PathfinderWiki:No crunch
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This page is an official policy on the PathfinderWiki. In accordance with policy, this page has been protected. You can suggest changes by following the revision procedure or discussing it on the talk page. |
The focus of PathfinderWiki is on providing an encyclopedic reference to Pathfinder campaign setting people, places, and life, rather than acting as a gaming manual.
PathfinderWiki is, for the most part, crunch-free. Crunch is a slang term for rules, statistics, game mechanics, and figures in Dungeons & Dragons and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, as opposed to flavor, which is text describing the game world and its elements.
General policy
Crunch is not banned entirely, but statistic blocks and most other game mechanics should be left out in favor of descriptive text to the same effect. PathfinderWiki can contain certain game mechanics, such as:
- Character level
- Character class
- Spell names
- Creature CR, types and subtypes
When these elements appear, they should be constrained almost exclusively within an infobox or a category designation, not within the main body of an in-universe article.
Sometimes crunch and flavor are braided together in a way that makes them difficult to separate, such as a feat or trait which describes a mechanical effect of living in a specific region or worshiping a particular deity. In these cases, try to remove any game-rule elements and describe the benefits or mechanics as an in-world character would. Thus, "worshipers of Sarenrae are sometimes trained to utilize precise diplomacy to redeem evil-doers before resorting to violence" is preferred to "a worshiper of Sarenrae who takes this feat gains a +2 bonus on Diplomacy checks to redeem an evil person." When in doubt, err on the side of caution, since adding additional crunch makes more work for other editors to remove later.
Crunchy web alternatives
There are plenty of sources on the Internet that transcribe crunch, so it is not necessary to duplicate crunch from system reference documents or any source material (potentially infringing copyright), but rather links can be provided to such content instead. Archives of Nethys is the official Pathfinder Reference Document, Paizo's licensed partner host of PFRPG 1e and 2e rules and campaign setting content from Paizo works.
What to do if you encounter crunch
If you encounter an article or a section of an article which you feel contains excessive game-rules information other than as category designators or in an infobox, add the {{Crunch}} template to the top of the article or in the section containing the crunchy elements. This will add the article to Category:Crunchy articles for review by other editors. If you feel your demarcation of an article requires explanation or to suggest a solution, use the article's talk page. Of course, simply rephrasing the crunchy elements of the page as in-world content is preferred to leaving it for someone else to do, but adding the template is better than leaving crunch unflagged.