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Indeed. Thus 4E fast-forwarded Faerun by 100 years --- not that this bothers me but it was done so that the fiction could match the rules. And don't get me started on the huge mess with Dragonlance.

Another workaround is to reduce combat limitations at higher levels, especially epic play. The reduction in limitations that you have to remember may offset the increased complexity of character options. For example, on the 4E subforum version of this thread, I wrote: I don't know how this...

OTOH, rules like drawing a weapon = minor action were born, I think, because of questions at the table about whether your PC should be able to move and draw a weapon at the same time, etc. So by 'ditch', maybe just make it an optional rule. Theoretically and interestingly contrary to Monte's...

Am I supposed to enjoy these jokes in Actor, Author or Director stance? In Actor stance, it makes no sense.

But suddenly a cleric casts a Zone of Truth and determines the Rogue was lying and she screams YOU HAVE RUINED THE GAME FOR EVERYONE!!! And the now suspicious Paladin detects evil on the Rogue, so she hits him with her ale glass, a bar fight erupts, and a new bar opens up across the street with...

I see what you mean, though. There are actually 2 pies, aren't there? The first pie is the metagame/ruleset. You get more slices of that pie as you increase in level, as per the article. The 2nd pie is the fiction. You get more slices of that pie as you learn new spells, pick up wushu-y combat...

I suspect that, theoretically, a 1st level hero *could* grapple, but there wouldn't be a specific rule for it, it would be more ad hoc (alternatively, the DM could refer to the 'higher level' grapple rules assuming they're backwards compatible). Or to put it another way, the DM finds the...

Pre-4E, if the curse rule did exist for whatever reason, it might be stated something like 'when [some condition], the afflicted PC attacks anyone in sight' and it would then be up to the player to roleplay that directive, along with the pros and cons of the obvious conflict of interest (a...

What if I read a preview of a new werewolf rule and I think that rule is stupid because it does not take the game world seriously and it primarily exists for tactical combat purposes. You wrote that page 42 exists to supplement the existing rules, not break/ignore them. So I imagine some "out...

That's also been my experience. I remember a very intelligent player who preferred to roleplay average inteligence fighters. When the party was faced with a puzzle, he tended to sit back, looking slightly bored, or roleplayed his PC to act more impulsively. He didn't try to intellectually...

Maybe, but considering the predictable/reliabilty of it all, it seems more like a strange automoton (dare I say boardgame-y?) motion, the exact opposite of berserk madness. I'm imagining a Three Stooges scene where Larry punches Curly who kicks Moe, and they keep doing it over and over like...

Yes, that's true, which leads me to think that... ...it's not necessarily so delineated. Firstly, I think your generic example above is incomplete because "Monte-style" might mean not rolling a die at all. Also, the playstyle difference between in-bounds and out-of-bounds is a spectrum. Near...

I don't like Stage 2 and 3 -- it's silly to me. It has no real reference to werewolf literature, it's a giveaway that the character is cursed with something, and stage 3 is a bizarre knee-jerk reaction (literally, like giving the PC like a hammer to the knee).

I also agree. I assumed that the poetry contest was not something of significant stake. The dangers of a theoretical example, I guess. In this case, the player still feels well-inspired to roleplay; it was just bad luck that he was up against Wormtongue, or the contest was rigged! So did the PC...

Thewok's example was a poetry contest, so I assume the judges are poetry lovers. You wrote that if the player "composes and recites some beautiful poetry, than that's what has happened in the game". So now in the fiction, we have an actual beautiful piece of poetry produced by the PC. There's...

If I was swinging with the spirit of Monte's article (and I think I am), I would say that from an "out-of-bounds" perspective, whose to say that the rules were designed to decree and enforce that average Cha/Int = non-poetic, and high Cha/Int = poetic? If hit points are abstract, and ability...

I agree. The players just need to know that if they roleplay out-of-bounds, that everything (DM and game system and published adventure) allows them to be rewarded for their efforts. You don't think out-of-bounds in a boardgame or videogame because you know the game won't dance to your...

Introduce expansions that increase complexity? Each expansion might span one or more tiers. It may upset someone to pay for a supplement that encompasses all tiers when the group is only playing 1 or 2 tiers; however, it might be a smart marketing move to attract customers with hints of what...

Hey guys, this is Monte Cook*. I LOVE this thread and I'm going to talk about it in my next column! * no, not really

The idea to minionise... was that your idea as a DM, or did the players suggest that to you because they assumed it was roleplayable? Monte wrote "why shouldn’t the design of the game also be bigger than the rules? Why shouldn’t those kind of assumptions be taken into account? It puts the...