Fluff in RPG books

[NineInchNall]

Going through some old threads, I saw some discussion of what goes into making an RPG book, and one of those things was fluff text, like short stories. It made me wonder: what the fuck is the point of that shit?

I mean, in no book I've owned have I ever read more than a couple sentences of any short story or letter, a few panes of comic, or indeed anything beyond that which is functional.

Now, some degree of setting description is functional; e.g., what the various nations are, historical events relevant to play, basic cultural features, etc. However, a lot of books put a lot of useless information out there, too, waxing verbose about shit that just does not matter. The sheer, mind-numbing detail of the L5R history section, clan descriptions, and fucking season summaries are so overwrought and overwritten that I'm filled with dread at the thought of reading them.

Do people actually read and care about that shit? Really? I find it hard to fathom how the 18 pages of timeline in L5R could be interesting or useful, or how the oodles of short stories (Yes, multiple. Probably more than 20.) in Weapons of the Gods do anything but get in my way as I try to learn the rules and get a grasp on the setting.

The 3.5 PHB actually did quite well in this regard, I think.

Anyway, why include all that text? What purpose do the letters/diary entries/short stories in WW books serve? Who the fuck reads them?

[PoliteNewb]

I read them. If they're decent, I like them...they add immersion. If they suck, then they suck. It's fairly hit or miss.

I do generally prefer a separation of fluff books vs. crunch books, honestly...you buy book X because it contains mechanics and options, and you buy book Y because it contains setting information. That way people only get what they want.

But pretty much my favorite book for the Iron Kingdoms RPG was their sourcebook on Five Fingers, which is almost all fluff; it's a good read.

[Username17]

D&D can get away with not having any fluff because the setting is Dungeons & Dragons, which is incoherent and well known. If you're setting you game in anything more specific or less known than that, you need fluff.

I find that half-page pieces of fluff text at the beginnings of chapters are about the limit for in media res fiction pieces. Longer than that and I skip to the crunchy bits. Also, those pieces should not be in italics, because paragraphs of italicized text are exhausting to read.

Whole books can be about the world, and that is totally fine.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

Yeah, the basic D&D books don't even pretend to be marketed at anyone that doesn't understand the concepts of "adventuring" and "dungeon" in the D&D context. They're at the same level as the World of Darkness core book, GURPS Basic set, and fucking Masterbook. Basically every other RPG needs to actually sell you on the game concept, the setting, or something - even licensed RPGs like Star Wars.

On the commercial side, fluff is generally easier to write - hard to write well, but when it works it can be very good. The Chris Kubasik story in the back of Virtual Realities 1.0 for Shadowrun 1e is considered by grognards of that vintage and persuasion as an absolute classic; the opening fiction for the first couple editons of Shadowrun were likewise extremely well-received, as were mostly fluffy books like Denizens of Earthdawn, Vol. 1, also from FASA. On the other hand, excessive fluff is often shovelware - case in point, most WoD books.

[K]

Fluff is super-easy to write. This is why DnD 4e released entire fluff supplements without a trace a rules.

[mean_liar]

The Chris Kubasik story in the back of Virtual Realities 1.0 for Shadowrun 1e is considered by grognards of that vintage and persuasion as an absolute classic...

Yes. Yes it is. That is probably the most memorable fluff I've ever read in a game book in my entire three decades of gaming.

[hogarth]

For me, I'd like the fluff and crunch bits to be intermingled so that the rules are actually readable. For instance, a good place to put fluff is in examples of how the rules work. I haven't read either Golden Age Champions or the Ringworld RPG in decades, but I still have fond memories of the "exploits" of Akbar & Buggy the Boy Wonder and Dr. Uwe Freiberg.

The idea that you have one page of bad fanfiction followed by five pages of stereo instructions (repeat ad nauseam) is stupid.

[NineInchNall]

Basically every other RPG needs to actually sell you on the game concept, the setting, or something - even licensed RPGs like Star Wars.

My thing is that stuff like 20 pages of setting timeline don't do that, at least not for me.

For me, I'd like the fluff and crunch bits to be intermingled so that the rules are actually readable. For instance, a good place to put fluff is in examples of how the rules work. I haven't read either Golden Age Champions or the Ringworld RPG in decades, but I still have fond memories of the "exploits" of Akbar & Buggy the Boy Wonder and Dr. Uwe Freiberg.

I'm totally down with this.

But the following is a particularly poor way to do it, even disregarding the terrible Rebecca Borgstrom/Jenna Moran prose.

[name_here]

Ideally fluff is fun to read and helps establish a coherent setting so later books in the setting have something to do with the games you were running.

However fluff is easier to write than mechanics, so if the book contains a lot of fluff odds are high it was written to fill space by incompetent people unless it's specifically a fluff book.

[OgreBattle]

RIFTS does it really super duper well, those are the only books where I actually read all the backstory stuff.


I think it works better for sci-fi setting on Earth than fantasy, because with RIFTS it's like "so what happened to Chicago... oh neat", while any fantasy series is made up places I won't particularly care for.


The Races of War stuff I enjoy reading though, those war scenarios and outcomes. I wish actual D&D books read like that.

[Lokathor]

I love reading the Shadowrun and Earthdawn fluff. I wouldn't care half as much as I do about those games without any fluff to go with them.

New World Of Darkness has almost entirely bad fluff.

DnD has pretty bland fluff in 2e and 3e. Probably because it's seeped into so many other things it's now the "generic" fluff.

[hogarth]

For me, I'd like the fluff and crunch bits to be intermingled so that the rules are actually readable. For instance, a good place to put fluff is in examples of how the rules work. I haven't read either Golden Age Champions or the Ringworld RPG in decades, but I still have fond memories of the "exploits" of Akbar & Buggy the Boy Wonder and Dr. Uwe Freiberg.

I'm totally down with this.

But the following is a particularly poor way to do it, even disregarding the terrible Rebecca Borgstrom/Jenna Moran prose.

That's exactly the kind of thing I mean when I don't want fan-fiction alternating with stereo instructions. The story blurb tells you almost nothing about the rules, and the rules tell you almost nothing about the flavour of how they're used.

[name_here]

Techinical difficulties, duplicate post.

[Caedrus]

Going through some old threads, I saw some discussion of what goes into making an RPG book, and one of those things was fluff text, like short stories. It made me wonder: what the fuck is the point of that shit?

I mean, in no book I've owned have I ever read more than a couple sentences of any short story or letter, a few panes of comic, or indeed anything beyond that which is functional.

Now, some degree of setting description is functional; e.g., what the various nations are, historical events relevant to play, basic cultural features, etc. However, a lot of books put a lot of useless information out there, too, waxing verbose about shit that just does not matter. The sheer, mind-numbing detail of the L5R history section, clan descriptions, and fucking season summaries are so overwrought and overwritten that I'm filled with dread at the thought of reading them.

Do people actually read and care about that shit? Really? I find it hard to fathom how the 18 pages of timeline in L5R could be interesting or useful, or how the oodles of short stories (Yes, multiple. Probably more than 20.) in Weapons of the Gods do anything but get in my way as I try to learn the rules and get a grasp on the setting.

The 3.5 PHB actually did quite well in this regard, I think.

Anyway, why include all that text? What purpose do the letters/diary entries/short stories in WW books serve? Who the fuck reads them?

One thing they can do is establish perspectives that draw players into the world, such as a setting's cultures.

[silva]

Let me quote a pal from TheRPGsite:

I am really impressed with the ideas presented in Runequest/Legend. You build a magic system or a cult and the more a character pursues a particular path, the more ingrained they become with subsequent improvements, access, social mobility, and knowledge. It's all tied together. The system stuff, the setting fluff, and character improvement. Things are tied directly to what you're doing in the game. I think this is the way to create a game.

Tl;dr:
Good fluff = usable, pertinent information in the setting tied to game mechanics that make this "fluff" a playable part of the experience.

THIS.

And the fact Runequest stablished what is arguably the best fluff book ever in 1979 (with "Cults of Prax") and it still is the best one, says something about its design.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

The idea that you have one page of bad fanfiction followed by five pages of stereo instructions (repeat ad nauseam) is stupid.

I agree with this sentiment. Prefacing rules text with fluff of any length from epigraph on up only serves to both establish a cadence of what to ignore in subsequent sections as well as label the author insufferable in the bargain. A light usage of flavor text in rules examples, however, is usefully demonstrative.

One of the very few in-universe texts I found both enjoyable to read and illustrative of a game's themes is De Rerum Supernatura from CoC.

[Username17]

I'm going to dignify the bizarre Glorantha trolling with a single word of reply (and even that is more than it deserves):
Ducks.



Fuck that stupid piece of stupid shit.

Anyway...

The idea that you have one page of bad fanfiction followed by five pages of stereo instructions (repeat ad nauseam) is stupid.

I agree with this sentiment. Prefacing rules text with fluff of any length from epigraph on up only serves to both establish a cadence of what to ignore in subsequent sections as well as label the author insufferable in the bargain. A light usage of flavor text in rules examples, however, is usefully demonstrative.

One of the very few in-universe texts I found both enjoyable to read and illustrative of a game's themes is De Rerum Supernatura from CoC.

You are basically incredibly full of shit and [mod edit]A roleplaying game is the fluff. Every thing in the game is a thing in the world. Every action in the game is an action in the world. The only reason you can do anything at all is because of fluff. The rules are things that can be dispensed with, Magical Teaparty is still an RPG. The fluff is not. Go is not an RPG. Abstract mechanics are WORTHLESS. But fluff that does not have mechanics written for it is not. You can always generate mechanics to play out the fluff - even ad hoc during play if necessary. But free floating mechanics do not do anything at all.

Hell, 4e is a terrible abomination in no small part because the mechanics do not match to the fluff. That does not imply that the fluff is despensible, it implies that the fluff is indispensible. They tried making a DnD version where it did not matter whether you were casting a spell or throwing a rock and THAT WAS TERRIBLE.

-Username17

[Nebuchadnezzar]

The above example of a petulance-induced strawman is particularly pathetic in that it takes a comment about chapter layout and conflates it with the need for setting material in a game. Instead of the standard response of an image macro and nigh-constant shifts in typeface, how about you just fuck all the way off, you arrogant hack?

Edit: Also, (to be clear, I didn't report the offending comment)

Wishing death on someone is not allowed. This includes telling someone they should "Die in a fire" and similar sentiments.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I have no idea what Apple Lane is and don't really care. I've seen goofier ideas for games than duck knights that I've wanted to play. I've never played Runequest. I don't care about that in either direction.

But the rest of the shit Frank said? It's absolutely fucking right. I disagree with Frank on a lot of shit, but here he's got it cold.

[Chamomile]

The idea that you have one page of bad fanfiction followed by five pages of stereo instructions (repeat ad nauseam) is stupid.

I agree with this sentiment. Prefacing rules text with fluff of any length from epigraph on up only serves to both establish a cadence of what to ignore in subsequent sections as well as label the author insufferable in the bargain. A light usage of flavor text in rules examples, however, is usefully demonstrative.

One of the very few in-universe texts I found both enjoyable to read and illustrative of a game's themes is De Rerum Supernatura from CoC.

You are basically incredibly full of shit and [mod edit]A roleplaying game is the fluff. Every thing in the game is a thing in the world. Every action in the game is an action in the world. The only reason you can do anything at all is because of fluff. The rules are things that can be dispensed with, Magical Teaparty is still an RPG. The fluff is not. Go is not an RPG. Abstract mechanics are WORTHLESS. But fluff that does not have mechanics written for it is not. You can always generate mechanics to play out the fluff - even ad hoc during play if necessary. But free floating mechanics do not do anything at all.

Hell, 4e is a terrible abomination in no small part because the mechanics do not match to the fluff. That does not imply that the fluff is despensible, it implies that the fluff is indispensible. They tried making a DnD version where it did not matter whether you were casting a spell or throwing a rock and THAT WAS TERRIBLE.

-Username17

This post looks like PhoneLobster co-wrote it.

[hogarth]

But the rest of the shit Frank said? It's absolutely fucking right. I disagree with Frank on a lot of shit, but here he's got it cold.

I agree with what Frank said, but I can't figure out how it's supposed to disagree with what Nebuchadnezzar said. If your fluff is in the form of discrete chunks of mini-fanfiction with little or no connection to the actual rules, then people certainly will tend to ignore it. For example, Gary Gygax can swear up and down all day that D&D is supposed to feel like a Conan story or a Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser story, but the rules don't support that much at all and to say otherwise is misleading.

The further a game's fluff is from an actual example of play, the more pointless (or even counterproductive, in some cases) it is.

[Ancient History]

You don't have a game if it's just crunch without fluff. Fluff provides the motivation, setting, and purpose of the game; the crunch is just there to help the PCs carry out what goes on in the fluff. In many of the best games, the fluff and the crunch are intimately connected - I like to cite Earthdawn as perhaps the best example in this regard. Bad games tend to be marked by a severe disconnect between fluff and crunch, with the two in disagreement, or where so many exceptions exist that the crunch is undermined.

This is partially why I dislike porting settings to different systems, because the destination system is almost always not tailored to the setting. For example, Shadowrun on Savage Worlds is a disaster. SW is a bad system on its own, but with Shadowrun it's a complete debacle because you cannot easily include half the concepts of the setting in the SW system.

People lose sight of the fluff-crunch connection for a couple reasons.

First, a lot of fluff is terribly written. There is a degree of skill that goes into writing an enticing, engrossing world, and there is a degree of skill that goes into writing narrative short fiction and these are not the same skills. So in a lot of books, the quality of the fluff varies considerably, and readers get tired of it very quickly. Especially in shovelware books like nWoD.

Second, like grammar crunch is not always easy to write correctly, but it is very easy to point out when it is wrong, so it tends to get more focus than the narrative bits. Of all the sourcebooks and supplements I've had a hand in writing in, very few people have ever gotten back to me on whether they loved or hated my fluff - ten times of many people have bitched or commented on my mechanics (mostly bitched...and to be fair, I have fucked up, so I deserved to get bitched at for that). Even then, few people comment positively on the mechanics you get right; few people bitched about my enchanting rules in SR4, and of those most of them were bitching because they hadn't actually read them and were bitching about some half-remembered rules from a previous edition.

So: lots of bad fluff which is ignored plus a focus on the crunch often leads to neglected fluff. Which is unfortunate, because as I've said, you need fluff - nobody can run a GURPS campaign, for example. GURPS isn't a setting, it's a collection of rules. You run a game on a GURPS engine or a GURPS <insert-noun> campaign. And yeah, as Frank said, you can even dispense with rules entirely - in which case the RPG session looks more like a round-robin storytelling session. D&D gets away with minimal fluff in its core books because it has established itself as a concept - people know that you're going to be playing adventurers and going into dungeons, maybe to fight dragons. World of Darkness, GURPS, Masterbook, BRP, &c. can't get away with that because they haven't established that basic conceit - they're systems, sometimes with settings in tow, but they don't have the same meme-level inherent recognition that D&D has...and even D&D can have trouble selling itself.

See also my post about Fluff, Crunch, & Chew.

[sabs]

hogarth,

That's not an argument for not having fluff. It's an argument for not having bad fluff. And it's an argument for making sure that the rules and the fluff jive.

Good fluff, also helps you figure out the kind of story/gameplay that is actually supported by the rules.

There are plenty of rpg books I read for the fluff, and just face palm at the mechanics. And some books (WhiteWolf) you just shake your head at both.. which is why they are out of business.

But whitewolf is an example of bad fluff and horrible mechanics. Not an example of how fluff isn't important.

[hogarth]

hogarth,

That's not an argument for not having fluff.

As far as I can tell, absolutely no one on this thread is arguing that RPGs shouldn't have fluff. Am I missing something?

[Nebuchadnezzar]

If I were to have my druthers flavor text would be primarily centered in one of four locations for a given game's manual: expository text folded in with "What is Roleplaying?" (assuming the latter is deemed necessary at all) which describes the kind of game for which the rules are designed to be used, integrated fully within play examples, in an example setting chapter that's crunch-free save the occasional NPC statline, and in ecology listings within a bestiary.

I won't go quite so far as to say punctuating mechanics with the occasional bit of fiction is jarring to the reader, but there is a non-trivial chance many readers will simply ignore it, and so it should be excised by an author more interested in being succinct than self-indulgent. However, when used within examples of play, fluff can indirectly highlight genre conventions while generally being brief enough so as to be less likely glossed over.

A separate issue entirely is how one puts together an engaging setting chapter, and is largely subjective. I'll admit to having occasionally enjoyed a lengthy timeline, and felt it was useful for the odd purpose in-game, but have seen plenty of examples (like the aforementioned L5R) where it was excessive.