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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3791362" data-attributes="member: 42582">Agreed.Also, in a system in which character build is a big element, and players have carefully optimised every skill point, it can become a matter of contention among the players if it is possible to get the in-game benefits of those skill ranks without having to pay the metagame price of allocating one's skill points to them.It's for this reason that I think 3E can be hard to marry with a 1st ed approach to play, in which the emphasis is on player ingenuity in response to the situation, rather than a mastery of the game's action resolution mechanics.There is a difference between the feel of the module - what Reynard calls "tone" in the quote above - and the nature of the play experience. System is not just window dressing - White Plume Mountain played in 1st ed AD&D will be very different to the same module played in RM2, for example, just because the latter contains a complete skill system. This encourages players to look for solutions based on their characters' in-game abilities, and thus brings into play the character build and action resolution aspects of the game - whereas in AD&D, in which the action resolution and character build rules speak to only the most basic of in-game challenges, it will mostly be the players themselves trying to come up with ingenious solutions.It is of course possible to design a 3E module which deliberately sets out to bypass the character build and action resolution rules (eg by involving the vacuum of space, which very few skills or character abilities pertain to). But if this is what you want to do on a regular basis, why would you be using 3E as your system of choice - why not use a system where character build and action resolution mechanics don't loom so large?This suggests that 1st ed feel is more tone than the rules-determined aspects of play experience. No reason why that shouldn't be doable in 4e.</blockquote>

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