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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4958260" data-attributes="member: 4937">That is the way I'm treating it, but the thing is that deprived of your specific example, I think you seem to be making the argument too broadly.Consider when you say something like:"Deities are nothing but flavour-text. At the end of the day, they shouldn't dictate mechanical rules."Why not?  I mean seriously, "Why not?"Several things interest me about this thread.  One of those things is the assumption you seem to be making that flavor ('fluff') is independent to or dependent on rules ('crunch').  As a general statement, I find that utterly bizarre.  Surely the reason for having rules is to facillitate capturing a particular flavor?  Don't we begin with some general idea ('a sphaghetti western RPG, a Barsoom RPG, etc.) and then describe the setting, and then set down rules which hopefully cause specific stories within the game to mimic the reality the games meta-story describes?  If a Conan RPG then we write rules which are designed to allow what we read in Conan stories, and disallow what we don't.  If flavor-text doesn't dictate mechanical rules, then what does?  Shouldn't crunch first and foremost be dependent on flavor?  Isn't that how it has always been?I'm not sure how to exactly describe what is the new master of the rules in 4e.  I think it's got something to do with 'balance' which suggests that it is something like 'competition' from which the rules of 4e spring.  Whatever it is, it's clear that you think its prerogatives are being trampled on by not allowing you design a character as you please.  But, for my part, it's this new and strange way of thinking about the game which causes me to stumble around at a loss for words and say things like, "4e doesn't feel like it really supports role-playing" and "4e feels video gamey"  I know that neither of those things are exactly true, but since I can't fully put my finger on the problem I say vague things like that.  There is however some fundamental shift in the way the game is viewed that I think is at the heart of this.To put my current observations briefly, you apparantly have no interest in playing in the Forgotten Realms, and further that the mechanical design and planning of the character - an aspect of the game almost wholly absent in 1e D&D (though not necessarily absent from other old systems) - has become the game you care about.</blockquote>

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