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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3999529" data-attributes="member: 42582">It is true that D&D is moving from (pseudo-)simulationist rules to a different sort of rule. But it doesn't therefore mean that the rules are purely abstract or technical and have no in-game meaning. Rather, part of what playing involves (both for players and GMs) is explaining, in in-game terms, what has happened to cause the change which ensues from application of the game mechanics.To look at your Second Wind example: the problem there begins not with the rules, but with the GM telling the player that his/her PC has suffered terrible damage. Given that the PC has a usage of Second Wind left, both GM and player know that the damage dice don't necessarily represent actually physical harm, but perhaps only exhaustion or minor scrapes as the PC narrowly avoids being skewered. And it therefore becomes incumbent on the GM (and the player, who also can take on this narrative role, presumably) to give an in-game description that fits with this.Then, when the player triggers his/her PC's Second Wind, s/he can narrate what it is in-game that restores the PC's energy and gets him/her back into the fray. Or when the PC is inspired by the Warlord ally, the player can again narrate what it is that brings his/her PC back to life.I think the message conveyed is quite different: it's one of treating the mechanics as a sort of metagame device for distributing control over the narration of the in-game reality. Instead of the dice rolls telling us what is happening in the gameworld, they set parameters within which GMs and players have the freedom to create their own descriptions of what is going on.Hence the call by Chris Sims's to abandon a perception of the rules as straightforwardly modelling the gameworld, and his reference to "roleplaying cues". It's about more support for and freedom to roleplay, not less.</blockquote>

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