Flavor Text of Eden (And 4e!)

On my blog I wrote a post about Flavor Text in 4e with examples from my campaign setting. My main point was to open people's minds about how creative they can get with 4e powers, and how they don't have to say "I hit that miniature with tide of iron" ad nauseum. One of the things I didn't touch upon too much was what I meant when I said that my setting was conducive to some of the more over-the-top things in 4e.

By design, I wanted my Spirits of Eden setting to have setting functions in place that facilitated that over-the-top nature of D&D 4e. It has a lot of influences from japanese Shinto religion, Chinese wuxia films and stories, and the epic Hindu myths. The game has an air of improbable possibility. The heroes of the Hindu epics could just do amazing things. Wuxia heroes can train in incredible martial arts, using Chi or just their own amazing talent as the explanation. In the form of Essence and Aura, Eden has its own version of worldly energy that serves for just this purpose. It's a way to explain things – if you want to.

Another thing I didn't touch upon was the feeling some people have, that flavor of that sort would take away time at the table that can be used to get through combats, or slow down combats. I never face this problem (I don't play around a table) and I really can't address it. I don't want a fast combat just for the sake of getting through it. If you want to just grind through combats as fast as possible to get them over with, why are you even playing D&D 4e? I want a fun combat, with flavorful descriptions, cool and varied powers and tactics, powerful enemies and mythical struggles.