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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4481119" data-attributes="member: 42582">I may have overstated the case. I continue to think that 4e is not especially well-adapted to sandbox, simulationist-oriented play - but if your group is doing it, that shows it can be done.As for how simulationist you have to be to find this element of the game quirky - well, your instincts are sufficiently simulationist that you don't like the introduction of a healing requirement via narration and metagame agreement rather than mechanics.Different editions of D&D have made different choices between narration and mechanics for various parts of the game. For example, in AD&D (especially 1st ed) morale of NPCs and monsters is a mechanical matter. In 3E and 4e it is largely a narration matter under the GM's control (the intimidation skill and various spells play a mechanical role, but it is a comparatively minor one). At least in some 3E games I imagine that there is a metagame agreement (implicit, perhaps) that evil foes fight to the death, thus removing from the game the moral problem that would be raised of how to deal with evil prisoners of war (a problem notoriously and particularly difficult for players of paladins). So I don't think that what I am suggesting is an outrageous departure from conventional ways of playing D&D.But I fully agree it is not simulationist - it is not looking to the game mechanics to tell us what is going on in the gameworld.I think this is a slightly different issue. No edition of D&D has ever had provision for wounds that are not mortal and cannot heal naturally (unless some curse such as mummy rot is in effect). Even in the 1st ed DMG it is possible to bind the wounds of a character who is unconscious but not yet dead and have them regain consciousness in fairly short order, and then begin healing naturally after a week of rest.So I don't find 4e any different from earlier editions in this particular regard - unless your point is that 4e allows more rapid non-magical healing than earlier editions. This is true, but (as Hypersmurf, Lost Soul and I have suggested upthread) such "healing" is easily narrated not as a healing of the wound, but as an exercise by the PC of resolve in the face of injury.</blockquote>

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