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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8418667" data-attributes="member: 42582">Just to add to this: JRRT does this in a literary (not cinematic)context in the fight in Moria. We learn that Frodo has fallen by a wall after having been stabbed with a spear by the Orc chieftain; we think he's dead or at least gravely hurt; but it turns out he's fine one he's had a chance to regain his breath (short rest, spend surges) and/or once Aragorn rouses him (in the book, he picks him up and carries him; in 4e, this could easily be the use of a warlord power that lets Frodo's player spend a surge).What I'm struck by is that [USER=7032025]@Lyxen[/USER] expressly invokes Fortune in the Middle for the 5e shield spell - ie there is a provisional narrative (the attack hit) but then the final narrative involves a correction of that (No they didn't! Shield - +5 AC!) - yet tells us that the same thing can't possibly work in 4e (for forced movement, for death saves, etc).We can even link this back to [USER=6795602]@FrogReaver[/USER]'s OP. What, at the table, prompts the player to use the Shield spell? The knowledge that without it they're going to be hurt! What, in the fiction, prompts the character to use the Shield spell? The fear that, without it, they may be hurt. The character, in the fiction, is acting defensively in response to a threat and simply can't have the same certainty that the player has. We can of course tell a completely coherent story - fearing injury, the PC conjures up a magical shield - but the actual reasoning process of the player and the character cannot be completely aligned. (This can be compared to, say, Rolemaster, which is obsessed with trying to keep those reasoning processes aligned and hence doesn't have an FitM resolution - with one consequence that it's defensive magic (Bladeturn and the like) doesn't really work like it should, because the structured nature of the declaration, initative and resolution process means that there's never a point at the table where the player can "see" the threat of the attack as their character would, and hence respond by using the protective magic.)The same thing happens with Come and Get It used as I described above. At the table, the players moves his PC to a certain point on the map, and - seeing that the goblins, on the map, are X distance away, used CaGI to pull them closer so that his PC can then cut them down. So the player's decision takes, as input, the depicted location of the goblins on the map. In the fiction, though, the fighter charges and comes close to the goblins running down the stairs and some turn back to see who's chasing them and the resulting bottleneck means the more rearward goblins can't get down the stairs at all. Hence the PC can cut them down. So there is an alignment of player and character decision-making at the point of these goblins are all about me and I'm going to cut them down; but there is not at the point where the player decides to pull them closer using Come and Get It.But is any of this a problem? I am sympathetic to FrogReaver thinking that it is - that tips into my well-honed Rolemaster instincts. But for me, personally, it's not a problem. The ability to generate fiction which has Dr Strange-style erection of magical defensive shields, and that has goblins who don't just move like unflappable automata but stop and look back and get in the way of their friends, is worth the compromise of these momentary ruptures of cognitive alignment of player and character.Of course, my aesthetic judgement here is no more binding on [USER=6795602]@FrogReaver[/USER] than his is on me! It's a big world with lots of different sorts of RPGing in it.</blockquote>

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