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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5319131" data-attributes="member: 42582">There's only two things here that I'd differ from.First, I think that the powers, skills, feats etc tend to bring with them the rules that govern their application. Which is what I had in mind when I said that the rules (meaning, mostly, the action resolution mechanics) are a player resource.Second, when it comes to setting the DC for the Intimidate check I prefer the method that is implicit in the DMG and explicit in HeroQuest and DMG 2 - set a DC that is consistent with the DCs-by-level table and with the current demands of pacing, and then narrate the scene and/or add colour to the scene to ensure coherence between the scene and the fiction.But the stuff about moving from fiction to mechanics and back again - I agree with all that. For the reasons LostSoul has given, there are some issues about this in the context of 4e combat. My own approach is to take a pretty relaxed approach to "mere colour" (eg given that there is no hit location system in 4e, and nothing turns on where, in the fiction, a blow struck a character, I don't worry too much about how and to what level of detail this is narrated) but to look to those parts of the combat system that do engage the fiction - movement, terrain and positioning in particular (at least in my experience).</blockquote>