Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
That's a good point. On that topic: do you agree with me that WOTC should hire or train better fluff writers? Because I find the fluff we've seen so far for e.g. 5E's warlock abilities to be laughably bad.
Yes and no. Hiring better fluff writers wouldn't necessarily be hard - they have forums full of them! But the problem isn't always the writers themselves. What WotC needs is a new fluff paradigm; they need to look at fluff in a different way. "Realistic" mechanics are one symptom of the way they look at fluff, and you'll notice their record of screwing them up or making them weak to use. Two-Weapon Fighting? Falling rules? Drowning rules? All of these stem from the idea that the game is supposed to attempt to closely model an existing world.

Now, if this were a different RPG that wouldn't be so much of an issue. There's all kinds of limited-focus RPGs whose mechanics really can revolve around a single world or even a single scenario. But versatility is ALSO D&D's watch-word, and the way they shackle themselves like that only hurts that versatility. If they embrace abstraction in the game mechanics and the separation of fluff and mechanics, they'll naturally see the ability for better fluff to flourish.