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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 5957446" data-attributes="member: 6668292">My main point is that "interesting stories" (things like NPC relationships, plot, etc.) is basically GM fiat in every edition of the game -a strength of RPGs, no doubt.I think that may have cleared a bit up, actually.Yep, it sounds more narratively focused, but not strongly narratively focused without deliberately attempting to use the system that way. That is, you still don't put player control over the "interesting heroic fantasy story" (plot, NPC interactions, etc.) by just letting them use powers. You need to go further; for example, pemerton lets PCs declare their story intentions -provoke this NPC into a fight- and then achieve those story goals (via a skill challenge, for example).Otherwise, you just have more narrative control in combat. And, while a huge part of D&D, it's really not the "interesting heroic fantasy story" part of it. Combat is an important aspect of that story, of course, but without the rest (NPC interactions, plot, setting dynamics, etc.), it's just a combat engine, and not part of the story. The "interesting story", like all editions of D&D, is still produced by the GM, largely independent of mechanics in the game. Unless, again, you start granting additional narrative control to players (via skill challenges, or whatever) that aren't inherent to the game (but the game doesn't necessarily fight against it).In essence, 4e rules can be used to achieve this sort of dynamic, but they are not inherently designed to be used this way. You can use rules from other editions to give narrative control to players (if you make your Diplomacy check, you achieve Story Goal X), but they aren't inherently designed that way either. While 4e may be more narratively compatible than past editions, I don't think it inherently gives meaningful story control to players outside of combat. Which, again, is an important piece of interacting with an "interesting heroic fantasy story", but does not make for one by itself. As always, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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