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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5986368" data-attributes="member: 42582">I've got a hypothesis.The "simulation/immersion" crowd (if I can talk at that level of generality) seem to be very hostile to fortune-in-the-middle mechanics - or, in some cases, to have a total blindspot towards the very existence of such mechanics.That crowd therefore tends to reason in the following way: there is no systematic correlation between this mechanic M, and this process/event in the fiction F. Therefore the mechanic is "gamist" (used in the ENworld sense, not the Forge sense). And a board game or tactical skirmish game mechanic. Therefore 4e is simply a tactical skirmish game linked by freeform improv (to paraphrase Justin Alexander).The "4e crowd" (if I can talk at that level of generality) are often trying to explain what they are doing in: in particular, that - when it comes to a fortune-in-the-middle mechanic - the correlation between mechanical resolution, and events in the fiction, is worked out on a case-by-case basis as part of the process of play.Because this answer is either rejected, or not even really parsed, by the "sim/immersion" crowd (given the above mentioned hostility and blindspot), the 4e crowd finds itself presenting the sorts of explanation that might be narrated on an ad hoc basis ("Aha, the goblin fell for my feint, now I'm going to wail on it with a Brute Strike") as if they applied on a general basis - because that is the only sort of mechanics/fiction correlation that the "sim/immersion" crowd will accept as genuine.Actually, this isn't true at all. One of the most step-on-up modules of all time is White Plume Mountain, and the fiction is utterly crucial. You can't surf doors over the super-tetanus pits in the frictionless corridor, etc, etc, without some pretty intricate fictional positioning.That sort of fiction-grounded step-on-up is pretty central to Gygaxian gamism.To generalise, and link back to my reply to the first quote: you characterise non-sim play as being happy with "half-assed fluff explanation". Which seems to assume that any correlation of fiction to mechanics that is not regularised prior to actual play is "half-assed". Which is excatly the assumption about mechanics/fiction correlation that drives the "4e" crowd to put forward the flavour accounts of martial daily powers that is driving you nuts!I agree with you that those explanations are silly. The mechanic is there because of the metagame role that it plays. But your apparent inference from that, to the conlcusion that the fiction is "half-assed" or unimportant for non-sim play, is completely unwarranted. You would need some extra premise along the lines of "fortune-in-the-middle" mechanics aren't real roleplaying. And given that some of the most important RPGs of all time use such mechanics (eg D&D for hit points, HeroWars/Quest for just about everything), that premise is obviously false.I posted an example on the other thread ("With respect to the door") of the player of the paladin using the duration mechanic of an NPC hexer's power as a fortune-in-the-middle power, and thereby consolidating and developing the shared fiction about the PC's god, the PC's relationship to that god, and the PC's avowed faith in that relationship. I regard that example as a sufficient demonstration that there is no conflict or tension between fortune-in-the-middle, metagame mechanics and roleplaying, immersion in one's PC, etc. The assumption that there is any such conflict or tension is ungrounded, and simply a projection of some players' personal play preferences onto the practice of RPGing as a whole.If this post has misinterpreted your use of "half-assed", then apologies. Maybe you really don't think that ad hoc correlations of mechanics to fiction are unimportant in play. But that's what "half-assed" implied to me.</blockquote>

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