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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 5303105" data-attributes="member: 5143">No offense, but that's not the definition of a role playing game.  As long as you are still playing a character in a world that has some rules, you are still role playing.  This world just has slightly different rules than the "real world".What it comes down to for me is that we are still playing a game to have fun.  If not being able to use your powers against an enemy is no fun, then "realism" takes a back seat to fun.  It's not that I don't consider "fiction", it's that it always takes a back seat to game balance and to the fun of the players.Any time realism becomes the primary motivator in a game you end up with a situation where one player gets favored over another.  Often this favoritism leans towards spellcasters over non-spell casters.Take, for instance, 2 at-will powers: One arcane, One martial.  They both do some poison damage.  You are attacking a Fire Elemental.  They have no veins, they are made of fire.  They aren't immune to poison in 4e.  The DM asks each character: "How exactly do you poison a Fire Elemental?"The Wizard replies with "I modify the casting of the spell slightly as I'm casting it so that the substance I shoot at the Elemental acts the same as a poison would for a human.  I'm really good at Arcana and would know how to modify my spells on the fly and I'd also know what hurts Elementals."The Rogue replies with "Umm...I don't know.  I just stab it with my poisoned dagger the same way I do all other creatures."And the DM allows the Wizard to use his powers and reduces the Rogue's powers to quite a few less than he normally has, making it less fun to play.This either has the side effect of causing players to all decide to play spell casters or to suffer.It resulted in situations where a Rogue could do nearly 0 damage for an entire session due to choice of monsters while the Cleric suddenly became the most powerful member in the group.  I had a player quit simply because he was tired of his character doing nothing when we were adventuring in an ancient dungeon where there was nothing alive in it.It's exactly BECAUSE 3.5 "relied on the fiction" that everything it didn't say was so glaring.  If one particular monster wasn't immune to grappling but it was immune to a list of 10 other things, you have to assume that there's a reason it isn't immune to grappling or it would have been listed there.  Either that or you had to second guess a huge new list of things everything was immune to.  Which often meant players had to rely on the DMs whims as to when their powers worked.I, and the people I played with, adhered to the rules just as closely in 3.5e.  It's just that the rules in 3.5e were much more arbitrary(or "realistic" depending on your point of view).Nowadays, it's just easier to say "Everyone's powers should work unless the rules say otherwise."  I don't care whether the grappler fighter is grabbing some of the insects and the others refuse to leave their brethren, he's being so threatening that the insects feel compelled to stay nearby him(perhaps he put his arm in the middle of them and they are now crawling all over his body), he swings he sword so hard that it creates a vacuum that sucks the insects in, or any other explanation you can come up with.  To me, the explanation isn't really important.  I want to get the round of combat over with so we can get to the next one...as quickly as possible so we can get back to the role playing part of the game.And I want that round of combat not to end with one of the players saying "I guess I don't do anything, since half my powers grab and the other half can only target grabbed creatures"</blockquote>

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