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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 6008437" data-attributes="member: 6688937">Whoa now, D&D combat is conflict resolution? 4e has some new method for addressing Narrativist stakes and premises that isn't in previous editions?Do tell.I would say D&D's traditional combat engine(s) are basically task resolution, even if fairly abstract ones at various times and iterations. (Part of its problem, IMO, is its inconsistency in this regard.) 4e, AFAICT, made it pretty explicitly so. Of course, this may be an open question;-<a href="http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html" target="_blank">Lumpley</a>4e's mechanics may provide a lot more "story" and setting elements (color, etc. usually denigrated as "fluff"), however I don't see anything in 4e that does this in a particularly "Narrativist" manner.  When I was running 4e, all the Narrativist stuff in my game was precisely as "extra regulas" as it was in previous editions.Out of combat, I'm not sure 4e gets any better. I mean really not sure. The Skill Challenge mechanism presented in my DMG is something of a train wreck. It starts of sounding like some kind of Conflict Resolution mechanic, but then immediately explodes into a series of abstract (and to some extent, arbitrary) Task Resolutions. Authority for stakes-setting and framing still resides with the DM.  (Of course, I only ran 4e's first iteration, my group blew up before any major changes came along. I'm not sure how 4e does it all now, but I haven't heard anything substantial about it vis-a-vis Narrativism.)Now, having said all that. I'm not sure how important it is for a game to be Narrativist, if that game wants to call itself D&D. Story happens in all three modes of play, and the D&D community seems mostly willing to let story happen as it may from the results of the unstructured task resolution. Narrativism, AFAICT, doesn't really require much in the way of rules...so long as the participants want to engage in that aspect of roleplay. I figure that, by now, most Narrativist-minded D&D-ers have figured out how to do it with or without the rules, and a module that supports it with FATE points or the like is a common-enough patch.Oh yeah. Definitely. Part of the issue with D&D is that a heavily Narrative DM can't really run it without ignoring it. I always just leave the Narrative conflicts/premises/etc. out as an invitation. When the players pick it up, I try to run with it. Trying to push it really doesn't work within D&D. The sad part is watching part of group try to pick it up, and the other part just walk past it. That can lead to quite a bit of grumpiness.</blockquote>

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