As repeatedly rebutted by myself and others, their points force you to accept other, equally problematical and absurd things, to solve the arrow of time problem. Schrödinger's Argument to resolve Schrödinger's Wounding. All they managed to do was demonstrate that the problem doesn't bother them, which was never in dispute.
Personally, I find the "the problem you experience doesn't exist" line of reasoning to be disingenious at best, and at worst indicates a set of blinders that renders the "reasoning" worthless.
I'm not saying there is no problem for those who don't enjoy narrativist play. I am saying that the problem does not take the form of retconning, and I am saying that because those who play 4e in a narrativist fashion, and are posting about it in this thread, are saying that at their tables retconning does not come up.
You don't play 4e as far as I can tell, so at your table the retconning issue doesn't come up (certainly, you haven't replied to Lost Soul's request for an example of actual play).
So who is having the retconning problem? No one, as far as I can tell from this thread.
I
think the problem for those who don't like 4e healing surges is that the sort of narration required as an alternative to retconning would be experienced as too gonzo by many non-narrativist players, especially those with what I would roughly call 1st ed AD&D tastes. But I'm not yet 100% sure of this.
4E though was made to focus on many combats, its strength is the tactical choices in combat which really only shines when you have many of them. The flipside to this is if you have many fights they each cant be Inigo Montoya moments. if you dont have many fights I think you are losing one of the strongest aspects of 4e.
Now this is a good point. I think it's possible to have lots of fights, with therefore many Inigo Montoya moments, without going gonzo (or without going intolerably gonzo). My evidence for this (other than my own RPGing experience, which is not public evidence) is mostly literary and cinematic: superhero comics are mostly a sequence of fight scenes, but (at least in the better versions of them) don't collapse into intolerable gonzo; Conan stories are chock-full of fight scenes, including scenes with recovery from inhuman levels of punishment, without going intolerably gonzo; the best John Woo movies (Hardboild, The Killer, Bullet in the Head) are full of fight scenes and incredible recoveries, without going intolerably gonzo; etc.
TSOY, TRoS, BW are much better for games (IMHO) you should be playing if you want to have Inigo Montoya moments.
I might add Rolemaster as a good game for IM moments but that based on it being so deadly and debilitating when you get into combat.
Rolemaster has the trouble that wounds are so debilitating and it has no Fate Point or similar mechanics (eg SAs in TRoS).
Rolemaster can be played in a fairly combat-heavy fashion, especially at mid-to-high levels where parrying is effective and healing magic is available, and the tactical aspects of combat in that system help support certain aspects of the narrative. But they often won't be Inigo Montoya moments, and more like Lone Wolf and Cub moments.
I've got no doubt that there are other systems that overall are better than, and better for narrativist play than, 4e. But 4e has its own attractions nevertheless, both pragmatic (eg ease of getting a group together) and principled (eg combination of intricate combat mechanics and skill challenge mechanics in the one game system).
I dont think retconning is a necessity at the table but to not retcon requires that that "in-game" reality of wounds are not resolved until after the player decides to or not invoke the second wind (or sleeps for the night etc.) or that hp damage is not connected to any injury.
This can be true to a degree. That's why I have compared 4e to HeroWars, where this is also true. But it needn't be the case all, or even most, of the time: see below.
Sammy is hit for 49 of his 50 points of damage. The options are:
1. He was not actually hit for any appreciable damage but the next hit will be fatal. In this case second wind is neither mystic nor retconning but hp damage is not mapped to physical damage (hp now just represent your characters narrative staying power..how long he can remain an active participant in the story)
2. He does not use his second wind and was hit for real damage and is on his on his last bit of blood.
3. He uses his second wind and the character's wound was not really a damaging blow just visually bloody.
This choice of narrative explanation is not made until the second wind power is invoked.
<snip>
Maybe i am missing an option though.
All of these options are available. None involves retconning. Option 1 seems to be GlaziusF's preference. Options 2 & 3 are the HeroWars way - there is a degree of narrative indeterminacy while the conflict is still awaiting resolution, of the sort that many fortune-in-the-middle systems require. (Note, by the way, that there is no indeterminacy in the gameworld - only in the metagame, where the narration has not firmed up yet. This is pretty common in RPGs - many a GM has introduced a mysterious stranger in the inn, without as yet having fully determined the narrative surrounding that stranger. And sometime this indeterminacy is something that would not be in doubt for the PCs - eg the GM may not choose the colour of the NPC's shoes until a player asks some time down the track, even though the PCs would have know that from the get-go.)
And what about option 4: the player narrates an injury at the time of taking the damage, and then narrates an Inigo Montoya moment when the Second Wind is used? This is what Hypersmurf and Lost Soul are suggesting.
I would think that any given 4e table could use any of Option 1, Options 2/3, or Option 4 from damage roll to damage roll, as struck the fancy of the players.
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