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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4480266" data-attributes="member: 40961">Kamikaze Midget- I understand you perfectly well.  Its simply that the leap from "The rules say that you can trip a 'target' and an ooze is a 'target' even though it doesn't make sense to trip a big ball of slime, and that bugs me even though DM override is explicitly built into the system to explicitly handle this sorts of problems," to "portions of the game are on rails now just like when cut scenes happen in video games" is unsupportable lunacy.  If, perchance, you mean something other than that, you should avoid saying the crazy parts.  The same goes for statements like "I can raise the dead, heal the wounded, blast fire from my fingertips, and slay an army of soldiers, but, for all intents and purposes, that doesn't matter one whit outside of the context of killing things and taking their stuff."  Seriously?Look....When I ignore your enraging hyperbole and leaps of logic, I find the following reasonable points hidden cunningly in places other than your opening post.1. You like game systems to have genre-supporting rules that create flavor and facilitate crafting specific types of stories.  For example, sanity rules in a game set in a Lovecraftian universe.In response,A) You're looking for some of these in the wrong places.  Monster ecologies growing from monster creation rules is an unreasonable demand.B) The degree to which D&D should emulate genre versus stay broad is a legitimate balancing act.  What genre should core D&D emulate?  The rules that facilitate a setting like the Forgotten Realms aren't necessarily the rules that fit best with Ebberon, and they're almost definitely not the rules that fit best in Athas or Ravenloft.C) My personal preference is the same solution that 3e utilized- besides a core sword and sorcery / action movie feel, keep genre emulation in genre or setting books.  I hope that 4e will utilize a similar system.  Interesting rules for emulating horror plotlines, or war plotlines, have been written in the past for 3e, and can no doubt be updated for 4e.  And the holy grail amongst those of us who feel this way, a Heroes of Intrigue book, is long since due.  Maybe we'll get one in 4e, since we didn't in 3e.D) Sword and Sorcery Action Movie is a genre, and the rules do emulate it.  Its a broad genre, and one into which you can attach further adjectives (Sword and Sorcery Wartime Action Movie, Sword and Sorcery Romantic Intrigue Action Movie, etc), but it is a genre nonetheless.  Perhaps your objection is really that you don't like the specific genre emulation you've been given?2. You don't like edge cases, and want to avoid them as much as possible.  For example, the application of a power that is themed as causing one's foe to overreach and stumble a few spaces when applied to an inanimate object that one could, if one chose, simply pick up and move.  The DM advice and the advice from WOTC that says that you should simply presume that the player did some other act that had the same outcome is not satisfying to you.In response, cross apply what I wrote above.  There is a legitimate balancing act the designers have to engage in, in which they balance breadth of options, volume of rules, and the need for DM intervention.  My personal taste is for a wide breadth of options and low volume of rules.  I am ambivalent regarding the need for DM intervention, so 4e's solution (utilizing DM intervention to help keep volume of rules low even as breadth of options rises dramatically) is one that appeals to me.  You apparently view "need for DM intervention" in terms of "places the rules and flavor don't fully match," and feel a disconnect.  I suppose that's fair enough, but its important to remember that there are tradeoffs you would have to deal with if the rules system were written in a different manner.</blockquote>

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