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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7994159" data-attributes="member: 42582">It's kind of you to say so!I played very little 3E D&amp;D, and so the developments you describe here are things I know of rather than things I myself know. I moved from AD&amp;D to Rolemaster in 1990, and RM was my main game through to the end of 2008. In that time I also played bits-and-pieces of AD&amp;D 2nd ed, RQ and other BRP games, and a few convention one-shots.RM has a fairly intricate skill system, but in its fundamentals I don't think it reflects what you describe above, because it doesn't take a great deal of mastery in the 3E sense to build a characer: you just need to get high numbers in the skills you want to use! (There is mastery in learning how the rules of PC build actually work - eg how to calculate the costs of skill ranks purchased and the bonus that results - but that's not the same as the hunting around for bonuses that you describe.)And with the use of skills in RM - at least as we played it - the focus is always on the fiction. It's not as tight as &quot;moves&quot; in PbtA (to do it, you do it) but it's not as disconnected from the fiction as I often see 3E described (as an observer of 3E, Diplomacy skill seems to be one poster child for this; personally I also think Natural Armour is another site of that disconnect but that's more controversial).4e, as I encountered it and as my group has played it, was obviously a &quot;fiction first&quot; game in non-combat resolution, while in combat a strange mix of fiction-first for positioning and terrain, abstract D&amp;D-isms for defences and hit points, and halfway in between when it comes to conditions inflicted as part of combat resolution.There was a trope used in some threads back in that time of &quot;the wrought iron fence made of tigers&quot;. But 4e never played like that for us - the trope seemed obviously misplaced given both (i) the actual text of the game, and (ii) the fact that everyone who enjoyed the game seemed to be playing it fiction first, while everyone who played it disconnected from the fiction seemed to think it sucked. (The theory underlying (ii) being that the people who are enjoying a game are the ones who have worked out how it's meant to be played!)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7994159, member: 42582"] It's kind of you to say so! I played very little 3E D&D, and so the developments you describe here are things I know [I]of [/I]rather than things I myself know. I moved from AD&D to Rolemaster in 1990, and RM was my main game through to the end of 2008. In that time I also played bits-and-pieces of AD&D 2nd ed, RQ and other BRP games, and a few convention one-shots. RM has a fairly intricate skill system, but in its fundamentals I don't think it reflects what you describe above, because it doesn't take a great deal of mastery in the 3E sense to build a characer: you just need to get high numbers in the skills you want to use! (There is mastery in learning how the rules of PC build actually work - eg how to calculate the costs of skill ranks purchased and the bonus that results - but that's not the same as the hunting around for bonuses that you describe.) And with the use of skills in RM - at least as we played it - the focus is always on the fiction. It's not as tight as "moves" in PbtA ([I]to do it, you do it[/I]) but it's not as disconnected from the fiction as I often see 3E described (as an observer of 3E, Diplomacy skill seems to be one poster child for this; personally I also think Natural Armour is another site of that disconnect but that's more controversial). 4e, as I encountered it and as my group has played it, was obviously a "fiction first" game in non-combat resolution, while in combat a strange mix of fiction-first for positioning and terrain, abstract D&D-isms for defences and hit points, and halfway in between when it comes to conditions inflicted as part of combat resolution. There was a trope used in some threads back in that time of "the wrought iron fence made of tigers". But 4e never played like that for us - the trope seemed obviously misplaced given both (i) the actual text of the game, and (ii) the fact that everyone who enjoyed the game seemed to be playing it fiction first, while everyone who played it disconnected from the fiction seemed to think it sucked. (The theory underlying (ii) being that the people who are [I]enjoying[/I] a game are the ones who have worked out how it's meant to be played!) [/QUOTE]

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