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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4093115" data-attributes="member: 42582">4e looks like the most narrativist-friendly version of D&D (assuming "narrativism" is being used in the Forge sense of the word). It provides rules which are clearly not about determining the story via a mechanical modelling of ingame causality, but rather are about providing a framework on which players and GMs can hang the stories that they want to tell.And mechanics that actively get in the way of that (like the alignment system) have been dropped. As have world-building assumptions that deprotagonise players (see the sidebar on p 22 of W&M).I think most people's experience is that social encounter mechanics in an RPG promote rather than hinder play that involves non-violent options. By all accounts of the new skill-challenge mechanics, they will really facilitate players' engagement with the game and participation in the telling of the story (eg because players can participate in setting the stakes, and in choosing what sort of ability - athletics, diplomacy, etc - is relevant to the resolution of the challenge at hand).Contentions like this strike me as bizzare! I am not a video or computer game player, but I have seen them being played. And (as far as I can tell) the mechanics of those games seem to be intended to model ingame causal relationships (ie they are high-concept simulationism, if I can use Forge terminology, or use that sort of simulationism as a chassis for an overall gamist experience).But the action resolution mechanics of 4e are so obviously not intended to be interpreted in a simulationist fashion, they look (to me) nothing like video game mechanics. They are to support story telling (perhaps mostly lowbrow stories, but that's D&D for you!).I am not a video game player, but 4e (from all that I have seen) is far and away the most attractive version of D&D to me, because it promotes rather than hinders player protagonism, and thus roleplaying (in one important sense of that word).</blockquote>

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