Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

[Nytmare]

Yes, of course, but it still is just flavour unless it actually impacts something and it really doesn't unless the clock is filled.

The fiction isn't "just flavor" though, it's the backbone of the experience? It is how close something is to happening. How likely.

An empty gun sitting forgotten on a shelf isn't as flavorful as a loaded gun that everyone thinks is a toy, being swung around a frat party by a chimpanzee in a cowboy hat.

It's like arguing that a ticking time bomb isn't adding any drama to a story because it hasn't exploded yet. Whether or not it explodes is what's important and the clock is telling you how much of a threat there is of that happening.

 

[Fenris-77]

The idea that what we're calling the fiction is 'just flavour' is probably a core problem in how different people see what playing an RPG means.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The idea that what we're calling the fiction is 'just flavour' is probably a core problem in how different people see what playing an RPG means.

Yeah. That was always my perception of how 4e was presented, like the fiction was just flavor for the far more important rules set. I know that's a decisive take around here though, and just my subjective opinion.

 

[soviet]

Yeah. That was always my perception of how 4e was presented, like the fiction was just flavor for the far more important rules set. I know that's a decisive take around here though, and just my subjective opinion.

I think 4e probably was a notch further along on this than older editions, but only one notch. The unforgivable crime that 4e committed was just being honest and clear about it.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah. That was always my perception of how 4e was presented, like the fiction was just flavor for the far more important rules set. I know that's a decisive take around here though, and just my subjective opinion.

I don't actually think that RPGs are all that different in terms of whether or not the 'fiction', by which I mean the interplay of the players acting in character at the table and interacting with the setting, is the core element of play. Where they do differ is the extent to which they recognize or make any mechanical use of that fact.

 

[soviet]

I don't actually think that RPGs are all that different in terms of whether or not the 'fiction', by which I mean the interplay of the players acting in character at the table and interacting with the setting, is the core element of play. Where they do differ is the extent to which they recognize or make any mechanical use of that fact.

I think an important thing that happens in this space is that people use their own imagination to fill in the gaps between and around the mechanics. What sometimes gets painted as a failure of the mechanics to reflect the fictional reality is quite often a refusal or inability to do that work by the player because the rule doesn't fit their aesthetic tastes or accepted assumptions. If one looked at D&D with the same level of suspicion that gets applied to newer games, one would find that D&D also didn't make any real sense.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think an important thing that happens in this space is that people use their own imagination to fill in the gaps between and around the mechanics. What sometimes gets painted as a failure of the mechanics to reflect the fictional reality is quite often a refusal or inability to do that work by the player because the rule doesn't fit their aesthetic tastes or accepted assumptions. If one looked at D&D with the same level of suspicion that gets applied to newer games, one would find that D&D also didn't make any real sense.

To be fair, I think the fashion in which people do this, with D&D or any other game with which they have long experience, isn't exactly one that is the product of conscious thought. So perhaps that indexes your use of inability, but I think that term is maybe over-harsh. I think it often very difficult to transfer a skill set when that skillset isn't the product of conscious or organized practice and reflection.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think 4e probably was a notch further along on this than older editions, but only one notch. The unforgivable crime that 4e committed was just being honest and clear about it.

And by doing so telling everyone who didn't play that way that they were less welcome than before, yes

 

[Fenris-77]

And by doing so telling everyone who didn't play that way that they were less welcome than before, yes

Wow. No. It was a new edition with new rules. People are welcome to use those new rules or not, but the implication that people were being excluded in the way you describe is nonsense.

 

[Nytmare]

Yeah. That was always my perception of how 4e was presented, like the fiction was just flavor for the far more important rules set. I know that's a decisive take around here though, and just my subjective opinion.

There's a whole lot of difference between "you can describe what this magic spell looks like however you want, the special effects don't matter, just the numbers" and a game that says "here are some numbers, what explanation for these numbers makes the most sense if you consider everything that we've established so far in the reality of this world."