Crunch v. Fluff

Crunch v. Fluff

At Norwescon last weekend, I was in a panel called Crunch Vs. Fluff: FIGHT! The point of the panel was for the panelists--all game industry professionals--to take one side or the other and debate or argue. When it came my turn to declare which "side" I was on, I said that Crunch and Fluff formed a false dichotomy that actually hurts game design rather than informs it. But that wasn't fun in the spirit of the panel, so I said I'd just take the opposite postion of whatever fellow panelist Jonathan Tweet said (Jonathan and I have a long history of fun arguments).

But I have been thinking about the issue since the panel. And I really do think it's a false dichotomy. I think that, for whatever reason having to do with human nature, people like to take parts of a whole and declare favorites, or rank importance. But the dichotomy is often false. To declare that the chips in chocolate chip cookies are more important than the cookie is to ignore the beautiful synthesis of chocolate and cookie. A handful of chocolate chips is okay, but all melty inside a freshly baked, still warm cookie? That's much better.

The dichotomy of crunch versus fluff is similar. Crunch is usually (broadly) defined as the mechanical element of a role-playing game. Fluff is the story elements of the game--characters, setting, plot, flavor, etc. To pit these two aspects of the game against each other is to misunderstand what an rpg is on a fundamental level. The mechanics and the story don't conflict, they complement. If they conflict, it's the warning sign that something is wrong as sure as when black smoke is pouring out from under the hood of your car. You normally wouldn't say, "cars are machines that sometimes emit black smoke from the engine," you'd more properly say, "a malfunctioning car is a machine that sometimes emits black smoke." Likewise, fluff and crunch aren't supposed to conflict, they're supposed to work together. That is, in fact, a simple and straightforward definition of an rpg: an activity where story and game meet.

Like with so many things, it's interesting to take rpgs apart and look at their parts, but it's incorrect to then try to say that one part is superior to another. A cookie without chocolate chips is just a plain cookie. Chips without a cookie are just a handful of chocolate chips. Only together do you have a chocolate chip cookie. An rpg without story is a board game (at best). An rpg without mechanics is an anecdote. 

It's far more useful to look at how the two can work together than it is to look at the two separately. Mechanics should fit the story. But they can also inform the story. In the former case, if you're designing a modern day game set in a small Midwestern town, characters should probably be assumed to be able to drive cars. In the latter, if your character generation system has a common result of granting characters the ability to burst into flames, the setting very likely should be one where people aren't too surprised to see fiery folk walking around.

Crunch and fluff (honestly, I don't even like the terms, let alone the implied dichotomy) aren't enemies. They aren't even feuding siblings. They're close partners that work in harmony, creating together what neither could do apart.