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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 4863358" data-attributes="member: 18280">Nor is it helpful to say "OMG!  The DM is broken!"We disagree here.  I think that it is entirely reasonable to expect the player to supply narrative for how powers make sense.  In RCFG, Combat Advantage allows you to use any skill check to help your combat abilities, provided that you can make it narratively plausable.  The difference with 4e is how the powers are developed, and what the expectations of the players are.  The DM has to narrate how the powers of everything else works; the players how the powers of their characters work.  Nothing could be fairer.I wonder how it is, then, that I could agree with LostSoul's advice?And, do you think that "plausibility" is a consistent bias that can break 4e's balance?   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />  Because we are talking about 4e.  I have said before, and certainly will again, that this applies to every RPG.Indeed.  But this doesn't mean that the DM is "broken" or doesn't know the rules.If you write something worth responding to, I will do so.See above.  Requiring some narration of powers isn't all that difficult -- it is a regular occurance in many supers games.  The GM essentially says "That doesn't seem plausible" and the player offers a reason why it is plausible.Obviously, in the case of 4e, part of the problem is the disconnect between power and description.  4e claims that the fighter isn't supernatural per se, then gives him powers that, if not supernatural, might well seem implausible to the DM.  Better to simply say that all of these powers are fantastic, or magical, or whathaveyou.Disagree.  If the DM asked the player to push his Honda Civic, it would be like requiring a magician to speak Latin.  There is nothing wrong with the DM requiring the magician's player to narrate his or her power usage.(In pre-4e D&D, the mundane powers were "always on" while the supernatural powers had sharp limits.  This helped the DM adjudicate when the mundane power applied, so that she could balance plausibility with fairness to each player with less chance of breaking that balance.)Just to be clear:  I am not saying that 4e cannot be run in an "Old School" way (although I do think it is not a particularly good vehicle for "Old School" gaming) -- I am saying that the arguments for why the DM is "broken", "wrong", or "doesn't know the rules" all point in this direction.  And, if for no other reason, that should make those arguments worth a bit of a rethink.  I am not sure what you regard as "Old School" in this sense, but I certainly accept from LostSoul's posts upthread that he, likewise, has no difficulties in running a 4e game using judgment calls that support plausibility within the milieu. If I accept LostSoul's claims (and I do), then I must perforce reject claims that judgment calls that support plausibility within the milieu destroy game balance and/or are inherently unfair.  Therefore, I must also accept that the vehement judgments agains the DM in this thread are likewise baseless, if that is what they are based upon.Likewise, if one supports the claim that "if the use of a power doesn't seem plausible in a particular circumstance, the DM could veto its use" as a response to concerns about plausibility, then "could =/= should" seems to me to be an inadequate defense for jumping on the DM in this case.   Certainly, "if the use of a power doesn't seem plausible in a particular circumstance, the DM should not veto its use" is inadequate as a response to concerns about plausibility.  You can have it one way or the other, but not both.I'll check it out.RC</blockquote>

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