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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5623869" data-attributes="member: 42582">I notice that when I correct your misinterpretation of what I said I'm "retrenching", and when I - in your view - misinterpret Alexander's essay (or is it your essay?- for some reason I had the impression that you are Justin Alexander), I'm "misrepresenting".No doubt you are a very virtuous reader and writer, and I a very malicious one.In any event, I deny that I have misquoted. All the text I have attributed to the essay is found within it. I also do not believe that my ellipses have in any material way distorted or misrepresented the content of what I am quoting.Yes. I've read the essay. And I never said that the author does not like the tactical skirmish elements of AD&D or 3E.But the essay denies that the tactical skirmish elements of 4e contribute to roleplaying, or support the game as roleplaying game.Tell me - in what way is the following not an attack upon 4e for being a tactical skirmish game rather than an RPG?Of course, you can sidestep all these issues with house rules if you just embrace the design ethos of 4th Edition: There is no explanation for the besieged foe ability. It is a mechanical manipulation with no corresponding reality in the game world whatsoever. At that point, however, you're no longer playing a roleplaying game. When the characters' relationship to the game world is stripped away, they are no longer roles to be played. They have become nothing more than mechanical artifacts that are manipulated with other mechanical artifacts. You might have a very good improv session that is vaguely based on the dissociated mechanics that you're using, but there has been a fundamental disconnect between the game and the world -- and when that happens, it stop being a roleplaying game. You could just as easily be playing a game of Chess while improvising a vaguely related story about a royal coup starring your character named Rook. In short, you can simply accept that 4th Edition is being designed primarily as a tactical miniatures game. And if it happens to still end up looking vaguely like a roleplaying game, that's entirely accidentally. . . Games are fun. But games don't require roles. There is a meaningful difference between an RPG and a wargame. And that meaningful difference doesn't actually go away just because you happen to give names to the miniatures you're playing the wargame with and improv dramatically interesting stories that take place between your tactical skirmishes.I believe that Arkahm Horror is a boardgame.How is the player getting to determine that, against this particular foe, I will have a dramatic duel that is more likely to be successful than my other duels in the fight, no more narrative control than playing a boardgame?That's right - because 4e is just like playing chess except giving my rook a funny name!I don't want to do any misreading or misrepresenting. So I'll just ask - how is the nature of urinating, eating or driving remotely relevant to thinking about whether or not a player using 4e martial dailies is roleplaying?</blockquote>

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