DM Empowerment vs. Player Entitlement - Is this really that prevalent?

[Hussar]

That's the trick, isn't it? What's intuitive? For me, shooting a crossbow bolt past 5 guys should be very hard to do. Those 5 guys should be offering some substantial cover and may get hit. That seems an intuitive result.

On the other hand, simplifying away all of that can lead to an intuitive mechanic that simply doesn't sweat the issue.

So which is better? Which is right? Which is more intuitive? Intuitive doesn't always mean simple in concept and not always the simplest to use.

Right I don't know. But intuitive would be the rule that follows the same general gist as all the other rules. In 3e, the intuitive thing would be for there to be fifteen extra little fiddly rules for every base rule, so, you'd check the book for those fiddly bits. In 4e, the intuitive thing would be for a rule to always work one way, and any exceptions would be noted in the encounter, not in the rules.

That's what intuitive means to me.