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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5878885" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think this is part of the Expert set, rather than Moldvay Basic.I think I get the point. It seems a variant on my own suggestion that one might get past the stirges by smearing oneself in foul-tasting mud.And as I said upthread, if you adopt this sort of action resolution then questions of mechanical balance and comparable mecanical effectiveness become less important.My own view is that few who came to Moldvay Basic without some sort of prior background in D&D play would work out that this is the sort of thing the game envisaged - given there are no hints of it in the book or the examples of play. But that's just a hypothesis, and perhaps generalising unsoundly from my own experience.I think the issue is slightly different from this, and deeper. I think that 4e envisages that most action resolution will take place by deploying the formal mechanics. That doesn't make fictional positioning irrelevant - but the point of that positioning is to affect the application and adjudication of the mechanics, rather than to set up some sort of alternative to them.In a skill challenge, for example, fictional positioning is important, but not so much in order to avoid having to use a skill, but to open up the opportunity to use a skill - or to use a substitute for a skill, such as a ritual (which is itself a mechanical device). So the attempt to use the herd of goats to bypass the stirges, for example, would open up a Nature check when one otherwise was not available.So at least in my view, it's not about comparisons of creativity, but about the way in which the creativity interacts with the formal action resolution mechanics.And for utter clarity, I'm not therefore saying that 4e and Basic are the same. Of course they're not. And I've just explained how, in my view, they're not. But I've also explained where I think the deep difference lies - not in creativity or fictional positioning, but in the relationship between creativity, fictional positioning, and the formal action resolution mechanics.Well, that goes without saying, doesn't it? I've said the same thing upthread, or one of the other threads running concurrently (Falling Damage and April 3rd RoE).But as I also said upthread (#103), assuming they follow through on their "stats as skills" idea then I think there D&Dnext will suggest less "semi-free-forming" departures from the action resolution mechanics. (To put it another way, I think it will have a text closer to the actual Moldvay Basic text, than to the contemporary old-school primers etc.)For example, at least as I understand it, the idea of "stats as skills" is that players engage the fiction so as to get boosts on their stat checks (eg reduce the difficutly category so that they are now eligible to make a check, or alternatively don't have to make a check). Which is closer to a 4e or Burning Wheel approach, I think  - engage the fiction so as to open up or enhance a certain mechanical space - rather than an old school approach of engaging the fiction so as to work around the mechanics.But then maybe "stats as skills" will itself be a module. I don't have a full understanding of what is confirmed core and what modular, if anything, at this stage.</blockquote>

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