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<blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 4284607" data-attributes="member: 172">What's style and what's substance? I'd guess you'd call my objections to 4e &quot;style&quot;, which is not to say it is free of substance problems.I think when it comes down to numerics, the system will work pretty much as the designers intend, and where they don't, there hasn't been enough play to reveal them.That, I'm more dubious about. Style is more deeply entrenched than you seem to think. The PHB is more than just a rulebook; it's a basis for player expectations. Yeah, maybe I could rule out tieflings and dragonborn, but players excited about playing with them will be actively displeased by such efforts and it will take some work to overcome that.Further, things like the decision to make character balance focus almost exclusively on combat means that it is, in fact, more effort than its worth to retool it to run the sort of game I am interested in running. And once I have done that, the design effort that went into the game is almost meaningless for the purposes of my game and really doesn't bear on it anymore. At that point, addressing the style issue becomes a substance issue.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Psion, post: 4284607, member: 172"] What's style and what's substance? I'd guess you'd call my objections to 4e "style", which is not to say it is free of substance problems. I think when it comes down to numerics, the system will work pretty much as the designers intend, and where they don't, there hasn't been enough play to reveal them. That, I'm more dubious about. Style is more deeply entrenched than you seem to think. The PHB is more than just a rulebook; it's a basis for player expectations. Yeah, maybe I could rule out tieflings and dragonborn, but players excited about playing with them will be actively displeased by such efforts and it will take some work to overcome that. Further, things like the decision to make character balance focus almost exclusively on combat means that it is, in fact, more effort than its worth to retool it to run the sort of game I am interested in running. And once I have done that, the design effort that went into the game is almost meaningless for the purposes of my game and really doesn't bear on it anymore. At that point, addressing the style issue [I]becomes[/I] a substance issue. [/QUOTE]

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