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Firstly, I don't find traditional myths with their dream-like quality to be all that verisimilitudinous, ie., Thor lifting a cat disguised as the Midgard Serpent. Supposedly, Jörmungandr encircles Midgard and the world will end if it lets go. Yet a mere giant king manages to translocate...

I can't speak for anyone else, but the way I see the conventional fantasy genre, 10 foot long spiders are extraordinary yet natural to some areas (like overgrown animals in pulp fiction novels) or magically mutated -- but either way, I don't think the exact origin matters. What's more relevant...

To be possibly even more fair, Orpheus is probably the equivalent of Epic and what level can a bard take Vicious Mockery? Also, myths have a certain mythical dream quality that is rarely duplicated in D&D and certainly not with internal consistency.

Perhaps, but the fact that an insult (even a magical-powered one) affects a dim-witted skeleton is adding insult to injury IMO. The classic mythologies about bards had them enchant humans and humanoids, not animated bags of bones. It's not cinematic either -- a scene like that would evoke...

I know magic is magic, but if one explanation is as good as any other then... Three skeletons risen from the dead, their bones knit together with arcane weaving, their hollow skulls lit with dim artificial intelligence. They are commanded to attack any intruders. Their weakly arcane-powered...

Ignoring the mechanical number for a sec, I would presume that a skeleton has artificial intelligence. And that artificial minds have different strengths and weaknesses than natural minds (or Far Realm minds). Then ignoring the "realism" of that one way or another, I prefer the strategy and...

This really intrigues me... On one hand, there have been suggestions that if it suspends belief to use a power a certain way (ie., using CaGI to 'mind control' the Planesailing Wizard to go Rarr!!! and attack with a puny dagger), then don't use it. OTOH, as per your example above, the rules...

How about artists like Ian McCaig in the Fighting Fantasy series? He had me ever since the original cover of Deathtrap Dungeon.... http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/figfan06o.jpg

Here's my shot at recapping the recent issues, using a video game analogy (because you can never have enough analogies :) I've always played RPGs like a 1st person shooter. I imagine the rules as a HUD interface (with a health bar, etc.) between me as a player and the POV of the character. In...

That's an astute point. I suppose they could say that these narrative-control powers are not given to the characters, but rather assigned to the character. But if so, growing up with D&D never, ever taught me to think that way. AFAIK, nothing in the 4E books mentions that either (does it?). The...

That may be true, but personally, I have played Call of Cthulhu too and I know what great immersion is, and I can still expect and enjoy a different (IMO lesser) quality of immersion in D&D. I mean, one person can say that LoTR is far more immersive than other fantasy films, and another person...

As someone who does value immersion, I would disagree with that vociferously. AFAIK, many 4E groups treat 'bloodied' as a pure metagame construct with no simulationist element, and I agree that this would usually have to be true (which is exactly why it's non-immersive for me). In addition to...

Yes, immersion IS ruled during that portion of play when players step back and talk metagame. However, players have a choice to speak in character or speak out of character about hit point levels. Myself, I wouldn't assume that in classic D&D for whatever gaming group that players must have x...

As far as I understand from previous threads, we're very different in the sense that you find immersion in games like Rolemaster and very little or zero immersion in gonzo heroic systems like D&D. OTOH, I understand that you're not actively seeking "realism" in D&D anyway. So that's OK if you...

If familiarity enables immersion, then so does intuitive mechanics. If I'm using an iPhone or iPad, it's easy to pick up that sliding open 2 fingers is to zoom in. Very little learning needs to happen. That finger action isn't purely simulationist of anything (it's probably a vague abstraction...

Sorry, I was partially being cheeky, and partially protesting that immersion is necessarily more preference-y than other rpg goals. For example, we know that balance is a pizza. Almost 30% of enworld users didn't think it was important part of their meal, and just over 30% thought it was very...

I must be missing something, but generally in a dungeon, the antidote to resting is wandering monsters (old school) or a reactive dungeon, which interrupts the resting. If the PCs rest outside the dungeon and then return, are they guaranteed to beat the tougher encounter? Why are they never...

Then isn't everything pizza? Everything is a preference. Therefore everything is pizza. QED.

Guys, although I think it's useful to differentiate "realism" to believability to verisimilitude to internal consistency to plausibility, we've all been down that road many, many times -- and I think we all know what Monte is trying to get at it, even if we argue the minituae of definitions...

@Dausuul , now here you can appropriately discuss potion helmets without threadjacking :)