"Fluff" and "Crunch"

Benoist · October 26, 2010, 05:29:40 PM

Everybody's throwing these terms around now.

I don't like them. "Fluff" makes me thing of a filling, or corn starch in a sauce. Something that doesn't really need to be there but just gives some squishy consistence to the whole. "Crunch" makes me think of energy bars. It makes me think of something hard and unpalatable.

I notice that more and more people's opinions are being tainted by the words themselves, as if a background or an ability's description in game-world terms wasn't really necessary, incidental, rather than front and center of the game, whereas the solid stuff, the rules, really is what matters in the end. Maybe I'm just imagining it all.

I'm not liking these expressions one bit.

Cylonophile · October 26, 2010, 05:37:08 PM

Quote from: Benoist;412020Everybody's throwing these terms around now.

I don't like them. "Fluff" makes me thing of a filling, or corn starch in a sauce. Something that doesn't really need to be there but just gives some squishy consistence to the whole. "Crunch" makes me think of energy bars. It makes me think of something hard and unpalatable.

I notice that more and more people's opinions are being tainted by the words themselves, as if a background or an ability's description in game-world terms wasn't really necessary, incidental, rather than front and center of the game, whereas the solid stuff, the rules, really is what matters in the end. Maybe I'm just imagining it all.

I'm not liking these expressions one bit.

Agreed. The terms really seem dismissive, though I have less problem with crunch then fluff.

Fluff is really kind disparaging of a vital game element, as without it the rules have no real purpose. I call it the background or the setting, personally.

I could go with calling "crunch" and "crunchy" something like "Hi res".

Axiomatic · October 26, 2010, 06:11:31 PM

I think you may be reading too much negativity into fluff. I haven't noticed people using fluff to mean "god, more stuff that isn't rules for killing things, what a waste of page count" but instead "hey, here are the interesting, flavorful bits that aren't just dry rules!"

Cylonophile · October 26, 2010, 06:22:09 PM

Quote from: Axiomatic;412027I think you may be reading too much negativity into fluff. I haven't noticed people using fluff to mean "god, more stuff that isn't rules for killing things, what a waste of page count" but instead "hey, here are the interesting, flavorful bits that aren't just dry rules!"

Well, that's a valid way of looking at it positively, one admits. Still, fluff is often used in a negative way, as to describe some essentially vapid person who's good looking. "She's just a mindless piece of fluff." is a common dismissive.

Grymbok · October 26, 2010, 06:26:16 PM

Yeah, every time I've seen people use the terms "fluff" and "crunch" they've been using "fluff" in an obviously dismissive manner. There's a persistent meme on RPG boards of "I don't need RPGs to give me setting material, I can make that stuff up, I buy them for the rules".

On my contrary days I sometimes wonder about wading in to discussions claiming that "I don't need RPGs to give me rules, I can make that stuff up, I buy them for the setting". But it's not actually a belief I hold (although for me it's truer than the opposite) so I haven't got around to it yet.

Tetsubo · October 26, 2010, 06:46:25 PM

It's a form of shorthand for me. I like crunch over fluff. I can come up with my own descriptive text. What terms would you suggest the community use?

Simlasa · October 26, 2010, 07:03:51 PM

I've seen it a lot from 40K wargamers... often being dismissive of books that have more 'fluff' than 'crunch' (though the original rules were very scenario dependent and even recommended a 'referee').
It doesn't bother me much... but I tend to stay away from system jockeys.

Captain Rufus · October 26, 2010, 07:29:04 PM

Quote from: Simlasa;412032I've seen it a lot from 40K wargamers... often being dismissive of books that have more 'fluff' than 'crunch' (though the original rules were very scenario dependent and even recommended a 'referee').
It doesn't bother me much... but I tend to stay away from system jockeys.

GW went the crunch over fluff rules in early 3rd edition 40K. Nobody liked it.
This is why their army books basically have the same format now as they did back in 2nd edition era.

(Poorly laid out in seemingly a manner to make piracy expensive however. You tend to have to read 2-3 different sections of a book to get all the rules for any one unit. And that's with the universal special rules many games have take from Magic.)

TheShadow · October 26, 2010, 07:29:37 PM

For me, the "fluff" is not something extraneous to be draped over the rigid skeleton of the "crunch". The imaginary world comes first, then the rules help to make it gameable.

I just can't relate to ideas like Tetsubo expressed..."descriptive text?" I guess that Shakespeare just wrote fluff too, no equations there, and we can all come up with that stuff on the fly, right?

Games might not be Shakespeare, but people like Stafford or MAR Barker are our equivalents, and I got into RPGs because of the imagination of writers like them, not for blocks of stats which I can come up with on the fly.

flyingmice · October 26, 2010, 07:46:01 PM

Quote from: The_Shadow;412036For me, the "fluff" is not something extraneous to be draped over the rigid skeleton of the "crunch". The imaginary world comes first, then the rules help to make it gameable.

I just can't relate to ideas like Tetsubo expressed..."descriptive text?" I guess that Shakespeare just wrote fluff too, no equations there, and we can all come up with that stuff on the fly, right?

Games might not be Shakespeare, but people like Stafford or MAR Barker are our equivalents, and I got into RPGs because of the imagination of writers like them, not for blocks of stats which I can come up with on the fly.

If I want to read Shakespeare, I have all of his plays. I don't buy games for reading. I buy them for playing.

-clash

TheShadow · October 26, 2010, 08:16:59 PM

Quote from: flyingmice;412041If I want to read Shakespeare, I have all of his plays. I don't buy games for reading. I buy them for playing.

-clash

Did you read my post? The part after "games might not be Shakespeare, but..." I think I made myself fairly clear, and your response was not really apropos.

Benoist · October 26, 2010, 08:20:22 PM

I don't like the way background and game rules are artificially segregated from one another by using the "fluff vs. crunch" paradigm/logic/lexicon. In a good role playing game, the rules support the game world, and vice versa. There's a synergy to the whole, up to the point it all works seemlessly together. Instead, with "fluff" and "crunch", we come to consider these elements as separate, even opposite to one another. Which doesn't make any sense.

skofflox · October 26, 2010, 08:36:12 PM

Too much of either is a drag...IMO the terms are just another way of saying 'rules' (crunch) and 'setting' (fluff).

I would rather have a bit more crunch than fluff (or no fluff at all).
Sometimes setting material can be an interesting read though I prefer a novel etc. for that sort of thing.

Seems most fluff just pads the book to garner more $. I prefer to have affordable games that spark my immagination as opposed to inundating me with blather.

Games like Atomic Highway are perfect IMO. Some generalized genre background,nothing to specific.

Peregrin · October 26, 2010, 08:45:42 PM

Quote from: BenoistIn a good role playing game, the rules support the game world, and vice versa.

Very true, but isn't there a difference between implied setting and specific fluff?

Like, the magic rules may show through the mechanics how the cosmology in the game-world would work, what magic is capable of, and how it fits into society, but I don't necessarily need the fine details to construct a world based on those rules.

crkrueger · October 26, 2010, 09:09:57 PM

There's a tendency to give stupid dismissive shorthand names to just about anything - races, classes, whatever. It's what you do when you're cool.

Although Ben's right, increasingly crunch seems to be the "meat" of a game book, while fluff is just that background crap that gives you an excuse to kill shit.

We might buy game books to play not read, but I think people are too set on "I need rules everything else I make up" and "I want a realistic world, for the rules I'll use whatever". If something is really a full-fledged RPG (emphasis on game) and not just a setting book or a rules toolkit, then it ideally would have a setting with rules designed to express the focus or uniqueness of that setting.