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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scribble" data-source="post: 5360654" data-attributes="member: 23977">I don't know if I'd say there is a singular factor. I'd say this would be my hypothesis though: (There's obviously a little more to each of these descriptions, but in a nutshell)1. Oldschool had minimal rules. Consequently actions not covered outside of the rules were left to the DM to decide how they would work, or whether they would work at all. While it kept the amount of rules people needed to know to a minimum, it also left the game open in many cases to the whims of the DM, which sometimes meant a horrible experience, and often an inconsistent one. (Especially from game to game.)2. 3e gets to the point where it attempts to solidify things a little better. Make things like "how to trip someone" a codified rule, so that the game remains pretty consistant over the course of the campaign and also from table to table. If someone wanted to trip another thing in the game, there was a rule that described how to do it. They could use that info in their planning. Consequently this made the ruleset someone needs to know larger, and also led to unintended weird uses of the rules, (like someone spamming trip attacks over and over.)3. 4e tries to kind of split the difference. To prevent the unintended rules abuse, and simplify the basic rule set, they put a lot of the rule decisions back into the hands of the DM. Players can say- "I want to trip!" and the DM gets to decide how to play that out, how hard it will be, etc on a case by case basis.To keep things somewhat consistent and ensure players always had a known element to fall back on when making decisions, they added the powers. These exceptions to the basic rules are a piece that the players will always know work the way they say they work (like trip in 3e) but because of their limited use factor they can't be abused as easily.I think- based on this info there are a few factors at play.1. People are still in the mindset that if there isn't a rule for it, they can't do it.2. A rule set in the hands of a DM also means that the players need to put more trust in the DM, and the DM needs to be sure to be truly fair.Consequently I think it all plays into what I said before which is people tend to go with the known element rather then an unknown element, even if they have somewhat of an idea how it will play out  and if they know the unknown element might offer greater returns.There's also the "good enough" factor at play.Say you have two cameras that cost pretty much the same cost. One is 10 mega-pixels has a bigger storage capacity, and takes generally better photos. It requires external software, and a cable to get the photos from the camera, then a extra step to upload them all to facebook.The other is only 3 megapixels, takes inferior photos, but has a built in USB dongle and a button that automatically uploads everytig to facebook...People will more often then not pick the second option even though it takes inferior photos.  The photos are "good enough" for facebook, and it's easier to get them there.So in the case of powers vrs improv- the powers are "good enough" to get the job done, and require less effort then thinking up an alternative.Finally I think part of it is also that people just tend to follow rules. Especially in games, I mean would you expect someone to improv in a game of monopoly? Or Poker? Improv in poker got people shot back in the day! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />So part of this is just human nature... Another part is working to improve DMs, and also improving how the books teaches people about improv. Ultimately though I think more often then not people will pick the rules known element, and this isn't really a bad thing. The game just needs to be open to easy modification/arbitration on the fly because lack of that ability, or shutting someone down when they DO try is the bad thing.  (I also kind of wonder if the old  "Kill players at every optortunity" DM stereotype plays into it as well. I'm picking known elements so my DM can't screw me over plays into it as well.)That's part of it yes- but not the complete thought.  It's kind of two separate but related ideas.But also because the rules are exceptions to the codified rules, I don't need to find the specific trip attack- I can just use A trip attack.Also if I never bother to take a trip attack, I can still attempt it, because of improv yes... It just leaves the results a little more in the hands of the DM.I think it's a little of both. I'm wondering when people improvised because you lacked guidelines, did you err on the side of caution, making the powers feel like a better choice with often more predictable results?(Which leads people to fall back a little more on basic human nature...)(Incidently I kind of wonder if part of the reason behind "grind" is that they left a little wiggle room in the balance of encounters expecting people to improvise more, and thus do more damage... Forgetting that people probably won't actually do that...)</blockquote>

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