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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5727227" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not sure what you have in mind here as your contrast. Are you contrasting 4e with other traditional fantasy RPGs (3E, classic D&D, RQ, RM etc)? Or with modern game designs?If I think about AD&D, for example, I would say that significant chunks of the game - perhaps all of it, as far as PCs are concerned - are not roleplaying mechanics. It's principal action resolution mechanics - namely, it's combat mechanics - dont make fictional positioning very important except for facing, which can be treated purely mechanically via minis/token.Resolving a host of spells in AD&D does rely on fictional positioning (I'm thinking of things like Rock to Mud, Stone Shape etc) but personally I don't really find the quibbling over the imaginary details of rock formations that these spells can tend to engender the height of roleplaying.And as I posted upthread, even a modern game like The Dying Earth has goal-oriented roleplaying mechanics only indirectly, via its reward mechanicsm. And 4e has a not entirely dissimilar reward mechanism in terms of quest XP for player-determined quests.Again, I'm not sure what systems you have in mind as the contrast with 4e.If you're thinking of traditional task-based non-combat resolution systems (RM, RQ etc) then I know from my own experience that they don't produce the same results, in play, as a 4e skill challenge, because they don't create the "space" in which the challenge unfolds. (Maybe you could try and run one of those systems using Burning Wheel-style "intent and task" plus "let it ride" to try and get a different sort of play. I think that would probably require some tweaking both of target numbers and character advancement mechanics, but I'll admit I haven't thought it through in much detail and maybe am overestimating the issues. But still, why not just run BW?)If you're saying that I could get the results I'm getting from 4e more easily playing a modern game, I'm not sure that's true. 4e makes mechanical encounter design very easy. I'm using the same approach to the thematics of encounter design as I would use running a game like HeroQuest or Maelstrom Storytelling or Burning Wheel. And I'm using the same techniques in skill challenge resolution as I would use in HQ or Maelstrom storytelling. (Including in the way that fictional positioning comes into play.)Combat resolution would be quicker in a mechanically lighter game, true, but for my group 4e's combat resolution mechanics are a feature, not a bug. Which brings me to this:I will answer for myself here, even though the question was directed to Crazy Jerome.I GM 4e because I and my players enjoy it. I see it a traditional/modern crossover game. It has the traditional emphasis on mechanics-heavy combat resolution and PC building, but with the metagame-oriented mechanics and situation-focused play of a modern game. My group likes complex PC build rules - the last game I GMed was Rolemaster - and likes mechanically heavy combat resolution. A game like HeroQuest or Maelstrom has the metagame mechanics and the situation-focused play, but not the complex mechanics.Similar to Crazy Jerome, Burning Wheel would probably also be a good fit for my group, but it is gritty fantasy rather than gonzo fantasy, and at the moment at least my group is enoying playing gonzo.In the end, I'm just not sure what game you're saying would produce the same result as I'm getting from 4e with less effort. If you've got a different modern game in mind, I've tried to explain why my group likes 4e's heavy mechanics (and upthread I've explained why I don't see these heavy mechanics getting in the way of story - many of them are thematically laden, and they are ripe for metagaming). If you've got in mind traditional games, I know from experience that they don't produce the same results, because the mechanics (i) compress or crowd out the narrative space, and (ii) get in the way of robust scene framing.</blockquote>

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