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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6182210" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't really regard those as system mastery.The idea that I'd do better playing a speculative trader by undertaking a career as a merchant and learning to be a broker doesn't strike me as system mastery at all - that's all in fiction decision-making.Likewise in RQ, the idea that adding points to Survival rather than Sailing might be better for a forest game is also a decision that works within the fiction (though I'm not sure it's in fiction decision-making, and so more metagame than Traveller).In both cases, you don't need to know anything about the system to make those choices, you just need to think about the fiction. What's distinctive to D&amp;D - and particularly 3E and 4e D&amp;D - is that there are system build elements which aren't themselves connected to the ficiton in any way, but will dramatically change the mechanical prowess of your PC within the fiction.(Gaming the GM - by building a PC better suited to the game the GM is planning to run - isn't system mastery at all, as I understand that notion.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6182210, member: 42582"] I don't really regard those as system mastery. The idea that I'd do better playing a speculative trader by undertaking a career as a merchant and learning to be a broker doesn't strike me as system mastery at all - that's all in fiction decision-making. Likewise in RQ, the idea that adding points to Survival rather than Sailing might be better for a forest game is also a decision that works within the fiction (though I'm not sure it's in fiction decision-making, and so more metagame than Traveller). In both cases, you don't need to know anything about the system to make those choices, you just need to think about the fiction. What's distinctive to D&D - and particularly 3E and 4e D&D - is that there are system build elements which aren't themselves connected to the ficiton in any way, but will dramatically change the mechanical prowess of your PC within the fiction. (Gaming the GM - by building a PC better suited to the game the GM is planning to run - isn't system mastery at all, as I understand that notion.) [/QUOTE]

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