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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4017927" data-attributes="member: 42582">There are two ways of looking at this.First, the practical social one: as you say, no on is forced to game with anyone else. This is not a mechanical issue. Nor does it have anything to do with GMs. I almost always GM, but play occasionally. My group has never had to evict a non-GM player, but once many years ago we did evict our GM. Since then, when we have an issue about taste or direction in the game we discuss it and reach a consensus. None of this counts as playing the game - it is a prelude to it.Second, let's look at the issue assuming that the game is being played (and what follows may or not be similar to how you play the game - your post leaves me unsure). Instead of alignment the GM has a long list of forbidden actions. How does this work, mechanically? Presumably it operates at the metagame level, in one of two ways: either such actions always fail if attempted by PCs, or in-game these actions are never actually attempted by PCs even if declared by that PC's player. This is not what I have in mind by abolishing alignment. It is simply a mechanical alternative to it, in which players are deprotagonised from time to time at the discretion of the GM.Now, suppose that players also had such a power (for example, they could develop a list of things the GM may not do in introducing world elements - perhaps the GM is forbidden from depicting rape in the game). Then we could broaden out the mechanic to be one which distributes narrative control from players to the GM.But my prediction is that 4e will not use such a mechanic (either in the GM-only or shared-narration variant). The very mechanics of the game will foster a certain sort of action, and the reward mechanics (including such elements as the Quest system) will direct players' attention a certain way.I imagine that the DMG will suggest that, should conflicts concerning taste, themes or the direction of play emerge, the play groups should try to reach a reasonable consensus. I don't think it will introduce (or hint at) any sort of mechanical system which would empower the GM to solely resolve such matters as an aspect of actually playing the game, which is what alignment does. There will be no such nonsense as "Evil PCs become NPCs under the GM's control", which is another attempt to make the resolution of these social aspects of playing a part of the game itself.I can only rely on the word of the designers, and the examples they discuss. But an example of "tightening" would be better considering the interaction between Barbarian Rage as a class ability, and the passage of time in the gameworld which at the moment is an important aspect of it. Another would be paying more attention to the cost, in actions, of using different powers. Another would be adjusting the damage caused by various spells to better align it with the mathematics of the game's combat system. These are all examples of tightening.My view is that a tighter action resolution system on the whole empowers the players, at the expsense of the GM, because it reduces the scope of the GM to influence the outcome of a player's decision by the need to adjudicate. In this respect (as I think Reynard agrees) AD&D had one of the loosest action resolution systems ever seen in an RPG.In 4e that may well be up for grabs, as I have pointed out in several posts. I have in mind here the (by now notorious?) sidebar on p 20 of W&M, and also the discussion (I think on the same page) of the grey places between the PoL and the darkness, which at least hints at ways in which players, rather than the GM, might have a role in triggering encounters (depending on how they interact with these grey zones).I'm not sure what the "it" in this clause denotes (the grammar suggests the alleged tightening of the action resolution mechanics, but I'm not sure that that makes sense). But anyway I will re-iterate that per-encounter abilities mean that, while the GM may control the flavour of pacing (eg how much ingame time passes) the players are no longer hostage to that control when it comes to their own ability to affect the gameworld (by having their PCs perform actions).Well, as I've said, a GM can always run things differently from what the book says. Like Reynard, I am doing my best to discuss the RAW.As I already noted, a complication here is that D&D has a curious relationship to its setting, and from time-to-time tries to deny that the setting is relevant to the system (and, as Apoptosis noted above, has a curious conceit of itself as "generic" or "a toolbox"). Thus, wealth-by-level rules in 3E get presented as guidelines, despite the fact that they are far more important to the way the game plays then the range of a fireball spell, which is presented not as a guideline but as a rule.My original contention was, and continues to be, that the 4e setting (as described in W&M) is one in which players have a degree of control over the incidence of adversity which is new in D&D. For reasons of D&D style, I suspect that this will not be presented as a rule which forbids certain things, but as a "guideline" or a "default setting".You seem to think that there is an important difference between the rules, and the designers' preferences. I don't quite follow this, because all the rules do is encode certain preferences of the designers.First, did you read the thread I referred to? Chris Sims has already denied what you assert with respect to Second Wind - though some monsters will have, as immediate actions (or perhaps other sorts of actions) the ability to regain a determinate number of hit points (this will be replacing regeneration and fast healing, I think).Second, the abilities will (I imagine) be in an actual and nominal list, designed with an eye to balance of various levels of encounter. So the GM's hand is not entirely unbound in this matter.Third, as I noted D&D GM's (at least since 2nd ed) have always claimed the right to adjust monsters' attack rolls and hit point totals on the fly (in the interests of the game) so it would not increase the GM's power to formalise this via Second Wind and AP.Fourth, what would be the point of giving NPCs AP (I can see why you would want to give them Regeneration)?Actually, to a significant extent it is a zero-sum game. Either the ceiling in the throne room is red, or it isn't. If the GM has the power to say that it is, then the players lack the power to say otherwise. And vice versa.I'm not sure that you are talking about the same sort of thing as I am. You also seem to be implying that I think reducing the GM's narrative control is a bad thing, whereas in fact I think it is a good thing (so I agree with Reynard's factual contention, but not his evaluation of it).But to answer the questions: yes, giving the players a new choice typically does weaken the GM's narrative control. For example, in vanilla Basic D&D there is no parry mechanic. Thus, if the monster misses a character, there is no way of knowing whether or not that reflects a successful parry, or a dodge, or near-sightedness on the part of the monster, or what. Who gets to describe what happened? According to most GMing advice written for D&D, the GM does (such advice tends to urge evocative descriptions of the ingame event).In HARP there is a parrying mechanic and a dodge mechanic. In any given round of combat a player can activate one or the other (typically not both). Depending on which they do, they are asserting a degree of narrative control over the events of the round. As it stands, this is a somewhat trivial example. But once you notice the different mechanical aspects of Parry and Dodge, you see that the player can exert more control over his or her PC's fortune by making these sorts of choices - and thereby more control, ultimately, over the gameworld itself (eg by determining which NPCs die and which live). Everything else being equal, the richer the mechanical environment, the more scope the player has to make meaningful choices which impact on the gameworld.</blockquote>

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