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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ThirdWizard" data-source="post: 5622372" data-attributes="member: 12037">Let me preface this by saying this is how I feel. Anyone and everyone is free, and often times, encouraged to feel differently. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />One of the things I like about narrative mechanics is that they encourage players to emotionally invest in the resolution itself beyond success or failure, in the actual narrative of how the events play out. Going back to the example of the character running from the vampires I brought up earlier in the thread who "creates" the pipes of running water, the player is being engaged with the world by adding to said world in a narrative fasion. Now that he's doing that, he has more of a connection with it than if everything is detailed to him by the DM.This is in addition to his character's interactions with the world, which are also going to do the same thing. When a character saves an NPC, then that NPC shows up later in the game, there's a sense of the character belonging to a living breathing world. When the player takes over an aspect of a scene and helps define its aspects, then there's a sense of the campaign belonging to the player. These are slightly different feelings, but ones that I think anyone who has DMed would appreciate on at least some level.These are very concrete things. There are specific mechanics, resolutions, and ways in which these resolutions come about. I wouldn't really call it free-form at all. You roll a skill, check a DC, and you either succeed or fail. The resolution mechanic is narrative, but that doesn't mean the resolution isn't a rules construct.Going back to 4e, the narrative aspects of the game are really just the descriptions of very well defined mechanics. So, to take the example of a 1/encounter trip power, it might play out something like this:"I rush over to the man with the tatoo, shoulder low and sword held back behind me as I move to intercept him." Rolls attack, hit resolved with DM. "As I feint, I notice that he's overcompensated for a moment and press my advantage, hitting him with the pommel of my sword. Wide eyed, he goes over completely, hitting the ground with a crack and a thud."So, description-wise, it was a bit of luck that caused the opponent to be knocked to the ground. But, the mechanical resolution doesn't care about this. Mechanically speaking it's just as crunchy and detailed as if there was no room for description beyond a well defined explanation for all circumstances.So, I see no tension between the two.</blockquote>

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