From where I sit, you've demonstrated nothing, apart from the fact that if you ignore the rules 4e is a better game.
I don't quite follow. What rule are you suggesting I am ignoring in order to improve the play of 4e?
I am really, really unhappy with "You are wounded, but at full hit points" and "You are unwounded, but at 0 hit points" and the points inbetween to be regular occurances at the table.
OK. If you won't say such things, then you may have trouble using 4e's healing and damaging system without retconning. But no part of the 4e rules forbid one saying such things. Indeed, the rules appear to presuppose that one will, from time to time, say such things, precisely at the point at which the rules (on page 293 of the PHB) tell us that hit points "represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character’s skill, luck, and resolve—all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation." This definition of hit points practically entails that a PC can be at 0 hit points yet unwounded (because her resolve has failed her for some other reason) or that she can be at full hit points yet wounded (because despite her wounds she is undaunted).
If the conditions have no meaning than game constructs that limit actions in game.....if they have no meaning within the game narrative itself......then the rules cease to have any value in terms of narrating the game.
This is a non-sequitur. By limiting actions in game the rules set parameters for the narration of the game. But you are correct to infer that they do not dictate that narration. That is the whole point of fortune-in-the-middle action resolution.
what's to prevent me from taking LostSoul's example and changing it to "The fighter gets up, dances a little jig around the room, stubs his toes, and falls over where he was before. He seems to be winking at the elf."?
Well, if that's how you want to narrate your PC's heroic adventures, go to town! Presumably, though, what will stop you is that it's silly.
The game rules themselves should offer some estoppal on "that would be silly". IMHO, the word "unconscious" in the rules is that estoppal....and it's being that estoppal is the reason that what the rules are meant to represent should not simply be ignored.)
Part of the point of a game like 4e is that what counts as silly narration or stirring narration at any given table is not part of the game rules, but rather is up for grabs at each gaming table - in this respect 4e is different from some (perhaps more traditional?) RPGs, and more closely resembles other (mostly indie?) RPGs.
This is, in my mind, is important: bit by bit, explaining 4e mechanics in terms of verisimilitude might be fine and dandy. But as those bits add up, what emerges has more in keeping with Monty Python & The Holy Grail than any Conan story REH ever wrote.
Each little bit of "You can explain X this way" lead up to a whole lot of explaining.... because the rules aren't written so that they flow logically from the conditions (one presumes) are being represented. And these aren't corner cases; they are potentially every single combat.
The key is to vary the narration so as to keep it (relatively) fresh and engaging rather than silly and repetitive. This requires player skill. This is one of the player skills that 4e rewards. If the game rules already purported to dicate the narration, and tell us what is silly and what not, then this player skill would have no scope to flourish.
It appears that you like sandbox RPGing. I think that you would agree that it would be a flaw in sandbox design for a campaign description to predetermine for the players where their PCs should go. Part of the point of sandbox RPGing is for these choices to be made as part of play, and for the question of whether they turn out to be good or bad choices to similarly be answered during the course of play. Well, think of 4e as supporting "sandbox narration". It would be a flaw in this sort of design for the rules to predetermine for the players where the narration should go. Part of the point of play is for choices about to narration to be made during the course of play, and for the merits or demerits of those choices (did I succeed in being stirring, or did I just make an idiot of myself?) to emerge in the course of play.
Turning to the issue of extended rests:
In a sandbox game, that doesn't work, because the players (not the DM) decide when to rest and when to go, and the game rules need to give them a clear reason to rest.
I am absolutely against the DM telling the players what their characters do. Therefore, the game system must provide reasonable incentive for rest.
Who decides "they return to thier home town for a month or so to recuperate from thier adventures"? Why do they not just plunder the next tomb?
You seem to be ignoring a further possibility, namely, that if the players think it is non-verisimilitudinous for their PCs not to require rest, they can have their PCs rest (just as in 3E many players have their PCs sleep despite the absence of mechanics for it).
If players won't have their PCs do something unless the rules require it, and then complain that the game is suffering from a lack of verisimilitude, I think they have only themselves to blame.
IMHO, "colour" shouldn't counter-indicate the rules, for the most part.
Who is saying that it should? The only poster in this thread whose come close to suggesting it is you, in the following passages:
If one is going to go the "colour usurps rules" route -- and it is not an intrinsically bad route by any means -- OD&D does it better.
I come out of older editions, where the word "unconscious" was more important than the specifics of what the condition meant in game terms.....where often, in fact, there were no specifics of what the condition meant in game terms.
