Fluff
This came to me by way of a few different avenues, most recently via this great post: there’s a poll about mechanics and story in D&D Next. This post is basically an Indies & More post on the issues brought up by the poll (when the D&D designers are this vocal it gives me a lot to blog about).
First off, read the mini-post that goes with the poll, it’ll only take a second. In particular, note the last sentence of the first paragraph, sic: “We all know them and are familiar with them, and to some degree we expect to see them in flavor text describing these aspects of the game.”
There are two words there that just bog me down: “flavor text.”
Here’s the thing that many games (examples in a bit) show: there is no such thing as flavor text in an RPG. The game is entirely in your imagination, and the text influences your imagination, so the entire text is the game.
Let’s take an example from a D&D book, one of the later d20 expansions that I think is particularly cool: the Tome of Magic. Here’s an excerpt from one of the classes, the Binder, in the “Playing a Binder” section (p. 12):
“After all, your activities and powers seem foreign and frightening to many people, and various religious sects consider contacting a vestige a sacrilege.”
That is, ostensibly, “flavor text.” There’s no mechanic to it per se. But phrase it a different way and it becomes clearly a rule:
Sacrilege: Those closely attuned to the divine will always react to signs of a vestige (usually that means badly).
The only change here is in the imperative. The first is text that’s easy to forget and buried at the end of one of the less-read sections of a class (just guessing here, but I usually skim them). The second is a class feature, which can be presented much like the standard combat abilities. The only difference between them is the phrasing and how they’re presented: the first is “flavor” only because the text presents it that way, it’s just as much a part of the class and playing the game as HP or AC.
There are plenty of examples of this: the Cleric class writeup often (though not in 4E, I checked) says something about Clerics acting on behalf of their larger religion, or Wizards being the product of masters and colleges, or Gnomes hating Kobolds. These aren’t just “flavor” they’re part of playing the game. The fact that gnome guards will attack kobolds on sight might make for a tense situation when the unlucky adventurer has been polymorphed into a kobold but needs to see the Gnome King. A Wizard’s tie to a tradition of magic gives them ties to a place, a person, and so on. Clerics have an expectation of support and an obligation to serve. All of these are what makes an RPG and RPG.
The root of “flavor text” is Magic, where some cards feature non-gameplay text meant to entertain. In Magic the term is wholly apt: the flavor text by definition has no effect on gameplay. It shouldn’t require further explanation to say RPGs aren’t Magic.
When talking about “flavor” it’s worth noting that flavor is the game. Without flavor, an RPG is a small scale miniatures thing. So breaking off a key piece and calling it “flavor” rather than “what the game is” seems counterproductive.
A few notes on the specific examples Monte offers, just since I’ve dealt with similar design issues:
Giving a racial favored weapon bonus is mildly problematic. Consider the possible “dwarves get +1 damage with axes” rule. In this case, any player making a dwarf either has to use an axe or give up a worthwhile bonus. Setting aside the issue of encouraging breaking the mold to create memorable characters, this just makes all dwarves hidebound to use an axe. Any dwarf who uses something else must have a low INT.
There’s an easy fix: instead of offering a permanent bonus, make starting with an axe easier. After all, your dwarf probably spent years in a dwarven hold using one. If instead of a permanent bonus all dwarves start with a masterwork axe for free each player has flexibility. There’s also tons of hooks for interesting play: a dwarf who starts off without his axe has a surplus of money, who wants it? A dwarf who gives up the axe after finding a magic sword is giving up his heritage; how do other dwarfs look at him when he returns to the hold?
The whole hatred-ability/favored enemy kind of thing is also somewhat problematic in play as well. If I make my character who is, for whatever reason, especially powerful against Kobolds then I’m at the mercy of the circumstances as to if I get to use my cool abilities or not. The Ranger is typically another source of this: I get all these abilities for fighting Orcs (or whatever) then either get to show off dramatically (v. Orcs) or sit around starting longingly at the cool abilities I could be using (v. anything else).
One way around this is to make the ability more nuanced then a combat bonus. +1 to hit or damage or whatever makes my character sub-optimal except when the enemies I’m fighting (which are beyond my control) happen to be the right type. Instead maybe I get a special ability where I always notice signs of my favored enemy. Now I’ll never be caught unawares by orcs, since I’ll have picked up something about them, but I also won’t be missing powerful bonuses by fighting the wrong thing.
Another option is to make the bonus less direct. Say Kobolds are known for their traps. Maybe as a Gnome I get a bonus vs. simple traps. This accurately reflects that Gnomes are used to Kobold tricks, but is also broad enough to not limit my character’s effectiveness to a certain enemy.
Those specific examples aside, let’s just stop talking about “flavor” v. “rules” or “fluff” v. “crunch.” Anything that colors the world we present while we play is part of the game, no matter if it involves math or prose. There are ways to present the non-math parts of the game more directly and effectively, but that doesn’t change the underlying concept. The fiction is the game.
Right. So, most of a successful RPG, I increasingly think, is whether everyone at the table knows, shares, and engages with (not necessarily “goes along with”) the tropes. The mechanics can remind you of the tropes, the fiction and description can do exactly the same thing. Whatever works to remind you all how the thing you’re making wants to be shaped.
Somehow 4th edition & every other edition I can think of avoided the issue described with a +1 to attack with certain weapons. Instead, they simply get proficiency with their “racial” weapons. Often, this bonus is supersceded by class proficiencies, but clever or daring players can make something of it.
But I’d prefer a step away from the need to put ANY racial details in the form of mechanics. I’d love to see one’s race as one giant Aspect that you tap into with something like Fate points, that recharge by getting into interesting situations.
Totally. Play of of Mouse Guard’s Nature too. Dwarf nature is Greedy, Stout, Brave, Gruff. Elf Nature is…
I must disagree! It really depends on where the game lies on the competitive/co-creative spectrum. The more competitive it is, the more important it is to be clear about the mechanical constraints.
In a cooperative game (e.g. Fiasco, where players are clearly expected to relish their own failures), the text is evocative to help players draw from a shared thematic vocabulary. Polaris is a work of art in this regard.
The mechanics focus less on resolving conflicts between players, and on other things – creating nicely shaped stories, for instance.
In a competitive game, players are striving to overcome one another, and are implicitly encouraged to use the full extent of their freedom to do so.
Unclear mechanics are a real problem, because in-character disagreements about the scope of someone’s power spill out into out-of-character arguments about fair play and rule interpretations.
I remember friendly BattleTech league that ground to halt around issues of whether the clan player was allowed to double-team the weaker inner sphere mechs. In the fiction, the powerful clan mechs never did this, as a point of honor. But was it a rule? The group was split – predictably, exactly along clan/inner sphere lines.
D&D isn’t Magic, I agree, but it’s pretty close to that end of the spectrum. D&D’s ubiquity means it’s played a million different ways. (I recall several diceless sessions where nearly everything was adjudicated by the DM) – but the rules as written present a very mechancially bound combat game obsessed with power levels and balance.
In that context, mechanical limits to player choice need to be clearly marked. Binders react to signs of a vestige. This can be inconvenient – is it a part of the price of being a Binder, something that offsets their other advantages? Or is it part of the fluff, something the group can expect to enjoy in the breach as much as the observance? (Oh my god, he’s going against all tradition!)
This is dangerously close to a “what is an RPG” stab, but I think there’s a difference here between wargames and RPGs for lack of better terms.
The BattleTech example is actually a great one, and a wonderful illustration of how treating non-math parts of the text as “fluff” causes problems. It sounds like BattleTech doesn’t effectively know what kind of game it is, leaving it up to the players to decide. Is it a roleplaying game where the players can engage the fiction, honor it with breach or observance, and move on? Or is a wargame where what’s not directly stated as a rule has no bearing?
Both of those are playable interesting games, but the authors need to know which one they’re making and communicate that.
It’s also worth noting that just because fluff is as much part of the game as crunch doesn’t mean it can be broken or observed. In the Binder example I can totally make the Binder who isn’t obviously holding a vestige. Depending on the aim of the game that could be something that’s just fiction-based, decided by the GM as warranted by the fiction (as in Apocalypse World) or a clear character modification opportunity with balanced tradeoffs (as in D&D).
The point is that right now, with this weird “fluff” category of text, it isn’t clear what the designers intend you to do with this stuff. The text for the Cleric mentions multiple times that the Cleric will usually be called on by their religious superiors, but since it’s “fluff” it’s not clear if that’s an important tradeoff to being a Cleric, or just kind of a suggestion of something the GM might do if they don’t have other ideas. No matter what it’s part of what influences our game, part of the system (in the broad sense).