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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5455890" data-attributes="member: 42582">BryonD, I don't quite follow you here.You are asserting that 3E is a better game for simulation than is 4e (unless I've radically misunderstood your posts in this and countless other threads). I've never disputed this - although my personal view is that Runequest, Classic Traveller and Rolemaster are in turn better at simulation than is 3E. (Probably GURPS and HERO as well, but I don't know the point-buy games so well. Am I right in thinking that you have a fondness for GURPS, or am I confusing you with another poster?)You also frequently imply that only a simulationist game can give a truly rich roleplaying experience, which seems to generate an implication about the richness of the roleplaying experiences of those who play non-simulationist games. (I've frequently objected to this implication by inviting you to explain in what way games like HeroQuest or The Burning Wheel fail to give a rich roleplaying experience.) Heck, in the very post I'm responding to, you refer to me being "content" with my game.Then when I post that 4e better supports non-simulationist play than does 3E, you object that this is bothersome to you because in some sense denigrating of your ability to GM on the fly? I don't feel the force of the objection because (i) I find it hard to see how 3E could be the best game both for simulationist and non-simulationist play, (ii) I didn't say anything about your ability to GM on the fly, and am happy to learn that your players enjoy it when you do it, (iii) like I said in my earlier post, "just in time" or "no myth" play is something different from GMing on the fly (although improvisation is part of it).Of the various features of 4e that I identified as better supporting "no myth" play, I'll just come back to two. First, there are the encounter design and challenge-setting structures (DC tables, skill challenges, monster roles etc) that facilitate situation framing and provide a type of assurance-function for players. I imagine that your view is that you can do all this in 3E just as well, through a combination of common sense, the CR rules, knowing your PCs builds and so on.If I'm right about this, fair enough. As I've posted in this very thread, I've done it in Rolemaster, relyingly similarly on intuitive judgements (and without CR, which Rolemaster doesn't have). I find that 4e supports it better which (as I said upthread) is why I've moved to 4e.But what about the issue of overland travel, scouting and encounter pacing? What mechanic is there in the 3E rules that enables (i) encounters over multiple games days to fall within a single rest period's worth of resources, and (ii) that can make whether or not this happens turn in part on the players' decisions about scouting and the scouting abilities of their PCs, and (iii) can be resolved in one or a short series of dice rolls, and therefore (iv) will occupy minimum time at the game table? I don't know one. Nothing in the 3E PHB or DMG tells me how to resolve this situation without having a map of the area being moved through, and without actually resolving - using that map - the question of where the PCs go, how they try to get some sleep, what the terrain is like there, and then the GM using some sort of ad hoc process to adjudicate whether or not that sleep is restful enough (given that 3E doesn't have a "Good night's rest Static Action Table").</blockquote>

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