psionics-Magic Transparency

Though not explicitly called out in the spell descriptions or magic item descriptions, spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items that could potentially affect psionics do affect psionics.

When the rule about psionics-magic transparency is in effect, it has the following ramifications.

Spell resistance is effective against powers, using the same mechanics. Likewise, power resistance is effective against spells, using the same mechanics as spell resistance. If a creature has one kind of resistance, it is assumed to have the other. (The effects have similar ends despite having been brought about by different means.)

All spells that dispel magic have equal effect against powers of the same level using the same mechanics, and vice versa.

The spell detect magic detects powers, their number, and their strength and location within 3 rounds (though a Psicraft check is necessary to identify the discipline of the psionic aura).

Dead magic areas are also dead psionics areas.

That's why refluffing psionics and magic as being essentially the same is absolutely normal, and nobody would really blink an eye about it.

[Saph]

Yes, but one changes the game, while the other changes the roleplaying. The exact same process, but different results. Just like game theory and acting are different things.

The game and the roleplaying are closely linked with each other, though. You can divide them up if you want to, and it's a valid way to look at it, but I don't think it makes any sense to see one as mutable and the other as immutable.

[Eldan]

This depends very much on the system used, though. So far, I was actually mostly thinking about D&D, which is rather rules-heavy.

If you look at something like Fate/Fudge, though, the fluff basically is the rules.

[Yukitsu]

The game and the roleplaying are closely linked with each other, though. You can divide them up if you want to, and it's a valid way to look at it, but I don't think it makes any sense to see one as mutable and the other as immutable.

I think a lot of people view it as "I'm hacking the game/inputting cheat codes to change the way the game plays" (changing the rules of the world) as compared to "I'm picking this story arc instead of this other one" (changing your interpretation of the world). There isn't anything wrong with changing the rules of the game, but I think it has a more negative connotation to a lot of people than simply changing how the standard rules are used, hence why for most people it's useful to know the difference.

[Vangor]

One of the elements of fluff could be as simple as the name. Certainly "Whirling Frenzy" does not sound like an archery ability, but what is the difference between that and calling it "Temper'd Haste"? Nothing mechanically, and the fluff beyond the name would largely be identical.

Now, I am not one to separate the fluff from the crunch. Not to say the fluff cannot change without altering the crunch, but I prefer when creating materials for the crunch to follow the fluff. Primarily, I do this because I enjoy one aspect of the crunch to feel different from another, to serve different purposes, which is indicated by the fluff.

For game systems such as 3.5, we refluff constantly. What is important is keeping the refluffing consistent with the fact we're interested in roleplaying aspects, too. If you lack the attention to roleplaying aspects, ignore the fluff and take the crunch as desired. Nothing wrong with using Whirling Frenzy which explicitly says in the fluff box "become an uncoordinated killing machine" as a means to fire more arrows if you don't want to use the fluff.

[Siosilvar]

It's a Wizard that doesn't use verbal, material or somatic components. It's not a spell, it's a class feature.

As stated before, neither of those two are refluffing. You could get around the material components by buying a 2gp focusing wand (aka spell component pouch), but the others have large mechanic impacts.

Also, spells already are class features.

When it starts having a mechanical impact on the game, then it becomes homebrew or house rules instead of refluffing. Simply calling (to use the example on p110 of the PHB) the "Move Silently" skill "Footpaddin'" or "Rice Paper Walk" instead changes nothing mechanical about the game.

You can call your skills, feats, and class features whatever your character would call them.

[GeminiVeil]

I had a similar discussion on the VoP thread. Basically was suggested to me to get rid of the fluff of it in an old game so that the VoP character didn't need to donate gathered treasure, he just didn't get a share, and reduce the treasure by 25%. The only reason I allowed the feat in the first place, though, was on condition that the fluff WAS played out. I don't think it's very VoP to not try and help others less fortunate, since it was an Exalted feat.
I personally try not to change either fluff or rules. They usually compliment each other, and I have had a few bad experiances with DM's who changed them in a poor manner. That said, sometimes one or the other can use a bit of retooling. I do agree with Saph that generally, both should be mutable except in rare circumstances. It's just not something I do very often myself.

[Kyeudo]

Fluff and Crunch can be practically the same thing in some games. In Exalted, characters can talk about Distracting Finger Gesture as easily as the players, they practically know what their Essence score is, and so on and so forth. Limits laid down in a paragraph about the setting are considered binding upon what you can do mechanically.

In others, like D&D 3.5, you have a general divorcement of Fluff and Crunch. If I want to have a magic boombox that kills people with sonic waves, I can easily represent it with a magic bow that deals sonic damage and has infinite ammo.

It all really depends on how your game runs. Some games tolerate as much refluffing as you want and so are easily portable, others are more closely tied to the setting and give you a greater sense of connection to the world.

[Dienekes]

The game and the roleplaying are closely linked with each other, though. You can divide them up if you want to, and it's a valid way to look at it, but I don't think it makes any sense to see one as mutable and the other as immutable.

I agree with you up to a point.

I believe both are mutable, just fluff is more mutable than crunch.

When I'm faced with a fluff change my response as GM is:
Does this fit the setting? If it does it gets okayed without a seconds hesitation.

When faced with a crunch change:
Is this reasonably balanced when compared with my other players skills? Then it gets brushed in.

Of the two crunch takes a bit more thought put into it and so I do it more rarely. Though I definitely have made a few crunch changes when I game.

[NMBLNG]

I think in RPGs there are 3 parts.

Mechanics: Something that relies of rules to function. ie, how much damage a spell or weapon does. Note that most mechanical things have some fluff associated with it.

Fluff: Something that has no mechanical or rule based effect. Like the common stereotypes of races. Often elves and dwarves don't like each other, but D&D elves and dwarves don't get penalties to interact with each other. Fluff can also include the source of magical powers or the exact manner in which combat techniques are performed.

Traits: Something that mixes mechanics and fluff, or something that is 'fluffy' in nature, but requires some mechanical backup. For instance, a player wants to play a fire mage. Now describing all your spells as fire is fine, but actually dealing [fire] damage is mechanical.



Now, I like having a division between mechanics and fluff. It lets me have a bit more flexibility in how my character appears and plays.

[Frozen_Feet]

"Fluff" and "Crunch" are sides of the same coin. Crunch can arise from fluff, and fluff can arise from crunch; that's because both work towards the same thing: modeling events within the game. In many cases, the division exist just in the head of the player.

Example is D&D skill system; all skills follow the same basic rules. Only "fluff", or what they represent within the game, separates them from each other; but if you go around changing that fluff, it has equally deeprunning impact on a character with ranks in that skill as changing the skill formula would have.

Another example would be refluffing a fireball as a ball of lightning; same amount of dice might be thrown, but there's a perceptible change in the game world. A GM might feel the need to add some other effect to quantify this within the system - ping, you've just reached the source of how D&D rules, or RPG rules in general, come to existence!

I hear talk about "refluffing" on these boards mostly in the context in D&D - and I think it's less because fluff is any easier to change than crunch, but because the people here are so familiar with D&D mechanics. d20 has a rule for pretty darn near everything - there are existing guidelines for almost every effect you could think of. So it's obviously easier to just pick a pre-existing effect and name it differently than come up with unique crunch. Should be no surprise, since the system itself is built to be modular.

But it isn't, at its core, any different from all other houseruling. The math's just been done already. If working with other kinds of systems, refluffing like that might not make sense, or there might be nothing to refluff. I own a game called "Tähti" focused around playing members of a futuristic Finnish Girl Pop Band. The game rules go thusly: the GM and players pick up fortune cookies and direct the game based on the fortunes. There... just isn't a divide between "roleplaying" and "game" parts. It's a small-scope, well defined box of its own - add or substract much, and it ceases to be the same game at all.

[Ernir]

IMO?
Crunch is the syntax of the equation, fluff is the name of the variables.

[navar100]

I'm playing a Chromemagus. I manipulate the colors of the rainbow to fool the senses. I give them power to hurt my enemies.

(I'm not even going to play an Initiate of the Seven-Fold Veil.)

I'm playing a Pathfinder Sorcerer with Arcane Bloodline. Because there are so many good spells to choose I'm overwhelmed. For roleplay purposes I'll have my spells known be based on a theme of colors to help choose which spells to take. At low level this means mostly Illusion spells like Silent Image, Color Spray, and Hypnotic Pattern. However, Ray of Enfeeblement is black. Rainbow Blast from Spell Compendium is a perfect fit. Minor Globe Of Invulnerability is a protective white bubble. Disintegrate is green. Then there's the ultimate joy of casting Prismatic Spray.

Even my bloodline spells fit.
Identify - Perceive the colors of a magic object
Invisibility - Suppress my colors
Dispel Magic - Destroy the color of magic
Dimension Door - Hop the rainbow
Overland Flight - Glide the spectrum
True Seeing - Perceive the true colors
Greater Teleport - Travel the rainbow
Power Word Stun - Fill your mind with color
Wish - Manipulate colors as I see fit

Fluff enhances the roleplaying experience so that the game mechanics are not just a bunch of letters and numbers.

[faceroll]

I've always thought that the distinction between fluff and crunch is a bit artificial, and doesn't add anything to the game. I mean, the rulebooks don't actually have much distinction between the two. It's not like they're written in different coloured text or anything. If you "refluff" something, you're changing the rules just as much as if you alter the numbers.

So I don't see much distinction between altering one or the other. In both cases, it's a matter of a) does it make sense? b) is it balanced? c) will it create more or less work in the long run?

Of course fluff is mutable. The rules are mutable too, and so are the numbers, and everything else. Even the system is mutable: we can stop playing one RPG and start playing another. So saying that fluff is mutable is a bit meaningless, really.

I feel largely the same way, and alter rules/fluff as GM to achieve the desired results.

[Otodetu]

Whirling Frenzy itself has mechanically no restriction that it must be used in melee, nor does Rage. In fact, refluffing is not even needed, and it's not and will never be against the spirit of the rules. You can use rage for your mighty composite bows and thrown weapons (and the picture of a strong guy throwing some deadly weapon so hard that it kills another guy is an accepted and popular scenario, as is that only he is strong enough to pull a freakish bow and starts killing people in anger after those people tried to marry his wife while he was away), and whirling frenzy, which is just meant as a nice alternative for those who don't want to deal with the hit point-increase because of the Constitution-modifier.
Just clinging on a random name to argue that it's not supposed to work like that is laughable. If they would have called it Combat Focus, Battle Rush, Martial Celerity, Uber-Frenzy or something like that, should there really also be a discussion about how a randomly chosen, not important fluff definition of a mechanical construct?

However, the example of a wizard not needing to use verbal, somatic or material components (if he doesn't have the necessary metamagic feats, of course) is not the same, because those are clear-defined rules-restriction. This is not refluffing.

Refluffing would be something like that instead of speaking eldritch words, he has to sing an eldritch song or speak an audible prayer to nature spirits, instead of wobbling with your hand, you have to eat a symbolic frog in a specific ritualistic way, and instead of using material components, you have to use fleeting incenses of various herbal plants mixed together to cast a spell. If the material component would have costed more than 1 gp, then the incense has to mechanically cost the same. That's refluffing.

This is correct.