Something that came up in another thread, and I was curious.

i voted for c, because i don't care much for plot but i love fluff to flesh out the rest of the world OUTSIDE of plots to have a more sandbox kinda game . . and for that i need crunch to make this fluff stuff into rules so i can actually play (against) it ^^

Hrm... I seem to have cast the first vote favoring fluff... I guess that means I need to explain myself.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my crunch too but over the 13 or so years I've been playing Shadowrun I've seen a lot of crunch come and go. The fluff books are the ones I keep coming back to. To this day I still drag my copies of Neo-A's Guide to RL to the gametable every session, I still reference the orriginal Seattle source book, hell I even use Sprawl Sites from time to time. My copies of Man and Machine, The Grimoire, and Fields of Fire however typically just sit on the shelf unless there is something specific from one of them I want to convert to a new edition.

The fact that I am comfortable converting stuff from the old crunch books, or making up my own stuff whole cloth also means that I don't really need Catalyst to do it for me. I'm much more interested in seeing the metaplot develop and reading fluff books that give me more insight into how and why society operates the way it does in the 6th world. I like stuff that gives my players something to do, I can take care of making sure they have the tools to get it done.

Of course, none of this stops me from buying every bit of crunch as it comes out too. Thank god Catalyst has a reasonable release schedule or my Fiancee would be kicking me to the curb.

Done the same (1st vote) with crunch. Not that I would not buy setting books (I own most material since SR2), but missing an important rulebook is certainly more annoying.

I'm a mixed baggage type. While I will admittedly, jump straight to the crunchy stuff when a new book comes out so that I can see all the new ways to screw my players create unique challenges for the PCs, I find it is often the fluff that I go back to.

There are only so many crunchy books that can happen without power-creep, but Shadows of Europe, Emergence, and Corporate Enclaves are all fluff books that I reach for over and over again. These books are resources for hundreds of hooks, ideas and settings that I constantly refer back to. The fluff only books are ones that I collect and keep on my desk all the time. My crunchy books, I end up with PDF and dead tree copies. The PDF for when I'm working at my desk and the dead tree for the gaming table.

I'm voting Crunch.

1. I'm a rules lawyer. I'm the friendly type who will accept "because I said so" for a GM's house rule, but I LIVE for rules. The rules are what makes it a game.
2. New rules are cool. They're like mathematical fantasy. You've got fluff, and that's great and fun to read once or twice. I thoroughly enjoyed losing my mind in The Lord of the Rings. New mechanics let me do that to my left brain as well.
3. What I consider "balance" in my sourcebooks most people would call "power creep". The numbers are meaningless without fluff (re: TimeCube), but the numbers are important. Fluff-heavy sources (like Runner Havens) gather dust on my bookshelf until I want to pull up a detail for a character background. Then they get five minutes of flipping for two sentences about some Triad lieutenant before returning to their vigil. If it's not a cool power or a neat trick, it doesn't earn a place within arm's reach of the game table.

I buy everything, so choose C. I also like both. The crunch makes the game go zoom, but the story and fluff keep me coming back.

that says it well for me. Heck when I RL went to Seattle this spring, I took my orginal Seattle SB with me. Guns cars and armor all are pretty much the same ofr a little tweaking but the 'fluff' fills out the world and makes it more than just corp A states. Corp B stats. Ganger A stats etc.
That original Seattle SB was pure fluff, BUT I regularly use that, the others. they aren't even in my study. they're in the basement.

I love the world and the story, but I like the rules too. They appeal to my hardwired, engineering mind.

My group, who don't come here, are fans of the world and fluff but don't enjoy the rules much.

It's true that it's the fluff that defines the world and has the longest shelf-life (haha!) since it doesn't really expire. However, fluff without rules means I can't easily employ it, since I need to make up mechanics, and ultimately it's the guns and gear which shape how people will behave in the game.

I enjoy books with a mix (like the SOTA books). Crunch without fluff is just rules creep, which sucks. Fluff without crunch doesn't give me the tools I need as a GM to properly employ said fluff, which also sucks.

I like the lfuff pieces. The rule books can set down the world. Other books just add to the numbers. The 'fluff' is what makes it more than just number crunching.

I mainly buy gaming books for the crunch these days.

I prefer main rule books that give me enough fluff that I know what the world is like and enough rules that I can actually run a game. I'll grudgingly buy some advanced rulebooks if need be, but I prefer not to.

I'm generally not interested in fluff-books or canned adventures (for various reasons). I much prefer to plunder a book, TV show, or movie. Or better yet, create something new.

-paws

I need both (special rules for certain general archetypes are what make the game diverse, fun and interesting) though I lean slightly towards fluff. I dumped my copies of Grimoire, Virtual Realities, Field of Fire, Rigger 3, etc. and tore up the Rigger's Black Book into easily scanned art pages after Catalyst released its 4th ed. equivalents. But I have every fluff book from 1st ed. on. Takes up an entire bookshelf in my living room. And where's my 4th ed. DMZ, darn it!

Heh, I usually disregard the fluff because I don't like it and stick with the crunch.

I wasn't aware there was a 3rd ed DMZ

Both. Though I lean towards fluff. This inspires.
The crunch is just the nuts and bolts that lets me build and run the vehicles of characters through the story/world. I had a friend term the rules as, "the physics engine for roleplay."
Ultimatly I play for the (meta)human element, so I need both.

i voted for crunch. now, i enjoy my crunch well fluffed, but fluff is just that: an added treat. the crunch is what makes the game (for me, anyhow).

Fluff doesn't care about system. History, especially SHADOW History, doesn't change!

+1

I'm not a big fan of stuff like Immortal Elves, and even stuff like the Renraku Arcology can only be run once, but the world fluff, and city books are great. That being said, I also need rules to keep my players happy, as they would get decidedly annoyed if I was just to narrate the adventure. It does have it's downsides... "Look GM. The Stirrup Interface costs less than Move by Wire of the same rating, and allows me to rig my own body as a drone. So If I put a high level pilot in me I'll be unstoppable!"

Hands down fluff is the best.

-Chrysalis

I like fluff and the crunch that it goes with. As for the plot thing, I actually like it. I miss some of the intertwined plots from SR 2, as well as the fluff preceding every adventure in the modules. It gave the gm a nice insight to what had happened before the runners get involved and helped bring the world to life. Also some of those adventures while not seeming very important at the time later have turned out to be so in the worlds overall history.

You can't have crunch VS. fluff. You can't play shadowrun without the rules.

I was going to vote fluff anyway, but there are things I like and don't like about the fluff. Honestly not even 5% of the adventures strike me as playable, whether it's protecting female elf-druids from a gang or running around for dragons or dashing about the metaplanes for an IE, so I'd rather have crunch over adventure/metaplot stuff. However I love my setting fluff. Shadows of Europe and Shadows of Asia were pretty hefty reads, and quite interesting. And I always go back to books like Lone Star, Sprawl Survival Guide, Sprawl Sites, Seattle, New Seattle etc.

But I've honestly learned far too much about GD/IE metaplots since joining dumpshock. And these are things I can't unlearn. I've got to say I'm happy that Catalyst and the shadowrun writers have given that a miss, so far.

I voted C. Game info in it's proper place can only enhance the fluff. Game info alone can be fine in some instances, but.....it's like eating a soda cracker--you can either have it plain or with something that can make the experience better.

There's isn't a 2nd ed. either. So I suppose technically that's what I want. Or an equivalent system if there are legal issues.

I'm eating saltines. Just saltines. I wonder if that says anything about my personality.

More about your blood pressure.

Mmnngh... aagh... sodium... delicious... must... have more... *froth* *foam*

...I went Fluff (surprise, surprise). I love world settings and colour. Oh yes, the Crunch is needed to a point to keep the game/campaign under control, but it's the Fluff that gives the game depth and dimension.

Please pass the fluff with a side of more fluff.

Seriously, I love the source books for North America, Europe, and Asia and you can bet I would buy an Africa and Ghost Cartels.

I don't care how many typos they have *cough*Arsenal*cough*, I will still buy it and love it.

I would have chosen C, but I would like Crunch now and fluff later. There are too many rules that are not completely nailed down, and a lot of it is up to interpretation. In the end I would like to have something that has a very solid rule set with examples of what you can and can't do.

After that I would say why not just mainly go purely fluff with some small additional rules.

I voted for fluff, myself.
But that's really a banquet of fluff, and a side-order of crunch [who comes up with these stupid names ??].

I did the rules/gear/options things for years [when insisting that a 1pt item was so much worse than a 2pt item, and i had to know the names of every little thing]...
...But the games I ref now are more player and background based [now the players tell me the names of gear, and specific numbers for gear aren't so important].

On top of that, I run a hybrid game with core rules and scenarios, gear, locations, plots and ideas from all over...
...And changing rules based on different versions of the same RPG is not what I want.

For me my opinion is that you first need to lay down the cruch. There's the obligatory rigger, cyber, matrix, gear, magic, companion, and threats books.

After that though I get less and less pleased with additional crunch books. If I'm going to buy one it better be bringing in something really different and novel. I like to see either hybrid fluff/crunch books, or just fluff books. I don't overly care much for adventures, but a good setting book is worth my money. For example bug city.

I like Fluff better. Probably because its not a boring read, or less boring.

yeah, that's really the most off-putting part about the crunch . . crunching numers wasn't fun for me way back in school and it ain't now neither . .
i like the examples in SR4 where they do one fight and explain the same action being done again and again utilizing the different rule-sets of SR1 to 4 . .

I prefer fluff because I often don't agree with the decisions made in the implementation of crunch. Of course, the best part about fluff is that the well written stuff is mostly guideline info so you still have some room to make your own stories with the information provided.

Tough to say. I think I've got most of the materials from SR1 through the current SR4. Granted, I'm still behind in getting my SR4 stuff together. Heh, I do wonder sometimes how many Rigger books I'm going to end up with.

I like updates to the narrative, though I wish at times that we could get that kinda stuff for free online, as the feeling I get sometimes is that I'm largely buying the same book, just with updated version stats/data.

In alot of ways, I like published adventures more than the sourcebooks, as they give a good sense of what's happening in the game world at a given time.

As mentioned though, I'm probably going to end up buying Rigger 4, or whatever it ends up being called For the time being, I'll just try to do rough conversions of Rigger 2/3 vehicles.

Now, I voted for both, because Shadowrun is that delightful game where I really like both. But in any other game system (and ESPECIALLY that other 4E that I won't mention here) I go straight for the crunch.

"C"... the stuff from "B" helps explain what "A" is... is a good way.. plus it shows uses/abuses. And helps explain the game to non-old-hands at the game.

Crunch.

I pursue RPG's for the mechanics, when I want fluff, I'll pick up a novel. Hell, I write novels (even finished one once ) I can add any fluff I want or need without effort. That's the point of RPG's, IMO: They give you a system of rules, and you (the players and GM) define the characters, setting, and story.

My favorite RPG system of all time is Fuzion--and it has no fluff whatsoever. It's just a set of very basic, adaptable rules that can be "plugged in" like a physics engine into just about any kind of game you want.

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the fluff--a large part of why I started playing shadowrun was because of the setting and feel of the game--but when I look for a game I'm looking for rules. Otherwise it's just a book with verisimilitude.

Both are enjoyable, but each for their separate reasons. After all, when you read a really good book or watch an awesome movie, do you say "dude, we should totally play this?" Or do you try to find an RPG whose rules allow you to "stat out" the characters, gear, and other elements of the story?

Usually it's the latter. People don't say "Let's play Ghost In the Shell", they say: Let's play shadowrun, and make a team of fully-cybered special ops characters, like Section 9.

Or maybe you make a face/hacker with a headware datavault and a gutterpunk razorgirl named Molly.

Voted C.

A good game for me needs an interesting background just as much as a consistent and realistic (for the gameworld) rule system.

I said both but I'm mostly a fluff guy. Crunch is just a way to guide the story and generally I don't sweat over probability curves and what not. If something doesn't seem right or doesn't give us results that are fun, we change it.

I'll also note it's much harder to break fluff. Overpowered character class here, too low a TN here, and the crunch goes boink. An intriguing setting with plot hooks aplenty, that's what makes me want to go out and game. I have plenty of books for no other reason than their setting (Blue Planet being a prime candidate). In contrast I've never read a rule system so compelling that I felt like dropping 40 dollars.

I'll agree with this.

Most of the RPGs or sourcebooks I buy are almost purely for the ideas inside, and how I can use them.

This is what makes rules-light systems better [in my opinion] because they let you get on with the game...
...to paraphrase, "if you write it as a rule, people will stick to it and argue about it".

I've got to side with Rad on this one. The fluff can be great for inspiration and the initial 'wow' factor, but once you're past that it's the rules and mechanics and dice that make it feel like gaming. If all I wanted was collaborative fiction, I'd hook up with some writers and hammer out a novel or something, but that isn't what I want. When you make that critical roll and have everything go smoothly, or go to hell in a handbasket, it feels so much more visceral if it could have gone the other way. If I'm writing a short story, then I just say it, and it happens, but when I'm at the gaming table, I pick up my dice, and things might go smoothly, or they might go balls-up, and that uncertainty makes it seem all the more real.

As a result of this, I like well thought-out rules systems that accomplish what they want to do in a way that semi-realistically models what's happening 'on the screen.' Mage: the Ascension, Sundered Skies and Shadowrun are all cool worlds, but they'd be no-where near as interesting to me if they didn't use the specific systems they do to achieve their goals.

Imho, it needs to be both : great fluff is necessary on the long run to have a good game universe.
Nothing worse than a game with a fluff going like "You where bathed in the river Styx, and aquired a quasi invulnerability" and translated in rules term by "You gain +1 AC" ...

People shouldn't mistake bad crunch (or fluff) as a reason to favor one over the other. Sure, unbalanced rules can wreck a game just as easily as a setting that doesn't grab you, heck, I never got into BESM because it was about a bunch of fluffy rodents, even though the mechanics were pretty interesting. The thing is, no mechanics is even more unbalanced than bad mechanics.

I've done rules-free RPing before, where a bunch of us just got together and roleplayed through our character's actions. There wasn't even a GM, we just picked up each other's plot developments and built on it, taking it where we thought the other person was trying to go, or steering it in the direction we wanted. That kind of thing is fun--but it's not the same as a game system with defined mechanics and the random element of chance. You don't decide whether your character succeeds or fails, you simply don't know until the dice come up--and without that suspense and unpredictability it's not a game, just improvisational fiction. And if you think it takes a lot of maturity to play an RPG without squabbling about the rules, try a roleplaying session without any rules at all, and see how long it takes your average players to devolve it into a round of "I got you!"/"Nuh-uh!" like a bunch of 3rd graders.

My point is, if you strip the fluff out of a game, and just leave the mechanics, you still have a playable game, whereas if you take out the crunch, you just have a setting. I wouldn't ever pay $40 for a story, no matter how good it sounded. How often do you see novels selling for that much? Or even DVD's? Games cost that much because they have rules, and rules provide something that a good story or interesting milieu cannot.

Moreover, games don't have the amount fluff that an actual story does. They have a setting, some characters, and some history--basically all the things that get you up to Chapter 1. If I'm going to pay as much as a novel, let alone that much more, there needs to be something else there besides an interesting setting.

That's why I prefer crunch in my games, and why a solid, functioning rules system should be the main focus of a game developer. I don't drop that much cred to have someone tell me: "Here's this really cool setting I came up with, now go make-believe you're there." Either make a rules system for it, or write a story around it and turn it into a novel--just setting the scene isn't enough.

I see you haven't bought a hardcover book recently.

But like I said, to each his own. I just know that I still have and read 1st and 2nd ed books because of the the story I can draw out of them, not because the mechanics are of any use.

Hell I still love my 2nd ed D&D weapons and equipment book (although the exact name is evading me right now, it was one of the faux leather bound ones). Whenever I need to explain what the hell a falchion is I can just point at the handy illustrations and brief description.

For that matter I still covet Man and Machine and Fields of Fire.

But hey man, to each their own. Although I think it's a little wonky to tell game designers that you don't care about the stories they want to tell because... I'm pretty sure that's why most game designers write RPG's. Some guy said "Man! Ork's with assault rifles! Fantastic!" not "I have all these d6's! What should I do with them!"

I think most game writers are less interested in writing some novel for you to read than they are in creating a world you want to play in. I contend that a compelling world is worth more to me than a compelling set of rules although I fully accept that crappy rules can drag a game down some.

I'm taking C, but only because there's no option that says that there's no difference between the two.

Really, I'm of the opinion that the rules and the setting are the same thing, and should be meshed in such a way to prop each other up.

I vote Fluff.

Shadowrun needs some serious crunch. And crunch in Shadowrun tastes very good. However, Shadowrun is an interesting rules setting... in that you don't need to have unlimited amounts of crunch. You can have enough.

Granted, that crunch is enough for several sourcebooks.

BBB (Basic Crunch)
Arsenal (Weapons!)
Street Magic (Magic!)
UnWired (Matrix)
Augmentation (Cyberware!)

I even think you could have combined Augmentation and Arsenal content personally. About the only Crunch that I could possibly need on top of what has already been published at this point is something totally dedicated to Rigging - and Arsenal covers 2 of those 4 bases already.

But my point is that with all these core books out now, I'm ready for lots of fluff. I especially need fluff, because unlike a lot of veteran Shadowrun players, I don't have a bookshelf full of fluff books from 2nd and 3rd edition. I have a few 3rd edition rulebooks, but that's it.

I don't need every book that comes out now to have additional equipment, spells, cyberware, complex forms, positive and negative qualities, etc....

Plot! Setting! Adventure Ideas!

Gimme Gimme!

I like a balanced diet - crunch is the appetizer (I general scan the crunch in books first), but fluff is the main course. The actual game play, ironically, is the sweet sweet dessert. Crunch, however, is the essential skeleton that the meat of the fluff hangs on to make the game go - but, at the same time the crunch has to be appropriate to the fluff or the whole thing doesn't work quite right. So it turns out to be a delicate balance that is all about dessert

I didn't say I don't care about the stories, just that I consider the crunch to be more important--since there is no game without it. More than one pen and paper RPG system has a line of novels associated with it, if a writer would rather tell a story than provide mechanics, they should write a book, not a rulebook. Likewise, if what you're looking for is a compelling world, you should look to fiction. Game worlds take much (if not all) of their story elements from existing stories, as they usually begin as an attempt to build a rules system around a particular genre.