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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5649888" data-attributes="member: 42582">In ability to theorise, definitely. In ability to run what I regard as a good game, maybe - I mean, obviously I'm not a novice - but my comparison pool isn't that big, especially these days when I'm not part of a university or convention RPG scene anymore.To go back to a more general point, I don't see this particular discussion as a matter of argument, at least on my side - I just don't have the capacity to gather the relevant evidence. I can only point to things that make me feel like I'm not Robinson Crusoe in my conception of how 4e is designed to be played.Besides the rules text that I've cited upthread, I can point to posters on these boards - like Pentius, heretic888, nmns, LostSoul, chaochou, Neonchameleon, AbdulAlhazred, Balesir etc - who seem to approach 4e in a way that fits with my general conception of it (a non-simulationist game which emphasies GM scene-framing in a way that is responsive to player priorities as expressed through PC build and play). I can point to Chris Perkins' column on the WotC site - although it's hard to discern playstyle from the sort of accounts Perkins' gives, what he's describing doesn't seem a million miles from how I approach the game. I can point to the approach described in Worlds and Monsters. And even the Andy Collins, Dave Noonan and Mearls quotes that you mentioned upthread - if I've got the right ones in mind, like Collins on class design and Mearls on monster design - I saw at the time, and still see now, as directed to building a game that will support my sort of play (because I see it as an account of how story elements should have their mechanics tightly integrated with the sort of role they're intended to fulfil in resolving conflicts in the course of actual play).Like I said, none of the above is argument. It's just an attempt to explain of why I don't feel like a madman or a mere troublemaker when I paint the picture of 4e that I do.One thing that has become clearer to me over the last couple of years is the features of 4e that permit drift away from RPGing towards tactical skirmishing. I try to characterise them in my long post inside the spoiler blocks upthread. It seems to me, though - and in saying this I don't think I'm disagreeing with you (BryonD) - that for those players who have drifted 4e towards tactical skirmish with the occasional bit of colour, a more 3E-ish 5E would not be all that attractive. Because 3E's mechanics, lacking the metagame character of 4e's mechanics, don't permit the same degree of drifting.And for those, like me, who see 4e's emphasis on fictional situation (as explained in that long post), plus the integration of fiction into resolution in many parts of the system (as explained in that long post), as the key elements of the system that make it an RPG rather than a tactical skirmish engine, a more 3E-ish 5E wouldn't be all that attractive either. Because however exactly we should think of 3E - purist-for-system simulationism, or exploration-heavy Gygaxian gamism - it clearly does not take the same approach as does 4e to the situation, and to the way that the fiction feeds into action resolution.Which is why I think "reconciliation" will be tricky. If I was to hazard a guess as to how it might be attempted, it would be to build a simulationist-style game that emulates 3E in many respects, but is better suited than 3E to drifting into pure tactical skirmishing. This would then cut loose those who are playing 4e as an RPG in a way that depends upon its differences from 3E. For the reasons I've given, I don't feel that's as minority a position as you do, but it might still be minority enough to be worth cutting loose, from WotC's point of view. (I'm sure Chris Perkins will be able to drift whatever system he's paid to design and play to the sort of game that he wants!)</blockquote>

Verification