Specifically, the DM said he couldn't push the giant. However, push is defined in the book as being something other than one person physically pushing another. Turn undead also uses the word push, but doesn't involve the cleric walking over and physically pushing each of the monsters. Push is a forced movement that must be away from the source. Pull is a forced movement towards the source. Slide is a forced movement in any direction. Each individual power describes it differently ... and in different situations it can be different things.
Right. But the defining characteristic is that the fighter must somehow be able to force the movement.
Except of course, he is not looking at the plausibility of "the fighter forces the large creature to move one square back away from him" and instead looking at the plausibility of "the fighter physically pushes the large creature one square back away from him".
Are you
sure about that? We don't have the DM's POV here, and we do have the OP stating explicitly that he doesn't feel it is necessary for him to offer any narrative as to why the effect might work.
We also know that none of the other players seem to have a problem, again based upon the statements of the OP. It seems rather presumptuous (to me, anyway) to assume that the DM doesn't understand the rules given the circumstances.
You may say "He's putting importance of the plausibility of the word push ... without actually looking at the RULE of the word push" but you don't know this. Moreover, if the DM is concerned with plausibility, that rule "push" must still be interpretted plausibly. It must still represent something within the context of the game world. Unless one believes that rules trump milieu, there still must be a
reason within the milieu that the rule works as it does within the given circumstance.
(And, again, this is exactly the same argument with CAGI....If the fighter's powers are not magical in nature [and I think in 4e that they are] then there has to be a mundane explanation that doesn't strain credibility.)
If you are ignoring the rule, you can't really be measuring the plausibility of that rule working in the world. He has misread a power and has decided that his misreading of the power is implausible.
What makes you believe that the DM is ignoring the rule in this case? What makes you believe that he has misread the power?
It seems that you are presuming (1) that the DM did not announce (formally or in any other fashion) an intention to run the game in an old-school way, and (2) that the DM did not understand the rules. Since no other player is having this problem, and since the DM's POV is not given, these are pretty uncharitable thinks to presume.
Just as a thought experiment, imagine that everyone else at the table apparently did know that the DM puts "world before rules" and imagine that the OP had a reasonable chance to know this....
because apparently everyone else at the table did. Now, again as a thought experiment, imagine that the DM did read and understand the 4e ruleset.
Is it impossible or improbable for a DM who desires to run 4e in an "Old School" way to make the same ruling,
and be correct? Or have we instead simply taken it upon ourselves to assume incompetence?
I still can't see why it's remarkable that different groups could use the same rules, but end up playing in largely different ways. Or that people who play a game one way would be critical of people who play it in another way.
This is rather what it comes down to, isn't it? Why is assumed that the DM is somehow "broken" or incompetent for making this ruling, despite the claim by the OP that he is the only person bothered by the DMing style?
If you're the odd man out at the table in terms of style and expectations, why is this group so vehement that you must be right, and that the DM must be wrong/broken/incompetent?
RC