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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6227003" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think so. In classic D&D, and in D&Dnext as currently written, the player cannot nominate the resource whereby a challenge will be tackled, unless either (i) the challenge is a very straight forward combat one, and the player is nominating an attack, or (ii) the resource the player is deploying is a spell. Otherwise the player has to specify an action that his/her PC might like to attempt, and wait for the GM to nominate a relevant resource (eg a stat check in Next, or a d% roll in classic D&D). I don't know what the 3E norms are in this respect.Also, in versions of D&D other than 4e the only case in which success on the check results in the player achieving his/her declared goal is combat - a hit delivers damage. But otherwise non-4e versions of D&D use task resolution, not conflict resolution.And yet furthermore, in most versions of D&D (including I think 3E, and Next at least as written), there is an expectation that a player can succeed at a check and yet fail overall due to secret fictional positioning known only to the GM (see the long discussion of the king and the chamberlain on the 1000+ post "Fighters vs Casters" thread). Whereas this is not a signficant feature of 4e.The three points above were all elements of my characterisation of 4e resolution which do not differentiate it from the typical indie RPG but do differentiate it from many other RPGs, including various versions of Next.I think these features of 4e are pretty central to the play experience it delivers.This tells me that 4e doesn't, in general, care about the details of combat manoeuvres as inputs into resolution (other than positioning, about which it cares a great deal). Which is true - much like AD&D doesn't care about the details of how one defends against dragon breath in resolving a saving throw. Which is to say, these are fortune-in-the-middle mechanics.While saving throws were fortune-in-the-middle, we could think of fighters as tough, and resilient, in the Conan or Aragorn model, and therefore give them appropriately robust saving throw numbers, without worrying, at the point of design, what that toughness correlates to in the fiction. Indeed, in his DMG Gygax offers as an example of a successful save vs dragon breath the possibility that the PC ducked into a narrow (and hitherto unnarated) crevice in the rock. That is, Gygax endorsed (i) Schroedinger's crevices, and (ii) that fighters are more likely to encounter and get the benefit of them than magic-users.Once you decide to frame everything in process simulation terms - and with the exception of the core hp and action economy mechanics 3E tends strongly in this direction - then fortune-in-the-middle abilities are ruled out. And without those sorts of abilities, fighters start to look pretty weak, because their abilities will be modelledon real-world human physiological and psychological processes, which are not adequate to the task of fighting dragons or resisting mental domination by vampires.That was part of my point: because without viable fighters who can stand up against dragon breath and vampires, Arthurian romance-style RPGing is impossible.But I was also alluding to a broader point: that process simulation mechanics close of a range of narrative possibilities that we can very easily imagine, and that conversely FitM can open such possibilities up.I'm sure this is true. If the imaginative experience that people want in RPG combat is imagining the difference between a thrust and a slash, 4e will not deliver that. (Mind you, I'm not sure that classic D&D will either.)4e shifts the focus elsewhere - to who the PC is, and how s/he is going to engage this situation (alone or in concert; boldly or cautiously; etc).The rules don't force this focus. That's why I said upthread that the players have to build certain sorts of PCs, and the GM frame certain sorts of encounters.It is. But not all experience is imagination.When a character is low on hit points, and is in danger of being killed, and the players are wondering whether the player of the cleric can pull of a sequence of moves that will both (i) defeat the monsters, and (ii) save the dying PC, that is not imagining fear, and tension, and hope, and the possibility of leadership. That is experiencing those things. There is real fear that the PC might die, real tension arising from the uncertainty of the situation, real hope in the capabilities of the cleric player, and the real possibility of that player displaying leadership, turning the situation around and bringing his/her friends back into the action.A game needs a fairly tight design to produce these experiences. If outcomes are foregone, there will be no tension. If all the big deals depend on GM fiat, there is no hope and expecation in relation to one's fellow players. (If the GM lies, there might be hope and expetation based on the illusion of possibility. But an illusion of possibility is not the same thing as actual possibility. Illusions are also prone to being dispelled.)Playing Call of Cthulhu - which is the only really satisfying GM-driven RPG I'm familiar with - hope, and expectation, are all oriented towards the GM. And the situation itself is simply imagined. It is like being in the theatre.At least in my experience, 4e does not play like that.In my view the problem with this is that Arthurian romance, and related literature like Tolkien, is essentially reactionary. But while this sort of reactionary fantasy can itself have great aesthetic appeal, I'm not sure it makes for a good theory of aesthetics.In other words, just because a certain aesthetic experience is (or has become) unsatisfactory, I think we should be very cautious of inferring that this is because something has been lost.The change may well have another cause, whether some new external factor or some change in us. Or perhaps both.And flipping it around, from aesthetic dissatisfaction to aesthetic satisfaction - part of the point of my post was to make a case that if you want an aesthetic experience in RPGing that captures the feel of reactionary fantasy of the Excalibur sort, it may be that more avant garde techniques are what is required.</blockquote>

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