I do create my own "setting" for RPGs in the sense of history and geography, but I am still using a large part of the material that is not mechanical rules.  I often use the word flavour for material that could be called fluff, and I find it is usually clear what I mean.

I absolutely support the use of fucking English, but I am also constantly delighted by the ways in which this glorious bastard tongue is warped and changed by various subgroups.  Use the wrong word often enough, consistently enough, and usefully enough, and it becomes the right word.  One of your examples, Benoit, is a word that did not exist thirty years ago.

So whatever ways the words evolve is always okay. It's fine. No point to discuss it.
New lingo is always better.

Are you kidding me?

Fact is, sometimes new terms are not adequately describing the concepts they are trying to portray.
"Fluff" and "Crunch" for me are good examples of bad terminology, because the words do not actually describe what concepts they are trying to convey, while at the same time altering the nature of the concepts they are used to describe (i.e. what I talked about earlier: segregating the concepts of background and rules from one another or even worse - defining one as the opposite of the other). Hence, bad terms.

Again, I have no problem with them. I also think this discussion would benefit from actual examples.

Unfortunately the ones that spring to mind probably won't be familiar to everyone (or in some cases, anyone), but I'll give them anyway. Let's talk monsters.

Original D&D: IIRC, the monsters were mostly brief stats, basically a line of data, and a short paragraph or two of description, often with little or no illustration. This wasn't enough fluff, but at least it wasn't padded.

AD&D 1e MM: Just about perfect balance of fluff & crunch. But if each monster came with the equivalent of a Dragon "ecology of" article, that'd be overdoing it.

High Fantasy (Dillow): IIRC, many or most monsters are just a line of stats, in a big table of monsters. It helped, of course, that they were largely copied from D&D, and at the time it was almost inconceivable that someone would be playing HF without already being familiar with D&D.

I'll just say that Runequest 2e & 3e, The Fantasy Trip, and Dragonquest also did fine in this area.

Now let's talk character races. If you want to see an example of fluff grown out of control look at the Talislanta 3e supplement Sub-Men Rising. Available here in a legal, free download. The book's basically a run-of-the-mill epic adventure padded out with pages & pages of wankerific articles on the mentalités of various savage races.

EDIT: If you think this is harsh, bear in mind that the races are already covered in the various Talislanta core books (Handbook/Guidebook) and other materials.

I'm just sayibng the evolution of language is a deomcratic process. Terms get floated around all the time, some catch on some don't. I don't always like the terms that catch on but I guess the majority liked it well enough.

I simply don't use the terms I don't like, but you go around and stop otehr people from doing so.

Quote from: Benoist;412137So whatever ways the words evolve is always okay. It's fine. No point to discuss it.
New lingo is always better.

Are you kidding me?

Fact is, sometimes new terms are not adequately describing the concepts they are trying to portray.
"Fluff" and "Crunch" for me are good examples of bad terminology, because the words do not actually describe what concepts they are trying to convey, while at the same time altering the nature of the concepts they are used to describe (i.e. what I talked about earlier: segregating the concepts of background and rules from one another or even worse - defining one as the opposite of the other). Hence, bad terms.

Unless the language is Esperanto or Klingon, there is no point in discussion because the people using the language will outweigh the subset participating in a discussion.  New lingo (another new addition to English) is not always better, but it can't be easily stopped once it gets going.  It's fun to talk about language, but unless you are the French government, you can't outlaw words.

I hope, though, that you didn't miss my suggestion - replace fluff with flavour and you have a positive term that exists as a complement to crunch, not an opposite.

It's not about being against new words because they're "new", or the evolution of language or any of these things.

It's about good terminology vs. bad terminology.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;412144AD&D 1e MM: Just about perfect balance of fluff & crunch. But if each monster came with the equivalent of a Dragon "ecology of" article, that'd be overdoing it.

While I tend to agree with this statement and much prefer nuggets of fluff (poofballs of fluff?) like in the AD&D MM or, say, the Wilderlands hex descriptions, I can think of some games/settings that legitimately need large amounts of explanatory fluff. Tekumel immediately comes to mind. Of course the question that then arises is this: "Is your setting worth me reading your bad fictional encyclopedia (or, God forbid, in-character fiction) entries?"

I realize the above is a bit off-topic-my apologies.

Not at all, I think it's completely on target. Unfortunately I haven't read much of Tekumel so I can't evaluate your example.

I know Harn a little better, and the "fluff" (in the neutral sense) is pretty good, out of the stuff I've read. Now, part of this is a matter of taste, I'm sure, but the faux history has a lot more relevant to gaming, per word, than either execrable gamer fiction padding the front of many WW books I've leafed through, or the airy articles on the psychology & cultures of the sub-men I cited above. Many psychology pieces are like the "strike a pose" art that litters the Larry Elmore era--it's just going on and on about "look how cool/sexy/alien/savage I am", without much that's really useful for gaming.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;412170Not at all, I think it's completely on target. Unfortunately I haven't read much of Tekumel so I can't evaluate your example.

Ironically, I haven't either! I bought the PDF of the 70s version and after reading the entire thing (and thinking it sounds really really cool), I still don't really get the setting. Which is why it leaped to mind as an example of needing fluff.

Harn is an interesting example. The encyclopedia, for instance, is a mixture of superb entries that really get me going creatively mixed with stuff that is so absolutely mundane as to beg the question of why would I ever want to know about it!

The "appropriate amount of fluff" is probably a completely subjective quantifier. In-character fiction is objectively bad, though.

Lifepath character creation systems are my preferred method of delivering a setting, Burning Wheel, Traveller, and WFRP being the best examples I can think of. A lifepath system can provide an elegant sketch of your setting, and that's really all I need (unless the setting is truly outre).

Quote from: Benoist;412152It's not about being against new words because they're "new", or the evolution of language or any of these things.

It's about good terminology vs. bad terminology.

But when I say 'crunch' or 'fluff', do you understand what I am discussing? It doesn't matter if it's 'good' or 'bad' or 'proper' terminology. What matters is if it *works*. Now, you can argue that, for you at least, the two terms fail to work as terminology. And I won't counter argue. But for some folks, such as myself, these words *do* work as terminology. They explain in a concise manner what we are discussing.

Gamer Bob: "Hey, has that new splatbook got a lot of crunch in it?"

Gamer Steve: "Nay, it's all systemless fluff."

See, the terms function, maybe not to your liking, but they function.

I once encountered a guy that hated the term 'Florentine' when used to describe a person fighting with two weapons, one in either hand. It isn't actually the correct term for that style. So I turned to someone else in the conversation and I ask him if he understood what I meant when I used that word. They said they did. So I said to the first rather pedantic fellow that I have been understood. I have achieve comprehension. Whereas if I had used the linguistically proper term, I would not have achieved comprehension.

And that is how a living language functions.

Now, I myself am often a pedantic twat in this regard. When people discuss something that I consider my personal bailiwick I will often correct them if they used a term I think is a poor choice. When discussing weapons for example. But that makes me human.

Someone else suggested using the terms 'setting' and 'rules'. I think they would work. But frankly I don't think they carry the same impact that crunch and fluff do. But that's just me.

Quote from: Tetsubo;412179But when I say 'crunch' or 'fluff', do you understand what I am discussing? It doesn't matter if it's 'good' or 'bad' or 'proper' terminology. What matters is if it *works*.

That's basically the same thing: if it is proper terminology and I understand what you mean, then it works. Fact is that I am not convinced it works, and indeed, I am convinced that the use of these terms themselves drives a wedge between different components of game design that should not be opposed to one another. That's my point: these terms actually do NOT work, or if you prefer, do not work as well as using already existing terminology: i.e. background, backstory, personality, rules, effect, etc.

There must be something that set this off.

Quote from: Benoist;412184That's basically the same thing: if it is proper terminology and I understand what you mean, then it works. Fact is that I am not convinced it works, and indeed, I am convinced that the use of these terms themselves drives a wedge between different components of game design that should not be opposed to one another. That's my point: these terms actually do NOT work, or if you prefer, do not work as well as using already existing terminology: i.e. background, backstory, personality, rules, effect, etc.

Speaking purely for myself, these terms you just mentioned don't carry the same weight as crunch or fluff. If you used them to describe a game, I would ask you how crunchy or fluffy was the product. This would probably annoy you. And I would only be partly asking for that reason.

For me, it's just a form of shorthand that cuts to the heart of the matter. I like the terms. I use the terms. And I will continue to use them until I find something that I think works better.

Quote from: Tetsubo;412189Speaking purely for myself, these terms you just mentioned don't carry the same weight as crunch or fluff. If you used them to describe a game, I would ask you how crunchy or fluffy was the product. This would probably annoy you. And I would only be partly asking for that reason.

And I would answer by using specific words instead of "crunch" and "fluff", and explain how these components mingle in my game, specifically because I do not agree on this type of terminology in the first place.

Quote from: Tetsubo;412189For me, it's just a form of shorthand that cuts to the heart of the matter. I like the terms. I use the terms. And I will continue to use them until I find something that I think works better.

If it suits you, by all means. But then, don't be surprised if games themselves end up treating background and in-game explanations of rules as sort of incidental to gaming the rules themselves, favor one element over the other, or completely separate them in different game products sold to you separately. I'm not saying the terms crunch/fluff are the source of such treatments in RPGs, but they certainly participate to the gaming culture that fosters them.

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.

I just barely throw around fluff in another thread. And yet, in a way, I agree. I sort of go against the grain when I use these terms, and unless I amplify what I mean, I would be unsure people would get what I mean, as the term has become too vague in general usage IMO.

See, lots of folks use Fluff to refer to pretty much anything that's not game mechanics. Descriptive text for classes or creature, game world information, etc.

I use fluff in a manner that is every bit as disdainful as it seems, but doesn't just refer to game world info or descriptive text for game entities. I use it to refer to little snippets of fiction that the wanna-be novelist game designer just can't help but throw at me like projectile vomit.