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<blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 5186721" data-attributes="member: 55271">I was recently chatting with somebody about this, and the truth is: System Does Matter.The simple example we were talking about is torches being blown out by gusts of wind. If you read older modules, you find this kind of thing being referenced all the time. Why? Because the OD&amp;D rulebooks prominently featured this mechanic. When the rule got shuffled off to an obscure corner of the rulebook, references to gusts of winds that would blow out torches disappeared from the published modules (and I'm guessing they similarly disappeared from most people's games).They're roleplaying games, and they have been since 1974. The mechanics are, and always have been, an important part of the interface between the players and the game world. And they have a particularly potent effect on shaping the core elements that define a game in the mind of its players.OTOH, I would agree that 4th Edition's dissociated mechanics do make it inherently more difficult to use the mechanics to interface with the game world instead of using the mechanics in order to interact with the mechanics: When the mechanics no longer exist to model the game world, but are merely there to create hypothetically interesting mathematical exercises, you are in fact forced to interface with the mechanics instead of interfacing with the game world and then figuring out how to model that mechanically.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Beginning of the End, post: 5186721, member: 55271"] I was recently chatting with somebody about this, and the truth is: System Does Matter. The simple example we were talking about is torches being blown out by gusts of wind. If you read older modules, you find this kind of thing being referenced all the time. Why? Because the OD&D rulebooks prominently featured this mechanic. When the rule got shuffled off to an obscure corner of the rulebook, references to gusts of winds that would blow out torches disappeared from the published modules (and I'm guessing they similarly disappeared from most people's games). They're roleplaying [B]games[/B], and they have been since 1974. The mechanics are, and always have been, an important part of the interface between the players and the game world. And they have a particularly potent effect on shaping the core elements that define a game in the mind of its players. OTOH, I would agree that 4th Edition's dissociated mechanics do make it inherently more difficult to use the mechanics to interface with the game world instead of using the mechanics in order to interact with the mechanics: When the mechanics no longer exist to model the game world, but are merely there to create hypothetically interesting mathematical exercises, you [I]are[/I] in fact forced to interface with the mechanics instead of interfacing with the game world and then figuring out how to model that mechanically. [/QUOTE]

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