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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6227971" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I think out of the gate it is very difficult for varying perspectives on RPG design theory to achieve meaningful, productive communication.  The genesis of such conversations requires relative lockstep on the answer to the question of "does system matter?"  There are such deep disagreements on that primordial question that conversation past that point becomes unwieldy.  Extended from the answer to that question is a myriad of loosely (or tightly) coupled positions on:1) GM role and authority (over setting and situation, over backstory, over rules adjudication, over authenticity of action resolution)2) Players' roles and PC build functionality (including stance fluctuation3) Transparency/opacity/level of codification of the action resolution mechanics and their role in the fiction that emerges from actual play4) Task resolution resolving the outcome of zoomed-in simulation of process or conflict resolution resolving the outcome of zoomed-out player intent.  Then there are questions on how various GMing techniques provide or subvert players' ability to make meaningful thematic choices and impose their will on the fiction.  Further, there are questions about the passivity or proactivity of players; what aspects of system and GMing techniques promote one state versus another?  Then immersion needs to be defined.  This, again, will vary from player to player and from GM to GM.  My idea of "immersion" is certainly very different than your own and I appreciate a wide variety of games.  I play 1e and 4e and I play them very, very differently from one another.  I was an old school Classic Traveller GM and, again, hugely different from running a game of Dogs in the Vineyard...both still hugely different from the brunt GM-forcing my players through a Call of Cthulu game; different with respect to my expectations (what "immersion" means and what typifies "fun" or "a successful session") and different with respect GM techniques deployed and the total output of play.I am a "system matters" and "GMing is not a monolithic enterprise" guy.  You cannot produce an authentic, old school, Step On Up 1e dungeon crawl experience with GM force superseding the authenticity of the resolution mechanics.  You cannot produce a functional Story Now Dungeon World or 4e game if you're trying to interpret the micro and macro outcomes of their conflict resolution mechanics through a task resolution lens.  If the game is predicated upon focus on the scene or the encounter and the PC resource schemes exclusively (or even mostly) zoom out on the adventuring day (or further), you're going to have dysfunctional play.  If you want gritty play that assumes adventurers/heroes are fragile, bearing no plot protection, then ablation mechanics better agree with that paradigm or you're going to have some deeply dysfunctional aspects of play that grate/jar, potentially to the point of being untenable.  In total; I do not think the 5e "big tent" approach will facilitate what they're looking for (One D&D to Rule Them All).  I've been extremely skeptical of the design theory from the beginning.  At its core is an ethos of (i) "Rulings Not Rules", (ii) its GM advice advocating hand-waved or fudged DCs and contests, and (iii) its embedded, somewhat opaque, task resolution mechanics that drive toward granular exploration of GM setting.  It is quite literally anathema to (i) my preferred ethos ("Drive Play Toward Conflict - Every moment of play, roll dice or say yes."), (ii) fidelity to the action resolution mechanics, and (iii) transparent, conflict resolution mechanics that focus on fiction (including setting) emerging from resolving player intent within a scene-based architecture.I've said from the beginning that it looks like, feels like, plays like, and promotes 2e era play.  I think they will catch a very wide audience but it won't be the One D&D to Rule Them All that they are looking for.  The ethos, system, and technique issues at the core of these disputes make the realization of that ideal impossible.</blockquote>

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