To fluff or not to fluff

[Satrek]

I've had mixed reviews on the Dragon Teeth, with about half of them saying they ignored the descriptions of the dragons, and the other half stating that they thought that it was that fluff that made it worth the buy. So...

I'm wondering, for future reference, whether to continue to provide some roleplayed background (refer to Petrosious in Gates to the World for an example, although I think I need to boil him down) or not. I am inclined to incorporate some ideas on how to rule such items, trying to keep these system free as much as possible of course.

What do you think?

[Sirrob01]

I know I don't do anything commercially, but for me actual writing the fluff is half the fun .

From a purely economical view point, if you hadn't have included the fluff half your customers would be unhappy.

So I voted to keep it in

[Tommygun]

As long as you are not spending weeks writing the fluff, I would keep it.

[Parduz]

From my non-english speaker point of view, i usually skip all the fluff.
What happens is that i can't read "literate" english: too long sentences, subordinate clause, non-elementary phrase construction makes me loose the point before reaching the first dot.
This usually does not happens when the fluff is tied with rules; to explain rules you need simple phrases, and mostly the fluff is there just to give the rule a reason to be like it is.

With the various RPGNOW offers for charity i got a lot of RPG pdfs. I can use the ones that have generic or OGL rules in them (Spells books, Weapons books, Prestige class etc). The RPG manuals which contains too much "story", or novel pdfs are sitting unreaded.

Now, ppl like me are the 0.01% of the market, so i don't know how much my vote and this comment should be taken in care.

[Satrek]

Every person counts, parduz.

I think Sirrob makes a good point, people who don't like fluff won't not buy something just because it has fluff. I'd like to hear more opinions but it looks like I'll keep the fluff and add some rule ideas in the future.

[josedominguez]

You can ignore fluff if it's there, you can't read it if it isn't!