It's really starting to become apparent to me that it is the gamist design of 4e that I don't like. I play narrative games and I play simulationist games but I have never been a fan of more gamist systems. I guess this is also why I have such a problem when people claim 4e is narrative... it just doesn't strike those same chords for me as a game like Legends of Anglerre does, without me overlaying narrative conventions onto it. Very little in it's mechanics remind me of the narrative games I am familiar with but it's mechanics almost always scream gamist to me. This is all IMO and all that...
As I've often posted, elements of the mechanics - especially skill challenges - remind me of both HeroWars/Quest, and Maelstrom Storytelling.
Why?
Why shouldn't it just be the Heal skill? Why all of the restrictions?
Is it because that would make the Warlord too worthless of a healer, or is it because it would make everyone else too powerful?
The problem with nonsensical rationales is that they tend to hoist one by their own petard when logic is applied to them.
Yes. It is about balance.
The general principle is that a skill that is broader in its application, like Diplomacy, should be less powerful when used for some specific effect, like restoring morale, than a narrower skill that has the same mechanical efect, like Healing.
This principle occurs in a range of games, including narrative ones like HeroQuest revised, though not in all games. In classic Traveller, for example, some skills are supersets of others, but there are other mechanics to handle this, such as random rather than chosen acquisition of skills.
Are you comparing the son of Zeus, a demigod, to regular human fighters?
Only because the 2nd ed PHB did the same thing.
This doesn't prove anything about whether powers are rotes or principles.
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Their effects never change, their procedures never changes... that sounds like a rote to me.
Which powers are you talking about? The effects of some powers sometimes change. So while I'm not entirely sure what's at stake in this rote/principle discussion, but the premises on which you're basing your argument for "rote" are mistaken.
For example, Come and Get It can have different effects in the fiction (sometimes skilled weaonplay, sometimes lulling enemies into a false sense of confidence, sometimes goading them, etc) althought
mechanically these are all resolved as a pull. If the same PC sometimes used Come and Get It with a dagger, sometimes with a pike, I would think the procuedure and effects are very different.
The effects of Twist of Space can also differ - it can be used, for example, to rescue a NPC magically trapped in a mirror (I know this, because it happened - via p 42 - in my game). I've not seen the effects of Bigby's Icy Hand vary - yet.
If the flavor could be anything, then it doesn't matter what it IS.
That's not true.
Here's one counter-example: my child's name could be anything before I name her. It doesn't follow that, once I name her, it doesn't matter. Calling her "Beatrice" will create a different impression from calling her "Madison". Calling her Kiende (a Meru name) in a predominantly English-speaking, non-African community will also create a diffrent impression.
In my experience, the "flavour" in 4e also matters, because it creates a fictional reality with other implications for the fiction. Because of the way the action resolution rules are structured, those consequences tend to play out at a higher level of detail than "did I strike him with the flat or the point of my blade?" But that gritty level of detail is not the only level that matters.
in PF, outside of the above, Fireball also sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area... it can even melt metals. Thus if a player wants to set an object on fire or melt metal with it he can and using it can also have unforseen consequences (this, IMO, is what flavor that actually ties into the gameworld does).
Taking Fireball in 4e... it only affects creatures in the burst... that's it by the rules and flavor.
The rules part do not mention anything of a ball of fire or collateral damage. The rules only say that creature in an area take X fire damage.
In AD&D, this question doesn't come up because the Fireball spell explicitly states that it can set non-living matter on fire (subject to item saving throws). Famously, Steading of the Hill Giant Chief described the giant's wooden hall as too damp to able to set on fire easily (though still possible) to prevent this tactic.
I already dealt with this upthread - the Moldvay Basic Rules for fireball mention
only damage to creatures. The original D&D booklet (for which G1 was written) talks only about d6s of damage but says nothing about creatures, nor objects, nor fire (other than in the name of the spell). It's not until the AD&D PHB that we get the text about combustibles, melting metals etc.
Yet plenty of pre-AD&D GMs worked out that a
fireball might set fire to flammable things. Likewise 4e GMs - for an actual play example, see
here - in that scenario, the PC magic-user was trying to fight off a swarm of necrotic spiders in a library without destroying the scrolls - he therefore chose to use an "enemies only" fire power, but things still went a bit haywire when burning spiders crawled onto the shelves.
What happens when the Fireball doesn't ignite the orc's wooden stockade (benefits players) but does the dungeon they are in (harms players) because the DM made an ad hoc adjudication on the nature of magical fire?
The same as what happend before AD&D when a GM made inconsistent calls about fireball and objects - the table worked it out, put up with it, or changed GMs.
So, just to be clear, by the rules for all editions (just by the rules as written, without need for a DM adjudication), if a guy is standing in a ten by ten by ten room and he is targetted by a fireball, all of the papers in the room (let's say piled around his feet) catch on fire, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Mark CMG, no, you're right. In 4e, it is not automatic if the papers light on fire or not. It is up to the DM to adjudicate that.
Pre-4e, all DM's were forced by the mechanics into a single interpretation of how fireball works.
Can we please all get on the same page here! The text about igniting comubstibles is from the AD&D PHB. As I have quoted upthread, it is
absent from Moldvay Basic. It is also
absent from Book 1: Men & Magic. It is
absent from the Mentzer-era Rules Compendium (which many in this thread have nominated as an ideal baseline for simplicity/versatility). I assume it is absent from Holmes Basic.
The key point is that no one has ever maintained that, by RAW in those versions of classic D&D, fireballs did not ignite objects. It just requires some adjudication.
There must be something else in play that caused the default to be for stuff not to burn. This is a case where designers determined that logic and thirty-five years of rules be damned, we need to put the question of paper caught in a fireball but not specifically targetted going up in flame in the hands of the DM.
It's about 30 years, I think, between the AD&D PHB and the 4e PHB. And about 20 years between the Rules Compendium and the 4e PHB. I don't think the change in fireball wording introduced by the AD&D PHB radically changed the way the spell is adjudicated. I bet that, even back in the day when the spell description didn't mention objects, or in Basic or RC games where the rules didn't mention objects, the odd library or piece of furniture was still ignited by a fireball. As to why 4e would drop the AD&D wording and return to the more classic wording, I think this was for ease of formatting. Targets are specified as allies, enemies, or creatures to facilitate adjudication in relation to who is hurt by an attack. Objects, in this technical parlance, are a species of creature.
A further consideration is this - fireball does far less damage to a serious combatant in 4e then it does in earlier editions. The only creatures it is likely to kill, if dropped on them at the start of a combat, are minions. Whereas in earlier editions of D&D it is likely to be fatal to all ordinary soldiers, whether human or humanoid. This suggests that a 4e fireball is less destructive - whether for narrative or physical reasons would be up to a given group to adjudicate. This change in destructiveness also suggests that the adjudication of damage to furniture might be changed to be more context-sensitive (eg it would be odd for the spell to reduce a table and charis to cinders, yet leave the 5 gnolls sitting around the table unbloodied).
We saw this argument over and over with the Aragorn dream sequence suggestion from before. The same analogy should work for the little pixies that catch enemies on fire but not paper.
I can't imagine many groups wanting to adjudicate fireball in the way you describe, but if they do, what's your objection to them doing so?
If all that matters in your game is that fireball does X damage to creatures in Y damage then this is enough.
But what when the "flavor" of the spell, that it creates no pressure or ignites unattended objects does become important, maybe because of creative spell usage outside of combat (yes, I know, a strange idea) or because you really don't want to set the room aflame?
In prvious editions this was just another layer of challenge for the players. In 4E all this gets handwaved away as the player can simply say that it
happens.
Have you heard of page 42?
I come down on Imaro and Derren's side in this. It's been my experience that, if you don't give the flavour text any weight in action resolution, then the specifics of what the characters do in the fiction tends to get ignored.
My experience is that you don't need the game text to settle the flavour text in order for the fiction to be given weight in action resolution (although I don't think 4e, as written in the rules text, will support the sort of fine-grained fiction you seem to be looking for, like it mattering whether an attacker strikes high or low).
I think that game design that's challenge-based, puts the fictional positioning of the characters in a privileged position with regards to action resolution, and provides acceptable (if unexpected) results through action resolution needs to rely heavily on an impartial player - the DM.
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this:
Just because the players (including the DM) get to decide what the in-game expression of the facts generated by the rules will be does not mean that the form of that expression is unimportant.
Does the power say that it WILL NOT affect any objects in the burst? No it doesn't. So the DM can decide what the power does outside of that narrow interpretation.
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In 4e, the decision is explicitly left up to the DM and players. A player can easily ask, "can I set fire to the room with the Fireball?" Then it becomes a matter of DM adjudication. The DMG also has wonderful advice for DMs when handling these "corner cases."
In my case, I know which one provides more flexibility, the one that puts the adjudication in the hands of the person that knows that table best, the DM.
What the DM says goes, just like always.
In my view, the key element of the game rules that interacts with ficitonal positioning is the
keyword. Because there is no keyword for a high or a low or a frontal or a rear attack, these don't matter in the default rules. (Although whether a PC attacks from the front or the rear could be relevant to future matters like whether others treat him/her as honourable or not, either in combat or in a skill challenge).
But because there
is a keyword for fire attacks, a fireball can set objects aflame.
I already saw this was partially addressed.
But come on...
Mocking the master/creator, who is dead (based on the example), or plausibly not within earshot?
Mocking Vecna/Juiblex, who is a god, who is not paying attention to something so lowly AND who can take it?
Mocking the shadow magic, which is a force and incapable of emotion? Why not mock fire to make it not burn you?
There are a few things to say here.
One, the dead can be mocked.
Two, I have no objection to a bard mocking a dead or absent creator, and this so weakening the magic of his/her creator that the skeletons, in their tiny minds, feel a sensation of weakness/dispiritedness/enfeeblement/ennui (take your pick!) and are less resolved to fight on. It reminds me a bit of Gandalf confronting the Balrog by mocking his dark powers as a Flame of Udun.
Third, you can't use vicious mockery against a fire, because objects are immune to psychic damage and to attacks vs will. I'd have no trouble with a bard confronting a fire elemental and mocking the fire as feeble or incapable in the scheme of things.
If the game involves bards as PCs, it is presupposing the magical power of words - as is evident in much myth. Vicious mockery - affecting things by the use of words that mock them, or relevant aspects of their history or creation - doesn't threaten my sense of (fantasy) verisimilitude.
So you allow bards to use vicious mockery on chairs? After all, the chairs are mindless and have no resistance/immunity to charms or psychic damage, and a cracked or exploding chair seems like a perfectly reasonable reaction to psychic damage
Chairs, being objects, are immune to psychic damage and to attacks vs Will.
I think another part of it is the 4E being very specific that the default rule is independant of fictional positioning.
What have you got in mind? Both the page 42 and skill challenge guidelines make it clear that fictional positioning is central to adjudication.
If anything, from the line below found in the 4e RC (The most up to date source for rules) 4e is empowering the roll of the dice as to how the power (at least spells) are described... Wow these books can be confusing and contradictory when it comes to Improvising with Arcana (Page 136)
-Change the visible or audio qualities of one's magical powers when using them (moderate DC)
Wow can these rules be confusing and contradictory when reading through 4e... I wonder why every other power source can reskin freely... but actual rules are given if you wish to reskin spells??
With my group, we assume that this is about concealing the glow of fire, or the sound of thunder - things that otherwise wouldn't be "reskinnable" because they track keywords.
Why doesn't the game encourage the DM *more* to do that, by listing fireball as causing x damage in a burst (with no mention of creatures).
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What exactly do you think is the problem with the above suggestion, and why do you think that 4E didn't do it that way from the beginning?
I've frequently posted that the game needs better guidelines, including guidelines that draw clearer links between keywords and ficitonal positioning - at present this is discussed only in the (somewhat auxiliary) rules about attacking objects, whereas the rules on keywords themselves only talk about mechanics-to-mechanics interactions.
The 4e designers wouldn't be the first ever RPG designers to write crappy guidelines to go with their rules, although they probably have less excuse, given (i) how well resourced they are, and (ii) all the other better examples they had to draw on.
). But in my opinion most people play with what the rules say. "I want my fireball to look like a dragon's head that flies toward my opponent", "No, it says here that it is a pea-sized thing, not a small dragon head, cannot do that". 4E encourages players and DMs much more than 3e to narrate their own stuff, to make the powers their own. Sure, the side effect is that not as many things are explained in the texts for the powers as there were in 3e. But I consider this a good thing. 
