Color-first ?

[Whipstitch]

Over time you've given me the impression that you need shit spelled out for you at every turn or else your imagination freezes up and can't produce evocative results. For example, I suspect this because of the way you've denounced D&D spells as being dry in other threads even though you can do straight up gonzo shit like create multi-sensory illusions, customize curses, conjure roiling acid clouds, polymorph into a remorhaz or take someone's body for a joy ride off a cliff. I honestly find it perplexing that you can hold such opinions while simultaneously finding a fucking Rolemaster chart interesting.

[John Magnum]

At this point I'm pretty sure Silva is being consciously contrarian, first identifying positions in opposition to what he thinks Den Consensus is and second coming up with some incoherent nonsense justifying them.

[silva]

Nah, not at all Magnum. I have better things to do than picking fights for nothing.

Over time you've given me the impression that you need shit spelled out for you at every turn or else your imagination freezes up and can't produce evocative results. For example, I suspect this because of the way you've denounced D&D spells as being dry in other threads even though you can do straight up gonzo shit like create multi-sensory illusions, customize curses, conjure roiling acid clouds, polymorph into a remorhaz or take someone's body for a joy ride off a cliff. I honestly find it perplexing that you can hold such opinions while simultaneously finding a fucking Rolemaster chart interesting.

I think the "dryness" for me comes from the way its spellcasting system work, aka: like munition firing. But the effects from the spells per se are actually very cool and evocative. Their names too, at least from old editions ("Mordenkaiden Magnificient Mansion"). For a evocative spellcasting system, look at Ars Magica, Mage or Unknown Armies. At least in my opinion, of course.

By the way, I just realized the opposite of what Im talking about here is "Crunch-first" - games where rules take so much precedence over fiction as to make fiction irrelevant some times. D&D 4E reminds me this, as do Gurps combat with all those idiossincratic maneuvers you have to understand to be competent at it.

[Whipstitch]

It doesn't help that Mearls took that approach to stupid extremes AND added a healthy dose of laziness to boot. After all, for a long time it was in vogue to have exhaustive stats and descriptions for many things even if you didn't give a flying fuck about game balance and putting things into neat little tiers. Many D&D monsters are admittedly purpose built and incredibly silly, but many are still charming despite all of that, and in many cases it's because players were able to look at those weird piles of numbers and powers and start thinking about what kind of shenanigans these odd ball creatures are getting up to with their eyelasers and nostril tentacles. Mind you, that's hardly an efficient way to come by inspiration, but it beats the hell out of Mearls' "revelation" that monsters don't really need non-combat powers and other doodads at all because they're not doing anything until the players show up anyway.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

I've heard "crunch first" described here as 'effects based", as a term for how HERO does things. You figure out a point value for a power, and then fluff it. Where it might work in HERO where it fails for 4e is that you can customize them with Advantages and Disadvantages, to bring the color to life; Cyclops's Optic Blast and Marisa's Master Spark might both be a Blast, but Cyclops loses control of his power if his Obvious Accessible Focus gets damaged, while Marisa can clear projectiles with her beam.Meanwhile, a ranger's bow and a warlock firing bolts of demonic energy does the same thing in 4e.

[Dogbert]

Holy thread necro, Batman...

Is it my imagination or does this thread take it from the fallacious premise that people write rules just for the sake of writing rules?

That doesn't happen.

Having some education in systems design, I can tell you that any designer worth his title starts with a list of requirements before getting to work on the best approach to fulfill said requirements (and unless you're writing a generic system, the fluff is always part of said requirements, a systems mechanic that can't represent the bit of fluff it was assigned to isn't worth crap).

Writing rules before fluff is putting the cart before the horse.

Now, if this is all about rolemaster's critical hit table... personally I wouldn't play at any table where I'm not free of even describing the aftermath of my character's own actions (successes and failures) myself. That's the opposite of creativity.

If you want a system with built-in collateral damage with each strong hit that actually encourages creativity, try eiter FATE or M&M (for naming the first two that come to my mind, I'm sure there are plenty more out there).

[Whipstitch]

Emphasis on requirements can matter though. A lot of old school D&D monsters make virtually no sense as anything but a way to troll adventurers and in 4e monsters were built with a brute/controller/artillery paradigm in mind that resulted in separate entries for dwarf with a hammer and dwarf with a crossbow. It's entirely possible for fluff to be a sad afterthought.