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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5802699" data-attributes="member: 42582">The Monster Vaults are great. I like Heroes of the Feywild and the Neverwinter book. I like the Rules Compendium as a reference, but there are changes in the tone that I don't like. Here's the main one:PHB, p 8 When it’s not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules and adjudicate the story. RC, p The DM decides how to apply the rules and guide the story. If the rules don't cover a situation, the DM determines what to do. A times, the DM might alter or even ignore the result of a die roll if doing so benefits the story. In its presentation of how the game is meant to be played, the distinct roles of GM and players and the balance of power between them, etc, I think Essentials is a retrograde step. That last sentence in the quote from the RC is a killer - introducing Storyteller's so-called Golden Rule into a game well-enough designed not to need it. And the description of the GM as a guide rather than an adjudicator of the storyteller also reminds me of approaches to RPGing that I'd rather forget.Likewise, while I appreciate that there are players out there who don't want to be bothered with martial dailies, I think the dropping of them in Essentials is also consistent with that retrograde step. It verges on a concession that metagame mechanics are undesirable, and that the designers have given up on the distinction between player resource and PC resource.I'm disappointed that, at least in their public pronouncements, the WotC designers are renouncing this great game that they created. (Skill challenges dying in a fire is the latest example.)</blockquote>

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