EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Thank you. That is precisely what I was going for. I even considered using the word "translate" at multiple points.
You always have to translate between game-rule things (rolling a die and observing its value, performing arithmetic on numbers or comparing two numbers, writing down information, consulting reference manuals, etc.) and mental-experience things (landing a telling blow, recovering from injuries or succeeding at a task, adding an item to your pack, blowing up your enemies with a spell, etc.) Because that translation always occurs, must occur so long as one is in fact playing the game, it is not only unwise but actually damaging to the play-experience to try to excise absolutely all rule-to-fiction or fiction-to-rule translation. Doing so severely damages the rules in ways that necessarily detract from the overall experience.
Instead, we have to consider where the appropriate mean is between the extremes of pure rules with no fiction whatsoever, and pure fiction with no rules whatsoever. That mean may not be a single fixed point for all possible situations, even within a single game. Combat is notoriously much more rules-heavy than non-combat in all D&D-alike games, for example, which is not true of a variety of other systems. Having AC (and its quirks), attack rolls and hit bonuses, separate attack and damage rolls (again, with the quirks that come with that, e.g. you crit and roll snake eyes on your dice, making the attack more disappointing than an average regular hit), hit points, etc., etc. All of these things require translation between rules-space and fiction-space, to some degree.
Now, it is quite possible for someone to become very, very comfortable with a particular rules-element. That comfort is not part of the rules, nor part of the fiction. It is simply due to exposure and familiarity. When one has grown very used to a particular thing, its absence becomes noteworthy.
This is very important, because it's a big part of my theory on a lot of this stuff for many players who reacted badly to 4e: The problem wasn't that the rules wouldn't let them roleplay, it wasn't that the rules were actually bad at what they did or were even all that far off from what any other edition of D&D has done. The key problem was that the rules felt unfamiliar, and in feeling unfamiliar, players responded by clamming up. I have seen so many people claim that 4e doesn't let them roleplay at all, despite the fact that the rules actually, officially REWARD roleplay in a way 3e never did! I examined how these folks played 4e and it was shocking. The exact same people who would normally be effusive, dynamic, wheeling-and-dealing, etc., etc.--all the things we expect of a D&D player--become incredibly over-cautious, hidebound, never try things, never question things, never even attempt to change a situation. I am absolutely convinced that this is because they believed they couldn't, because they weren't comfortable with the rules being different. Different rules meant they couldn't trust that what they wanted to do would work--so they assumed it wouldn't work, even though that's exactly the opposite of what the 4e rules direct the DM to do.
This is a huge part of why I argue that presentation, presentation, presentation (plus the whole Pathfinder thing) is why 4e struggled so hard. Folks believed that the 4e rules were "everything not permitted is forbidden," when they were actually much closer to "everything not forbidden is permitted." That's what exception-based design is for; the rules tell you how things generally work, and the exceptions tell you when you can give the rules a big ol' middle finger. We've seen in this very thread how folks knowingly play 4e in a way that makes it less fun...even though the books don't tell you to do that, because to them, that was the "feel" of the rules. I 100% blame that feel on the fact that the rules looked and seemed like they were totally alien, and thus treacherous ground, to be avoided or strictly monitored at all times, lest you be caught by surprise and screwed over.
