They really aren't as opposed as you claim them to be. Like, nowhere near it. I am 100% a huge 4e fan, and thus like what you call "technicalities." But I also know that the designers themselves talked about ways to address gaps between expectations and rules that involved changing the "technicalities." Like the Dragon magazine article where they explicitly said that reskinning powers not only can but should include doing things like dropping or changing keywords if they make better sense and aren't simply being changed to squeeze out extra power. (You know how it is--some folks will try to abuse any rule of this nature for optimization, not because they actually care about story.) They very specifically gave the example of a Wizard or Sorcerer specialized in ice and cold magic, wanting to adapt a cool (heh, funny) fire power so that it would fit their icy theme. As long as the motive isn't squeezing out extra power, the actual official rules of 4e for doing that are "absolutely, have at it!"
Actually, this is not what they say. A Dragon Magazine Article does not make things official, for once, and when you look at published rulebooks, they tell things very differently:
- The famous page 42 of the DMG that @pemerton likes to quote never says whathe think it says, it talks about giving a +2 circumstancial modifier, casting action as a check and improvising damage (which is a silly thing because it scales damage for things like a fire according to the power of the user, so being thrown in the same chimney by a lvl 1 and a level 30 multiplies the damage by 3). And that's all it says.
- About the reskinning, why not as long as it's not for power, I agree with you, but I would hardly call this "story".
- And about house rules, it's also a formal process including writing it up.
And actually, while that style of play is cool if you like it, it certainly does not cover
@pemerton changing on the fly the rules of grappling so that a Boss like Ygorl has to use skill checks to get rid of a pesky hanger on. While that is cool and is certainly story orientated, the problem is that it sets a dangerous precedent for teleportation, in a system where everything is codified. So what will happen next time ? Will people, players and monsters/NPCs be able to hold on through teleportation or not ? How can they know what to rely on when, instead of a complete rule system that leaves no hole in the technicalities, you poke a hole like this ?
And this in addition to the fact that the proponents of "skilled play" will probably not be really happy with gimping a boss like Ygorl like that. Was it even a real challenge ? How can they be sure that they beat it through their power and wit and not through a DM's "say so because it's cool" ?
Don't get me wrong, I've been through that play style although it's not my preferred one now, but you have to have your objectives clearly in mind. As a 4e fan, I hope you'll what I mean, which is not derogatory in any sense, when we played it, the sentiment of "we beat it fair and square" was really important, central to the game design. Unfortunately, it's not my preferred style, but there were lots of good things in that edition about balance and a complete system.
As a very simple example, the "Bag of Rats" rule/principle for 4e powers. It doesn't make sense, narratively, to carry around a bag of rats and use a power that targets "a creature" in order to get the benefits thereof, even though the "technicalities" as you put it would theoretically support that behavior. Hence, the Bag of Rats rule: you have to be actually engaged in a meaningful conflict to use those powers. No infinite healing from stabbing a captured monster, doesn't matter what the power text says.
Never heard of that rule but it makes sense to prevent technicalities being abused, but I'm not sure what it means in the context of this discussion. This is not about story, it's about not abusing the writing of rules.
Or for another, less-formal example, tons of official and unofficial advice about Skill Challenges very explicitly says you should work with your players to help them use their powers in creative, off-label ways. I've seen a Barbarian use a rage power (one associated with stampeding horses) in order to get an extra boost to jump over a lava pit, and I personally have used a Sorcerer fire cantrip (specifically burning spray) to avoid being tricked by an oasis-mimic monster (it died rather...unpleasantly when set on fire), two examples from entirely different campaigns. These uses have nothing whatever to do with the official, formal uses of these powers, which are well-defined in what you call the "technicalities," but rational extrapolation from them enables a much richer experience so...why wouldn't you do that?
Because 4e is not built that way, all the advice that you are mentioning is mostly unofficial, even the DMG 2 only offers a bonus to a skill check (because, in the end. it's the skill roll that matters for the count). Moreover, the powers are not calibrated to use that way, how do you regulate encounter power usage for example ? And the reason for that is that 4e was built to be fair and balanced, if you start introducing things like this, you start favouring some classes over others in a system that does not have other balancing mechanism. Of course you can do it, but then, if that is what is important to you, there are editions which are much more freeform. This is why there is still a large difference between 5e and 4e with your very minor changes, or even with
@pemerton's large derailments.
