This is why I think the longer combat rounds of TSR-D&D work better. Both WotC- and TSR-D&D use very abstract combat systems, so much so that the details of your "melee attack" are unimportant. When you combine that level of abstract resolution with 6-second combat rounds, I think it's easier to ask what, exactly, is my guy doing?
I actually disagree, even though I think I know what you're driving at. The problem is that a real armed combat (be it samurai duellists or western swordmasters) between two combatants is typically over in 5-10 seconds unless the opponents are astoundingly well matched and very skilled indeed. I think HârnMaster (for all its faults) does OK with a 10 second round, but only because of the "tactical advantage" system that means a character might be taking several actions in one round, depending on how the tempo of the fight works out.
In other words, so much happens in 6 seconds that I think the level of abstraction is fine, there. The problem is not the level of abstraction or the time tick - it's the recognition that the characters are using skills that the player, not being in the exact situation or having the same training as the character, cannot hope to match or even emulate.
When I designed the combat system for my 4E hack, I wanted players to make choices that leveraged the fiction to their advantage - or disadvantage, in the case of poor play. I also wanted to picture the scene in my head. (I think that's immersion but I am not sure.)
Hmm. I picture scenes in my head all the time while I roleplay; if I do it from the character's PoV I think that
can be immersion - a sort of trance where I react to what the picture in my head shows me, not (directly) to the system or the other players (including the GM).
Something I have started doing, though, is neither expecting nor trying to enforce other players to see the exact same details I do in the fiction. I am doing this because I have found that it leads to issues - particularly with respect to this "poor play"/"good play" rewards thing.
The root of the problem, it seems to me, is that what I see in my head
I find believable, but others with different "world models" seeing the exact same detail might find it entirely
unbelievable. The same effect means that if I, as GM, start rewarding players for doing something "believably smart", all I am really doing is rewarding them for having the same world-physics model as me. I don't (any longer) find this satisfying.
This doesn't demand associated mechanics; it demands (certain detailed) fictional positioning having influence on resolution.
Which is fine as long as all the players see the detailed fictional positioning having an effect on resolution that they see as being "believable". You form a group all self-congratulating each other for having the same world-model, much like parts of this thread (credit to JC for pointing that out!)
This is why I like 4E - I think that the system makes it easy for fictional positioning to influence mechanical resolution. Dissociated mechanics may play a part here, because the player creates, at run-time, the connection between the game world and the mechanics. Which means that you can create your own fictional positioning - fiction that's relevant to you, in the moment, and can make as much sense as you want it to - instead of relying on the mechanic's connection to the game world.
I, too, love that the players get to create links, at runtime, between the actions and the fiction in 4e. I'm still leery of sharing too much what these links are or how they affect resolution, because I think to do so endangers some players' visions of the fiction as a whole - including mine.
Funnily enough, outside of combat I see plenty of scope in just about all rulesets to play this way.
I think this creates a reward system for a certain type of "Right to Dream" play. You make a character, but you don't want to have to risk that character's integrity by possibly screwing up with your choices - you want your choices to be low-stress. You pass the ball to the DM, and a good DM will "get it right" and describe your character in the "right" way - passing the ball back to you. Then you express your character well enough for the DM to pick up on what your PC's about, and round and round it goes.
Hmm, interesting. I generally look for the "world" to be revealed to me in the outcomes generated by the systems, but what you're suggesting here is - if it works out OK - the gentle reinforcement and acceptance by the game group of each others' world models through descriptions in play being accepted by the rest of the group, with occasional veto by the GM. I think I would see that as incredibly fragile and much prefer simple discussion and agreement, personally, but I can see it as a preference for some. It would probably be best done without a system - just a world background description would help, perhaps.
No! Hit points suck, for precisely this reason. The main reason we put up with them is because we're used to them, and because they are intuitive (as they resemble hit points in a variety of non-TTRPG games; unlike powers, which don't). But they are one of the biggest problems in D&D. A true advancement of the rules to a new and better edition would almost require dumping hit points.
Experience points are an inherently optional pacing mechanic that most people already change or ignore. The attempt to bake XP into the rules through XP costs for spells and items was one of the most universally derided aspects of 3e, and with good reason. It breaks immersion, isn't balanced, and doesn't add anything useful to the game. (Unlike some of [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION] 's examples above, such as plot points, which do add something useful for some people at least).
So, to review, XP and HP are dissociated, and this is a problem, and it would be better to fix this problem rather than adding more mechanics that create new problems.
This whole post makes no sense to me at all. If hit points and experience points are such a negative element in D&D for those who want whatever it is that you are advocating, why on earth haven't all or most of those players switched to a system that actually removes those elements?? I mean, in the earliest days, sure, I can understand it - there were no alternatives that didn't use hit points and some semblance of an "experience system"; but by 1983 they were appearing and in 2012 there are plenty of them!
Surely, D&D without hit points and experience points to go up level would be right there in the bullseye for a "not D&D" claim? Why the apparent need to drag D&D toward being more like a DragonQuest/RuneQuest/HârnMaster/Riddle of Steel clone than like the original D&D?
