Is Fluff separate from Rules in D&D?

[sikyon]

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]

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]

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.

[tyckspoon]

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.

[Collin152]

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.

[Zincorium]

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]

No. And it´s 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, it´s 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 don´t want to play a system that makes us have fun despite it´s 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Weren't the Paladin and Assassin classes touted as the perfect examples of fluff-as-mechanics?

[Matthew]

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 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]

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]

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]

No. And it´s 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

It's a /word/. Fluff doesn't mean it's unimportant.

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

[[FLUX]]

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?