Consider the AD&D sleep spell. Mechanically, it's only difference from a regular to-hit roll is that the DM is rolling it instead of the player. (In some early games, even this is not different, as DMs rolled all dice.) The mechanic didn't create the feel of magic -- the players and DMs created that by describing the narrative. How they imagined it was different.
I don't have any strong views on the rest of your interesting post - 4e is the first game I've played using tactical maps (hand drawn) and tokens (collected from old board games), as opposed to "theatre of the mind" and the occasional scrawled map on a bit of scrap paper, and I don't have any well-formed view on how it's changed my play experience - but I agree that the difference between magic and mundane in AD&D comes not from the mechanics but from the shared understanding of the fiction.
Because people expect magic to be different.
But as [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] said, they expect it to be different
in the fiction. That doesn't explain why it needs to be different in the mechanics.
I disagree emphatically that most people expect it to be different. In most games I can think of off the top of my head, it's only different where the outcomes are different.
Rolemaster is another game where there is not the sort of difference being talked about here: spells are learned as skills, just like weapons, and attack spells have attack tables just like weapons, while "effect" spells have descriptions of failed save consequences just as do poisons, traps or pieces of dodgy masonry that might fall on you. There is no sense that the "magicalness" of magic depends upon a particular sort of formatting; and all actual casting is resolved using the same d100 mechanic that Rolemaster uses for everything else.
The argument is that it makes no sense for a specific type of simmilarity to be different. The argument isn't that Scry should behave the same way as stabbing someone with your sword. It's that shooting someone with a bow and shooting someone with a ray are comparable actions and should therefore be handled in a comparable manner. The different action resolution mechanic should reflect what you are doing.
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You note what you list as differences. Differences in the fiction. Which I don't think anyone disputes should be resolved differently. The magical connection is an inherent part of the fiction. The dice resolution mechanic is the same. I'm counting this as the same. The magic resolution system is the same. The difference comes from what you are resolving. Which is as it should be.
Yes to all this.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it's because almost every description of casting magic in the majority of fiction is nothing like shooting an arrow or swinging a sword... and that's where most peoples expectations are going to come from.
This is about differences in the fiction, not differences in the resolution mechanic or the resource structure.
They expect a different mechanic because, IMO, for most people it is the mechanics that impart a particular "feel" regardless of what form of fiction they try and lather across it. Again, IMO... it creates dissonance for many when the mechanics are the same or very similar between magic and mundane because this is not how most fiction (which are their reference points) describes them.
In Rolemaster, there is no difference between the formatting of the Lightning Bolt attack table and the Longbow attack table. Nor is there any difference in the resolution: roll the d100, add your skill, look up the table, resolve the outcome.
MERP and HARP, as Rolemaster cousins, are essentially the same.
HERO and GURPS don't use table look-ups for attack resolution, but I imagine that they would handle all attacks - whether bow or energy bolt - in the same way.
This becomes even more probable in a science-fantasy game: firearms, including lasers, are likely to be handled in the same way as archery, and magical or psionic energy blasts are likely to be handled in the same way as lasers and blasters.
But I've never heard it suggested that in Rolemaster, or these other games, there is no difference between magical attacks and archery. The view seems unique to D&D, and in deed unique to criticisms of 4e. I mean, action resolution for Melf's Acid Arrow in the current playtest is no different from action resolution for ordinary archery. Where are all the threads decrying the "sameness" and arguing that the magic has been leached out of that iconic spell?
Back in 2e, I met a friend (no more) who loved playing wizards. He specifically loved playing evokers. I played with him through the beginning of 3e where he, again, played a wizard. Being a good RPG nerd he came with various eccentricities and gaming rituals and props. One in particular stuck out and was completely "wizard-centric" in its aesthetic. He had tons of dice (I believe a complete set for each color). For his fire spells he used red dice, ice-blue, earth/rock-green, necro-black, radiant/sun-yellow, lightning-white and for any d100s required he used clear/sparkly dice (presumably for crystal ball/chance/staring into the ether, etc). One day he forgot his dice at home. He lived 45 minutes one way. We averaged about 4-5 hours per session. This would cut our session down by 1/3. Of no surprise to anyone, we cut our session down by 1/3 that night.
Any thoughts on this and how it may pertain to the question I posed above?
I love the story. I don't really know how to interpret it. But the colour-to-effect connection is reasonably self-evident, I think - whereas (to hark back to your earlier post) I don't see how "5/2, THAC0 7, 1d8 + 7" is in anway evocative of swordfighting, and "Level: 3, Range: 12", Effect: 20' R burst of fire for d6 per level, save vs spells for half damage" evocative of magic. And even in D&D, grenades and the like have traditionally been statted up like spells, and no one (to my knowledge) has ever complained that this renders them non-mundane. Whereas the attacks of a ghost or wight have traditionally been statted up like your weapon example, and I've never seen anyone complain that this makes them too mundane.
Much like Melf's Acid Arrow in the playtest.
Which, for me at least, reinforces my view that this a particular complaint about 4e, as opposed to some general theory about the design of PC resources and action resolution mechanics.
it's all about preference. My players don't like Heroquest because in our last game (Nameless Streets) they felt that there was no mechanical difference in anything the different characters did.... it was always narrate whatever you want and roll d20.
Spirit of the Century... I'll give you this one... but then it's one of those games, like Heroquest that purposefully goes for making EVERYTHING the exact same mechanic.
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person to have noticed some resemblances between 4e and a certain sort of indie RPG design!