I’ve only got the energy to respond to one thing, so I’ll make that the weapons thing. In retrospect, the weapons thing isn’t actually all that annoying of a detail, but it can be if used incorrectly.

Hypothetical situation: You fight goblins and take their items. They have some fun magical items. They will, of course, most likely be goblin themed. They will be birds skulls or crude swords, etc. I can’t see my bard or paladin character strapping on a goblin sword, even though it is better. That is where my mind went with the aesthetic example. It is, however, a valid reason for why the weapons look the way they look. I have many memories of pouring through the 2nd ed. D&D books and reading these descriptions of the type of wood in a wand, or placement of gems, etc. that had nothing to do with the actual item. The wand of magic missle (a very generic item) always seemed to be described the same way, verbatim from the book, by every DM I ever played under. The details provided didn’t seem to be something that any of them could overcome and describe differently. This isn’t really a fault of the details themselves, but the people who couldn’t get past them.

So my beef is really this: Details given on generic items can provide a barrier to building that description into something more interesting, appropriate, and immersive to the group.

And that is about all I have energy for. Back into bed.

In my mind, one of the things that defines a character isn’t just the culture he is a part of, but what parts of that culture he embraces or rejects. As such, I feel like there is more room to build a character when some baseline is given.

Whereas, specific location details are boring to me. It is a place. There are things there. It doesn’t matter unless it is important to a character’s attitudes or motivations, or it adds a sense of tone to a scene.

This one of the paradoxes of our hobby IMO. We say “Do whatever you want! Imagine it as you see fit!” and then we gather into groups the tone changes to “Whoa! We’re going to have to agree on some details here!”

This is not really a bad thing, but somethignt aht GMs should be aware of. If you are running Forgotten Realms keep the details and stay up to date on what is added to the world. If you prefer a looser setting than encourage your players to come up with their own details that matter to their characters. There is a potential to abuse that sort of world building (i.e. – “My character’s class comes with a ton of treasure because of these details…”), but a GM can always trump those sorts of things (“And all of that treasure goes into maintaining the elaborate guild that you described, so your character can’t spend it.”).

I like details about religions. A blurb is not good enough. I like to know rituals and ceremonies and tenents and factions/sects within the religion. Because that is stuff that I don’t want to fool with. It also provides flesh, and gives a much better idea of the religion. Even if I don’t like the stuff it presents, I can use it for another God.

Your character doesn’t just want a (+2) sword. But he doesn’t want a description of the sword. So how can he know if he likes it or not?

Are you saying you want the GM to know your sword vanity preferences, and never offer you a sword that doesn’t fit with your color scheme?

Or are you saying you actually want a +2 sword with no description, and for the GM to bless whatever description you come up with? If so, I think any good GM would let you change the cosmetic description of any item as long its about the same size, shape, and craftsmanship.

GM: “When you search what remains of the body, you see the dark black fusion rifle he fried your cleric with. It’s still cooling down.”

Player: “I shine a bright light on it, secretly hoping it’s really red, to go with my armor.”

GM: “Huh?” Blinks a few times. “Oh, yes, once the light shines on it you can see it’s a red fusion rifle that is covered with black dust. It’s a perfect match to your armor.”

However I do like a bit of extra descriptions to things like weapons gives me a feel of what this weapon was going for. If I don’t like where it was going I ignore the description and make it my own.

Maps however are awesome and I wish there were more pictures and maps for settings it’s helpful in getting an idea of what the world looks like an sparks my imagination in new ways.

A big reason why I don’t mind the extra detail is that even if I don’t accept what’s written, the act of tossing something overboard required that I think about and reject it. Do you know how many +1 swords I’ve handed out without description due to the lack of a prompt?

I like maps and pictures, especially of critters. I like that every dragon in D&D looks different. I like that the minis look like the pictures. I like pictures of gadgets.

I don’t like campaigns where every last detail is laid out (looking at you, Forgotten Realms). I want a lot of grey area in my campaign, where I can either make it up, of ask the players to chip in.

And saying that “you can change this” is a cop-out. I really don’t want to rewrite the details of an established book, especially when they may be referenced in another book, or used by one of my players.

However, the thing about the faction/class attitude thing I am very sensitive about. My Setting was given the subtitle “World of Factions” by a colleague at the CBG, and in a place where pc and npcs are expecte to be members of a number of political, mercantile, religious and social groups, it ismportant to avoid overgeneralizing or creating caricature.

Interesting thread and a good viewpoint to look through.