What is "fluff" and "crunch"?

[RPGPundit]

There are no stupid questions, only stupid RPG terms.
Speaking of which, "Fluff and crunch" are terms that came into fashion a few years ago, for relatively good reason.

You see, back in the late nineties, the emphasis in RPG products had gone to an extreme end of the spectrum: books with pages and pages of "setting description", sometimes good but often pointless and self-absorbed works by would-be novelists.

The advent of D20 brought a change in philosophy, a reaction to this endless ream of "fluffy" setting description and "flavour".  The reaction was to move to making books with more mechanics, more system material, more tables and rules and solid material that gives you concrete game information as opposed to blurry setting information.  More feats and prestige classes, less descriptions of "agriculture in the forgotten realms".

So basically, Fluff is setting and ambiance, Crunch is system material and concrete rules.

These days, certain systems (D&D in particular) may have moved too far to the other end of the spectrum, and be suffering from massive overdoses of Crunch.  Indeed, the propensity in D&D books to have to have at least 50 new feats and 20 new prestige classes per book (not to mention more spells and magic items) means that there is now a MASSIVE "rules bloat" that makes D&D effectively unplayable if you use all the books.

That is a very serious problem. Whenever you get to the point that you must limit the book selection for the RPG to be something other than utterly broken, you're in trouble.

Anyways, these things rise and fall.

RPGPundit December 17th 2005

[One Horse Town]

I'm looking forward to the revolutionary new terms "cruff" and "flunch".

[Levi Kornelsen]

I'm a helper!

Cruff: Additional rules so specialised or baroque that they serve no real purpose except to fill page space.  Alternative term: Cruft.

Flunch: Rules which simulate genre conventions in a fashion so poorly-concieved that they make you want to hide under the couch.  Alternative term: Flinchers.

Merry Christmas, One Horse Town.

[One Horse Town]

i wanted a bike...

[Blackleaf]

These days, certain systems (D&D in particular) may have moved too far to the other end of the spectrum, and be suffering from massive overdoses of Crunch. Indeed, the propensity in D&D books to have to have at least 50 new feats and 20 new prestige classes per book (not to mention more spells and magic items) means that there is now a MASSIVE "rules bloat" that makes D&D effectively unplayable if you use all the books.

I think this is the M:tG influence.  Good for business.  Not so good for the game itself.

[beejazz]

I play with all the books.

Well... all the Completes (minus Mage and Psionics), all the Races, all the environment series (minus that Cityscape... it's still new and I'm still po'), DMGII, PHBII, Unearthed Arcana, EPH, Heroes of Horror, Lords of Madness, Champions of Ruin, Eberron Campaign Setting, Fiend Folio, and a few others I'm probably forgetting. I use most every game session.

Am I doing the impossible?

[holyshit]

I play with all the books.

Well... all the Completes (minus Mage and Psionics), all the Races, all the environment series (minus that Cityscape... it's still new and I'm still po'), DMGII, PHBII, Unearthed Arcana, EPH, Heroes of Horror, Lords of Madness, Champions of Ruin, Eberron Campaign Setting, Fiend Folio, and a few others I'm probably forgetting. I use most every game session.

Am I doing the impossible?

Just enabling sleazy bastards is all

[Settembrini]

Levi, you rock. Cruff and Flunch are staples of late eighties and early nineties designs.

[beejazz]

Just enabling sleazy bastards is all

Well, I at least had the sense to stop with the endless incarnations of MM and all the new magic systems.

[Hastur T. Fannon]

Am I doing the impossible?

It's probably a little incoherent

[Silverlion]

Now we need an RPG:

Rules stay crunchy in milk the RPG

and Light and Fluffy Cream setting to smooth the crunch down...

[Gunslinger]

I thought the build up of "crunch" was the staple of the traditional RPG?  Though the core rule books enable you to play, there are 4,073 supplements that basically make a good portion of your core books obsolete.  2nd ed. AD&D did this, Palladium's Rifts followed suit, and of course D20 being an OGL with a large number of contributors is the crown king of crunch.  

After fiasco's with both Rifts and 2nd ed. AD&D, I've pretty much become a core book fundamentalist.  If I want a certain flavor of crunch, I'll design it myself.

[dsivis]

If I want d20 crunch, I'll get it online for free or homebrew it. There's enough free samples and web enhancements to keep me a happy DM for years! The books I buy these days are designed around setting fluff (I'm an Eberron junkie) or introduce totally new rules systems (always wanted to play D20 steampunk...and will someday!).

[RPGObjects_chuck]

These days, certain systems (D&D in particular) may have moved too far to the other end of the spectrum, and be suffering from massive overdoses of Crunch.  Indeed, the propensity in D&D books to have to have at least 50 new feats and 20 new prestige classes per book (not to mention more spells and magic items) means that there is now a MASSIVE "rules bloat" that makes D&D effectively unplayable if you use all the books.

The thing is though, unless some of the crunch is completely broken, as was seen during the Kit books in the latter days of 2nd edition, you can count on everyone using different crunch to fit their campaign style.

So I see crunch as something very good, because it basically allows each GM to pick some things out that fit the flavor of his campaign.

And if you have trustworthy players, you can let them use a book specifically for their character.