Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Odhanan" data-source="post: 5300847" data-attributes="member: 12324">Sure. Absolutely. Except that most Fantasy role playing game worlds (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Thieves World, Birthright, Ptolus, Mystara, and about a zillion other more-or-less vanilla worlds) assume/are based, with more or less success, on a Physics engine similar to our own world (i.e. speeds and movement, weights, mass, gravity, effects of the environment, heat, cold, electricity, what poisons do to your body, and so on and so forth). Well, I just did in the part you didn't quote: "While I can easily explain in my mind why a Wizard would have Daily powers and Encounter powers, much in the same way I would explain why in older editions they had a limited amount of memory "slots" in a Vancian system, I find no way to explain why Fighters would only be able to use a given Martial move (exploit) only one per Day, or per Encounter."I can in game-world terms explain to myself that a given Prayer is only allowed at certain given times or intervals by a particular deity, or that a spell is so complex in its particular effects that it could only be performed once every once in a while, but a particular fighting move, not so easily, to me. I can understand in-game why a Wizard would only be able to cast Fireball once a day (maybe the spell is super complex. Maybe it exerts such a drain on the mind as to make it hard to cast again for some time. Maybe the Gods of Magic don't want you to cast Fireball all the time. Etc). I can understand in-game why a Cleric could only use Astral Refuge once a day (Maybe the Gods don't want you to breach the veil between worlds that often. Maybe the Prayer itself consumes your spirits and drains your soul in such a way as to make it impossible to cast again right away. Maybe... you get the picture). I don't understand why a fighter could only Crack the Shell once a day, or <a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/dissociated-mechanics.html#simple-example" target="_blank">why the Rogue would only be able to use Trick Strike once a day</a>.<a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/dissociated-mechanics.html#simple-example" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.thealexandrian.net/images/20080514d.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>  Note that in my post I also indicated simple ways in which I think uses of Encounters and Dailies could be loosened a bit by implicating some prices on further utilizations of these powers, with maybe specific prices for specific power sources, or specific prices for each specific powers. This obviously was just an example, but still, I do think there are some possibilities for 4E to remain 4E while doing away with the gamist-narrativist BS going on with the system.For some reason, I find it exceedingly more complex to come up with simulationist explanations than narrative ones. Maybe it's just me, but then again, I'm far from being the only D&Der out there with this type of issue with the 4E game system (see link above, for instance). To me, game balance is not the same thing as rules balance. Rules balance is just one of the many components of actual game as-it-is-being-played balance, which also includes various GM skills, collaboration between the participants of the game, spotlight given to characters and the situations that allow such spotlights, play styles (game balance between thespian players will not mean the same thing as game balance between tactical players) and so on and so forth.The rules are not the game. The game is not the rules.Rules balance being the be-all end-all of game balance, and thus requiring near-perfection, is a fallacy, and thus, does not have to be a priority of game design. To me at least.I'm not connecting with this argument. The rules being grounded in the game world instead of vice versa does not mean that the world has to be boring or mundane. You can simulate a high fantasy, off the hook world, using mechanics that find their justification in game world elements. Toon in that sense could be simulationist of a cartoon physics engine. In other words, simulationism is not predicated on the idea that you must model the real world itself.</blockquote>

Verification