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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alex319" data-source="post: 5324540" data-attributes="member: 45678">Here's another way of thinking about this question.The claim being made, by LostSoul and others, seems to be: "The details and description of the fiction should have an impact on action resolution. 4e (at least as written) fails to achieve this."Let's consider a hypothetical game "D+D X". The D+D X combat system works like this in brief outline:- Each monster type (and PC type) has an anatomical chart that lists different "hit locations" and where they are located relative to each other. Hit locations have different labels like "vital spot", "locomotion" (for legs and leg-like appendages), "manipulation" (for arms and arm-like appendages), and so on.- Each turn, you choose from a different menu of attacks and stances, which are all listed on your character sheet (or on another player aid like cards). Each of these options gives you pluses and minuses to defenses against each hit location. For example, if you had a shield, you would choose where to hold the shield and that affects which hit locations get defense bonuses. Or you could choose a "low stance" that gives you plus to defense against your legs but minus to defense against your head. There might be multiple decisions, like where each limb is in relation to each other, what range you are from your enemy, etc. All of this is listed in the rules.- Different powers only work against certain hit locations. For example, a "sneak attack" power would only work against a location labeled "vital spot." So when you use the power you would have to choose a hit location, and then modifiers would apply based on that hit location.If you did this, this would allow you to directly implement most of the examples given without needing judgement calls. For instance, the example of "going low to the ground with your weight on your back leg to protect against trip" would actually be on one of the "stance cards" and you put that down. The examples about gelatinous cubes - "if the gelatinous cube gets hit and deforms, that might create a weakness that you could exploit" - would also be in the rules: the cube might have a special power that causes it to alter its hit location diagram under certain conditions. Similar systems could be set up for pretty much any other detail you would want. It would likely get very complex very quickly, but might be doable.Anyway, here's the key question: Does D+D X satisfy the condition that "the details and description of the fiction have an impact on action resolution?"One answer to that would be "No, because if you did that then all the decisions would just be 'mechanical', like which stance card to use. Players could easily play the game just looking at the modifiers and hit locations and not think about the fiction." The problem with this answer is that it seems to make the condition impossible to satisfy. The goal is to make the "details of the fiction" matter, but as soon as any such detail is incorporated into the rules, it is no longer a "detail of the fiction" and is now just a "mechanic."Another answer would be "Yes." The thing about this answer is that 4e DOES do some of what D+D X does, just not all of it. True, some "details of the fiction" (like how you are holding your shield or the anatomy of the monster you are fighting) don't impact action resolution. However, there are lots of other "details of the fiction" (like how strong you are, which weapon you are using, where in the room the pit trap is) that do have an impact on action resolution. So the complaint isn't really "the details of the fiction don't matter" but is more like "the particular details that I'm interested in don't matter." Which is perfectly reasonable, but it also means it's subjective: the claim that "The details of the fiction matter more in (System A) then in (System B)" depends just as much on what the speaker is interested in than in any objective differences between A and B.---However, it seems to me like there is another complaint being made, that is basically the inverse of the complaint above. That is that the problem isn't necessarily "There are details of the fiction that don't matter", but rather "There are things that are key to the mechanics that don't have any fictional counterpart." This is the basis behind things like the example about a fighter's mark overwriting the paladin's. My response to that complaint would be the following:In order to satisfy the condition that "Every mechanic in the game has to have a fictional explanation," we first have to specify what kinds of 'explanations' are permissible.If any self-consistent explanation is permissible, then (at least as I see it) it's usually trivial to come up with explanations of just about anything, for example:Hit points and healing surges: Every living being is animated by a kind of "vital energy." Being hit drains this "vital energy", and the amount of vital energy a being has is a measurable physical quantity (kind of like how a cell phone can measure how much charge it has left). Healing surges are self-contained "bubbles" of vital energy that must be "released" into the main pool either over time (during a short rest) or by an external stimulus (a healing power).Marking mechanics: The way marks work is that they put a quasi-magical "aura" over the target. There's only room around each target for one "aura", and a new aura "pushes out" the first one. The reason this works even for martial marks is that all marks, including martial ones, really are based on an underlying magic even if it's not immediately obvious (kind of like how all chemical reactions are based on the electromagnetic interaction of electrons in atoms, even though you wouldn't guess just by looking that, say, wood burning has anything to do with electricity)Daily powers: Each power is an invisible "mini-aura" that orbits around the user. When a power is used, the mini-aura "breaks down" and the energy released is used to power the power. The aura takes a while to re-form though, and during this time it can't be used. As for why you can't use the energy from one power to power a different power: it's just there are different types of energy sources. (Kind of like how you can drink soda and put gasoline in your car's fuel tank, but it's not a good idea to drink gasoline or put soda into your car's fuel tank.)However, one might object that the explanations above are too contrived, and that only explanations that fit with "common sense" or other prior knowledge ought to be considered. The problem with that is that there are lots of things in real life that would fail this test. For example, why don't cell phones work underground or in tunnels? The answer, of course, is that cell phones work by using "invisible rays" (i.e. electromagnetic radiation in whatever part of the spectrum cell phones use) to communicate with the cell phone tower, and if there is enough solid material in the way the signal will be blocked. But of course we don't actually see the "invisible rays," and the only reason it's part of our common knowledge is that we have technology which uses them. Suppose I lived in the 16th century and I was designing a game about "life 500 years in the future". Suppose that in that game there were communication devices similar to cell phones and I explained it with the "invisible rays" explanation. Of course back then the whole concept of "invisible rays that you can use for communication" wouldn't have existed, so it would sound just as contrived as my examples above. But of course that's actually the way it works in real life. My point is that just because something seems weird to us, to the people living in the world it would just be normal, and not weird at all. To me, imagining a world with "invisible auras" flying around everywhere and "vital energy" powering bodies is no more a fundamental problem than a world with "invisible electromagnetic waves" flying everywhere and "electrical energy" powering all sorts of devices.</blockquote>

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