- You’re nervous and scared heading into a game.
- You don’t throw dice for hours at a time.
- You don’t even play with dice.
- Your DM cries often.
- Other players cry often.
- Descriptions have made at least one party member sick.
- Your character hasn’t killed a monster in weeks.
- All the NPCs have strange accents.
- You know more about medieval fantastic politics than real life politics.
- Nobody ever dies normally. It’s always gory and spectacular.
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10 Comments
2:24 am on October 4th, 2007
Hmmm. #2 is occasionally true, #8 is very close to being true.
I’m not really crunchy, I’m not really fluffy. I’m just a big nothing.
1:38 pm on October 4th, 2007
on tomb of horrors week (the first, when i was a player) 1, 2, 5, 6 and 10 were true. we had a great descriptive GM, and we did more role-than-roll in our playing, and it was nice. personally i’ve been guilty of 5, 6, 9 and 10 as a GM. couple of guys have cried when their stupidity gave me justification to gloriously exterminate their toons, and when we had a horror themed campaign more than a couple players cringed or got noticeably sick at some of my descriptions. i was very proud. they were shaking and cringing at the table. it was beautiful… i almost cried (except i was really nowhere near crying… i’m not that fluffy)
3:02 pm on October 4th, 2007
In my game, 2, 3, 7, 8, and 10 happen often.
3:36 pm on October 4th, 2007
Being fluffy sounds a lot more fun than being crunchy.
4:02 pm on October 4th, 2007
Noooo I refuse Fluff, Fluff makes you break in warts and Bay to the moon!
:)
Actually a balance of Crunch and Fluff is what I aim at… I just have a long way to go to get away from the comfort of my bowl of Crunch Crunchies…
6:02 pm on October 4th, 2007
if 10 isn’t true for a game session then it’s just no fun. like when i kill the hydra without even taking off a head, just by the sheer damage i deal to its body in two turns (12 headed cryo-hydra, yes, 2 turns) i love to hear that the heads flail around wildly, and as they crash violently to the floor the brow of the one that fell closest to me cracks open on the floor, and blood spurts out on my greaves, as i stand, with the visiting party in awe of my bad-assedness. it makes the event memorable. and without good roleplaying memories it becomes hackmaster. if i wanted hackmaster that’d be the book i was holding. that’s all i have to say
6:14 pm on October 4th, 2007
I’d like to have a balance between Fluff and Crunch. I think Crunch is good, keeping things random keeps the players on their toes, they never know what is coming, and often neither does the DM. However, I rarely bother with random encounters. I think I should more though. You know, I think I might take Rules Lawyer as a compliment.
Fluff, on the other hand, is what makes the game really memorable and distinct, and distinctly memorable. However, I cringe at the thought of DMs and Players crying at the table (I DM my own kids mostly, so its ME who has to deal with the nightmares). For my game Fluff is the little details like a lot of cobwebs, or dust, dead rats and other bits of foreshadowing.
I guess I am much more Crunchy than Fluffy. Not that there is anything wrong with that, right?
6:47 pm on October 4th, 2007
Robert said:
“I guess I am much more Crunchy than Fluffy. Not that there is anything wrong with that, right?”
I say:
I think D&D allows for a lot of crunch. Some RPGs are built around fluff, but D&D has a tactical background. So it’s definitely to be crunchy.
That’s the great thing with D&D. You can have as much crunch as you want and fluff is always available no matter which RPG you play.
2:23 pm on October 6th, 2007
One of my (and my players’) favorite adventures was a onetime campaign in a little girls dream. There was a doll that stole laughter gave several players nightmares, and the doll was defeated when the fighter told a bedtime story to the girl whose dream they were in (good thing it worked, the non-tanks were outside getting creamed by the doll. Two more rounds . . . ) Very little rolling. Lots of enjoyment.
10:51 pm on October 6th, 2007
If you really want crunch, there’s always Chartmaster.