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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4017270" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think that all the examples you give can be summarised as "the GM's freedom to introduce game elements". I don't disupte what you are saying in this respect. The features of the system that change the GM's role are all the other things I have pointed to:*the abolition of mechanical alignment removes the rules that (in earlier editions) allowed the GM to impose his/her moral vision on the game unilaterally;*tighter action resolution rules reduce the role of the GM in adjudicating the details of play (I think this is Reynard's main concern) - social challenge rules, in particular, will mean that the GM is no longer solely in charge of determining the reaction of NPCs and monstes;*the PoL setting (sidebar, W&M p 20) gives the players a role in determining the incidence of adversity, something which earlier editions reserved to the GM;*APs and Second Wind give the players a much greater role in determining the unfolding of play then previous editions have given them, by allowing players to change the implications for an encounter of the die rolls made for success and damage - with these mechanics in play, the GM couldn't just, by fiat, set up the transition from A3 to A4 (in which the PCs fall unconscious and wake up stripped of their gear).Plus there are the quest rules and the encounter and reward balancing rules which have already been discussed.I would summarise it this way: D&D (especially AD&D) has always fostered an approach to play in which the GM is the sole determinant of the gameworld, of the incidence of adversity, of what counts as success or failure for the PCs in the gameworld, etc. 4e seems to me to pretty clearly be changing this (continuing in the direction that 3E started).</blockquote>

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