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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6077761" data-attributes="member: 22779">I think the biggest problem that people seem to have with 4e is with the whole flavour text thing in a nutshell.  It seems to me that people want each power to operate similarly to the way things like that operated in earlier editions - a given "effect" has one, and only one, possible interpretation and you must never, ever deviate from that.In 3e, a barbarian goes into "rage".  That has specific mechanical effects.  But the flavour of the "rage" effect is always, always the same, once it's been established in the game.  It might vary from table to table, but, once it is established at a specific table, that table will always use that flavour from then on.  You see this more with spells in 3e and earlier editions, where the flavour often carried mechanical elements and thus any change to the flavor was a fairly large change to the spell itself.  A 1e fireball is an expanding ball of fire.  It can't be anything else since "expanding ball of fire" has specific mechanical effects such as hitting yourself.  4e doesn't work like that.  The player is free to change the flavour, or not, of any effect at any time.  Nothing has to work the same way every time.  So, "Valiant Strike" could be described in any number of ways, depending on the situation.  And, so long as the table is groovy with whatever explanation, then no problem.So, we see critics say, "Well, no, you cannot explore thematic elements since the flavor text isn't fixed."  And this has been answered.  The thematic elements aren't contained within the flavour text.  The flavour text is defined by the thematic elements.  My heroic paladin narrates Valiant Strike one way because he's a heroic paladin.  My cowardly paladin narrates it differently (although possibly a bit strange given the mechanics of that particular power) and again, the narration is informed by the thematic elements of the character, not the other way around.It seems to me that the criticisms are based on a very narrow reading of the game where you must have one, and only one, narration for every effect and must never deviate from that narration.  Which, really, is how 3e worked.  But 4e isn't 3e.  It works differently and it's helpful to remember that.</blockquote>

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