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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4514167" data-attributes="member: 40961">I found that 3e had more of a "must play the rules as written" attitude.  This was due, in part, to the fact that the game had rules for all kinds of things that previously it didn't, and the rules mostly worked.In any case,1. Even if its technically easier to add fluff than to change it (even when the fluff is neatly isolated in readily ignored italicized lines), the degree of difference in difficulty doesn't strike me as meaningful.  Remember the Geico commercial where the dude is all like, "Man, I'd buy Geico, except I have to go to a website!  That's so hard!"  and then the gecko makes fun of him?  Yeah.2. The complaint that the fluff sometimes implies consequences that the rules don't support is a fair one.  Does the Rune of Peace give off light?  It says it does, so can you see by it?  Who knows.3. A game system where the fluff never implies consequences that the rules don't support isn't possible.  Even if those little italicized lines were removed, there'd still be the same problem.  Fireball does fire damage in a area of effect.  Fire gives off light.  Can I use Fireball to light up a room momentarily?  You get the idea.  The moment the rules start trying to describe "things happening," which is of course what rules do in an RPG, you're going to run into the basic problem of the way that a small amount of text (even the text of an entire book) cannot completely model the entirety of human fantasy experience, even within a single genre.4. Effects based games are not a counterexample to point 3.  They just change how the discontinuity is adjudicated.  In D&D, questions like "does Rune of Peace give off light?" are adjudicated by ad hoc, on the spot decisions by the Dungeon Master.  In an effects based game where a player is designing an ability called Rune of Peace, he's making the decision in advance.  The thing is, you still end up with the same problem as before- you can't possibly plan for every contingency.  So when you come up against a situation that you  hadn't thought of when you were designing your power (how much light does my Rune of Peace give off?  If I said that the rune appears on the enemy's head, does it work on a headless zombie?  Etc.), you have to use another means of adjudication.  Typically that's GM judgment.</blockquote>

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