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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4020293" data-attributes="member: 42582">By allowing them to more rationally choose which encounters to engage, which to retreat from, which powers to use in which sequence, etc. In short, the more predictable the mechanics, the more the players are able to make meaningful choices with respect to them.Yes. But "benefit" is not the same as "control". Thus, if I am playing Gary Kasparov at chess, I am guaranteed to lose. If instead we determined the outcome by tossing a coin, the unpredictability would give me much more chance of winning. But not only Gary but also I lose control when the outcome is determined by a toin coss.To relate the analogy to 4e D&D: players who do not enjoy engaging with complex game mechanics will not enjoy doing what they have to do in 4e to exercise their power. They may well prefer to play RQ, or 1st ed AD&D, where in any given round there is almost always only one rational choice of action. This doesn't change the fact that 4e, with its suite of powers which feed into a rational way into a sophisticated and knowable set of outcomes, gives players more power than either AD&D or RQ does.But this is not a case of the players having control. It is an instance of the GM exercising control.So 4e makes it easier for the GM to exercise control. True. But it doesn't increase the GM's control. For, as I've mentioned, the GM already had as much control as it is possible for the GM to have short of the power to reset the players' dicerolls: namely, the power to alter NPC stats on the fly.In fact, I think that increased predictability of mechanics actually reduces GM's narrative control, for the following reason: the more predictable the mechanics, the less scope for interpretation and adjudication (which is in D&D the traditional domain of the GM). So one of the major ways in which the GM exercises power will come up less often (assuming that the designers have done their jobs as they are promising to).Thus the GM, in order to exercise control, will have to do so precisely by fudging. But no version of D&D seems so likely to discourage GM fudging as 4e does, because it is obvious that such a well-honed mechanical machine (again, assuming that the designers have done their jobs) is not one with which anyone is expected to tinker outside the mechanics.OK. I think there are all sorts of other ways then Drama Points whereby a game can give the players' narrative control. For example, neither the Dying Earth nor HeroWars/Quest has Drama Points in the sense you describe above, but both give the player a degree of narrative control that s/he does not have in (to return to a tried-and-true example) RQ.Rolemater does not have Drama Points, and yet it gives players a degree of narrative control that RQ does not via at least the following two mechanics: its ultra-complex, nuanced and highly metagamable character build rules; and its basic combat mechanic, which allows a player to allocate their attack bonus between offence and parry, varying that allocation from round to round.I have listed what I think are the interesting features of 4e that resdistribute narrative control. Part of what I think is interesting is that they are ways of doing this which don't require really radical changes to some of the basic ideas of D&D mechanics (which Drama Points would) and yet seem well suited to supporting quite a radical change in D&D play.I believe it is there in W&M. I also believe it is there in Chris Sims's remarks in the Healing thread - he expressly mentions the role that Second Wind can play in giving the players narrative control! Plus there are the (non-verbal) implications generated by the production of splat books all of which increase player control by giving them more character build optoins.Now your criteria for "clear statement" may be different from mine. But to me all the eviddence points in one direction.First, a frequently stated goal is "fun". That is not very precise, but one way players have fun is playing the game, and one important way of playing an RPG is deciding what happens in the imagined world. So that goal does not oppose the one I am talking about.Furthermore, I have never asserted that increased narrative control is a primary goal. In fact, I have asserted that a better gamist system is the primary goal. But better gamisim needs the players to be able to determine their PC's fates without unnecessary interference from the GM. In that sense gamist and narrativist goals can be complementary.It doesn't have Drama Points. Its Hero Points play something like Action Points. Outside the context of character building, it gives the GM the principle prerogative to introduce new game elements (just as is the case for 4e D&D, as you have pointed out).In HeroQuest players can (in extended conflict resolution) use their AP wagering to try and control and moderate the outcome of the conflict. 4e does not have strictly analogous mechanics - but it does have a complex currency of actions and powers (some per encounter, some per day, some at will) which allow players to make meaningful choices about what is at stake in an encounter, and what the implications of its resolution will be (eg by using Second Wind rather than surrendering, a player in effect raises the Death Flag). Again, the contrast to simulationist games is extremely marked: in RQ (or classic Traveller, or AD&D) there is nothing comparable the player can do control the stakes of a conflict.The key word is "forbidden". As I've said several times, for various historical reasons that have been gone over in other posts on this thread (eg by Apoptosis) D&D is very hesitant to call its worldbuidling rules rules - it calls them guidelines instead (an example I already gave is that of wealth-by-level - as is well known, if one ignores these guidelines the game will break down - or at least won't deliver anything like the intended play experience).Everything I say about PoL is derived from the discussion in W&M. If you think that a 4e preview book cannot be used to draw inferences about how 4e is intended to be played, fair enough. Likewise if you think that rules for a different game (Iron Heroes) are a better guide.You seem to be equating "no adversity without player consent" with "no adversity". This seems to me to be a false equation. Why would players of a heroic fantasy RPG like D&D not want to trigger adversity?Having said that, I do not know what the FR setting will say - I don't really follow the FR news and threads. But if FR were different, it wouldn't be the first time that a published setting has changed the rules from those of core D&D. (I am assuming here that W&M is a reliable guide to core D&D.)What, then is the point of the statement? If the intention is that Bartertown is a place in which encounters occur but are infrequent, why not say so - or why not say something like "After the apocalypse, nowhere is safe. Some places are safer than others, however, and Bartertown is one of them."The text in W&M does not say that PoL are safer, but that nowhere is safe. It says something different (and I must ask - have you read it? If so, in what way do you think I am misinterpreting it?).My point was that you talk about only one (in my view somewhat minor) aspect of control, namely, the power to put new game elements into play once the players have built their PCs. It is consistent with this narrow focus that you identify, as your sole expressly narrativist mechanic, Drama Points which empower the players to introduce game elements into play.There are many other aspects of narrative control. In my view one of the most important (especially for a game like D&D, in which nearly all conflict is resolved as combat) is determining the outcome, in play, of conflicts. Another is determining the incidence of adversity. Another (important in a game of heroic fantasy) is the power to make judgements about the moral significance of ingame events. It is on these sorts of things I have been focussing.I've not asserted that it is - and why would I? After all, the least narrativist version of D&D was pretty clearly 2nd ed AD&D.Ultimately I don't really care about purpose, although I think I have some evidence (cited above) of purpose. I care about outcome. And for the reasons I have given I think that 4e will support narrativist play to an extent that no previous edition of D&D has done, or has tried to do. It will do so for the reasons I have identified.Will all D&D players suddenly start playing narrativist? I doubt it. What I do predict, however, is a continuation of the threads that already proliferate in this forum, namely, complaints by obviously simulationist-oriented GMs and players that 4e has spoiled things.I don't fully understand your apparenlty combative way of describing discussion ("backing down", "declaring victory"). I never "declared victory". I made some assertions, offered reasons for them, reiterated them at certain points, reiterated and elaborated my reasons, wash, rinse, repeat.I continue to assert them because I continue to believe them. And I am becoming more convinced that your conception of what is important to narrative control is quite narrow (namely, the introduction into play of particular game elements) and thus that your conception of the ways in which mechanics can facilitate (or detract from) narrativist play is also somewhat narrow.</blockquote>

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