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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cyberen" data-source="post: 6178660" data-attributes="member: 69074">[MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION], [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION] : thanks for your comments !By "pseudo-naturalistic physics engine", I mean departing from real-world physics is kind of a (mostly unexpected, I guess) feature of the rules : the rules define the physics, which define the world and its particular genre. It sucks hard at emulating any real or particular fictional world, but can provide a very compelling experience, from both sides of the screen : exploring for the players, tinkering for the DeMiurge (I guess it's what @howanwhy99 alludes to when he describes his D&D).IMHO, a naturalistic ruleset focuses on the verisimilitude of the link between cause and effect. "Balance" is a vice : stronger causes should cause stronger effects, and as levelling is a measure of input (experience gained) rather than efficiency (output), some imbalance is "naturally" expected. 4e has shown that D&D is not married to naturalism, and showcased the strength of focusing on normalizing the output according to level...but it lost some features (and some players/customers) doing so.I am tired of game mastery, but I think naturalism has a lot going for it. For instance, my group playstyle involves "emerging protagonism" : if, for some reason, a NPC takes a central role in the unfolding story, he can be promoted to PC status as the DM invite a new player (it's also a convenient way to replace casualties, as our group is not biased against explorational hazards such as starving to death <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />). This habit is clearly well supported by 3e take on NPCs built on the same chassis as PCs. It also creates interesting characters, such as a goblin sneak whose life was spared to serve as a guide (great fun, Gollum-style, but clearly a weaker PC than the rest of the group). I also find that having absolutely no assumption concerning what is playable or not opens interesting story venues. Of course, I fully endorse a disclaimer on those imbalanced options, to avoid trap choices, but having those options not supported by 4e was a big disappointment.</blockquote>

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