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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5902995" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is good stuff. The turn-based initiative system is an abstraction. Out-of-turn actions, including OAs (which fighters are especially good at) and the challenge-generated interrupts, are part of the mechanical apparatus for preventing the abstraction generating absurd results.Sometimes marks also just work at the metagame level. They're a device that makes it more likely that the fighter will be at the centre of the fray. Similar to the paladin's Valiant Strike power (which gives a bonus to hit equal to the number of adjacent enemies): a players whose PC has that power is more likely to play the PC as valiantly surrounded by foes, because there is a mechanical incentive to do so.D&D has always used metagame contrivances to reinforce class role and flavour (eg the prohibitions on swords and armour for wizards), although 3E reduced this noticeably compared to earlier editions. 4e is a return to earlier editions in this respect, although it uses new mecanical devices to achieve that result.Personally, I quite like 4e's approach. I think "fortune in the middle" resolution - roll dice first, narrate events second - can have some advantages for introducing new complications into the narrative without bogging the game down mechanically, and while keeping the odds of success and failure more-or-less known and balanced. It does raise interesting issues about fictional positioning - how does the narration of what happened in the course of action resolution than feed into subsequent action resolution - but I think these can be handled. The most obvious way is by having the NPCs/monsters in a situation respond appropriately and interestingly to whatever narration was used to explain the action resolution. Make the colour count!What DEFCON 1 says is true of AD&D (or 1st ed, at least). Gygax explains it in the DMG: roll the save, and if it is successful than narrate something around it that makes sense. This explains why even the fighter chained to the rockface is entitled to a save vs Dragon Breath - perhaps s/he finds a niche in the rock at the last minute, or a chain breaks, or whatever. (And a chain breaking can be narrated even if the fighter earlier failed a bend bars attempt in respect of it!)What B.T. says about saves is true of 3E, however. 3E changed many aspects of the game, and probably has the least "fortune in the middle" of any edition of D&D - even hit points seem to be much more "meat"-ified in 3E than in earlier editions, or in 4e.One part of playing an RPG, for some players at least, is narrating fiction around action resolution. It's true that 3E has less of this than any other edition of D&D, and games like Rolemaster or Runequest have less in turn than 3E, but there are plenty of other well-know RPGs that aren't so spartan in this respect: The Dying Earth, HeroWars/Quest, Burning Wheel, etc. And I don't think it's fair to describe it as "rewriting powers so that they make sense" - at least, not for those who enjoy fortune-in-the-middle resolution. It's narrating the events of the fiction within a constraint provided by the mechanical resolution system.It was part of the AD&D saving throw mechanic, and it remains part of the hit point mechanic in all editions: it is not possible to narrate what a successful attack for 8 hp means until you know who was hit, how many hit points they started with, and therefore how many they end up with (I think even the biggest "hp are meat" proponent would accept that this is so). 4e just takes it into more areas of the game.Well, you can. "I'm leaving it for you to handle." Not only is it possible, but it happens routinely at my game table.This is something on which opinions differ. D&D has always made the metagame part of round-to-round tactical decision-making, via its hit point mechanics. In AD&D it was also part of the saving throw mecanic. 4e just extends that to "active" as well as "passive" elements of action resolution.Fair enough. But this is exactly how 3E treats the wizard's spell components pouch. (In AD&D, you actually had to track your componenent usage.) And some systems - including d20 modern, I think - use abstracted wealth rules. Other systems - The Dying Earth, and OGL Conan - have rules about PCs losing access to accrued wealth between sessions (they are deemed to have spent or lost it). In Burning Wheel you role a d6 every time you use a toolkit, and on a roll of 1 it is depleted.To put it another way: detailed item tracking isn't the only way to handle things, and hasn't been an essential part of D&D since the 3E-era (ie the above mentioned spell component pouches and rogue powers).This raises an interesting, and in my view slightly orthogonal, issue.Given my own interests and prejudices, I'm inclined to frame it this way: is the players' main contribution to interesting action resolution their impact on colour, or their impact on situation? I agree that 4e's power usage can reduce colour. Some description becomes compressed. But 4e powers give players - and especially martial players - a lot of influence over the situation - in particular via forced movement and condition infliction. This is where the interest is to be found. (And it's true that in this particular respect, 4e martial PCs become more like traditional D&D spell-user, who have always had "macro labelled" abilities ("I fireball the orcs") which give them a high degree of influence over the ingame situation.)Hmm. I thought that Jake Norwood made the same claim about The Riddle of Steel!</blockquote>

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