Systematic rule systems are indeed cool and easy to remember (great in theory). I just see the danger that - to elaborate on your interacting wheels example - one can introduce more and more wheels into the gearbox, so that it gets more and more complicated to evaluate the machine without missing any of the wheels (less so in praxis), but I freely admit that missing single elements will have no greater effect than the fuzziness of a GM's decisions with laxer rules.
I see the danger, for sure - but I find that much the same can apply to "Rulings", only worse! Assuming we want consistency (and I pretty much always do), then each "Ruling" is actually a rule by precedent. These build up in much the same way that continually appended systematic systems, but there is not the degree of thought given to future rules clashes and compatibility with earlier rulings that there (hopefully) is with a pre-codified system. I tend to find that "Rulings" is fine - liberating and invigorating, even - in the short term, but it tends to become more and more gnarly with time and thus lose out in the longer term. Since I like to run games that run for a long (game) time (my 4e games, for example, I aim to take from 1st to 30th level) I find pre-written, codified rules suit me far better.
My personal experiences may be responsible for my stance: in hindsight I've spent to much time waiting for my players to agonizingly make sure that they have taken all - and I mean all - bonuses and effects and magic items and and and into account before rolling their die. Again, it's not the rules engine I've lost some enthusiasm for, it's the amount of data thrown in to be processed.
I think maybe I am lucky, here. All of the players I run for take on a duty to understand the basics of the rules and to gain a knowledge of what their character can do. It helps, maybe, that we do run for extended campaigns; they have the same character for 20-30 levels, so they should get a pretty good grip on what their abilities are in that time, even though the details change level by level. For myself, I find that once I reach a certain point of "rules grokkage" I do think first about what I want to achieve and then I "translate" that into rules terms. To pick an example quoted in this thread:
I have a single fighter and I have a 25' wide gap to block - how do I approach it (in 4e)? Readied charge against the first enemy to cross a specified line (probably the line of entry to the gap). Looking at my decision, I think that models the situation pretty well; I will likely block one opponent trying to get past me, but a second will have a pretty easy time getting by.
The problem with these videos is they are not actually competing, so there ignoring openings and indeed leaving deliberate openings. The guy in the first video wearing red is particularly static, he stands around for seconds waiting for his opponent to actually hit him, rather than moving.
Yes, the videos I chose were mostly "instructional" ones; there are some that are more like "free sparring"
here. The problem with the sparring ones is that you need to be careful which ones you pick; I have seen several where the combatants clearly had little or no training or even familiarity with the more "valid" medieval martial techniques that we are currently in the middle of (re-)learning from the old fechtbuchs and manuscripts. The link I gave has some pretty good ones - including, incidentally, a "longsword" (in D&D terms, a "bastard sword") versus rapier duel - try watching it and then tell me which has the higher "weapon speed factor"!
At least with sport you have two people actually trying to strike one another at every opportunity.
Yeah, the "sport" thing is actually both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good that both sides are seriously trying to hit, not just going through "katas", but the problem is that they are trying just to hit - not to hit in specific places or with sufficient force to seriously hurt or temporarily disable an opponent. As a result, they will sometimes open themselves up to what could be a devastating counter in order to "score" first - the action thus tends to be both faster and less forceful. Put simply, I'm going to attack you quite differently if I just want to tag you than if my aim is to run you through.
But all of that ignores the real complexity of the system: shifting. The best reason to get rid of OAs is to get rid of shifts (and five-foot-adjusts).
OK, but this gets to the nub of what I was trying to point up in those videos; watch how the fighters move, not just how far they move. They don't "walk" around in a normal sense - the movement is more like a shuffle, or a set of dance moves (which, incidentally, is why warriors' training has often included dancing lessons!). In this sense, I think the inclusion of a separate "movement mode" is actually very evocative of the fiction; "movement" is walking or trotting around normally, "shifting" (maybe a naff word, but that happens a lot in 4e) is the sort of choreographed shuffles and dance steps that you see in the videos when moving around an armed and dangerous opponent.
So, if you want a skill check for passing through a melee, try "dancing"!
