I've been trying something new with fluff, setting info, flavour, worldbuilding, whatever you call it. I think of it as the spice in a meal.
The game is bland with too little, but too much just gets in the way. Most of all, nobody wants to chew on a mouthful of whole cloves.
So I try to sneak fluff into the game by sprinkling it onto the bits that people want to consume. Your discount mercenaries have "spotless, new red uniforms" listed in their equipment. Your fleet is a Noble Pleasure Yacht with Lace Sails listed alongside the ship's guns. The factory-foreman has a club and pocket-watch as his only listed equipment. The grey-ape's attack is listed as a d8 Choke, rather than a bite or claw.
The ultimate test is whether I can do this, and omit the paragraphs of raw fluff entirely.
With Into the Odd, I got it down to one page of setting info, giving a small paragraph to each of the five key setting points (Bastion, Underground, Deep Country, Golden Lands, Polar Ocean), but it's tucked away in the Referee's section.
Here's to taking it to the next level with the Odd World Toolkit.
I'm finding that ItO hits the sweet spot for me between VAGUE and SUGGESTIVE. I almost never want to take part in a game in which the minutiae are closely managed by the DM. I want to discover fun things about the world in play and by asking questions of other players and the DM.
ReplyDelete