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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5627186" data-attributes="member: 42582">Only one so far, unless I missed some posts!But as far as I have noticed, no one else in this thread is posting any actual play experiences. And the Alexandrian doesn't seem to draw on any actual play in the original essay - he just gives us stupid imaginary dialogues between PCs in a non-existent games.If people are going to say that metagame mechanics, or narrativist mechanics, per se draw players out of the game, or out of roleplaying, or "dissociate" them from their PCs, I want them to have to actually engage with the evidence of my (and perhaps others') play, which is entirely contrary to that claim.It's like Crazy Jerome said upthread - some claims being made in this thread seem to implicitly, but not all that subtlely, deny that stuff is happening in my game, which in fact happens every session.I don't know how you are in a position to know whether or not the episode of play I reported is or is not "dissociated" from the big picture, that makes no contribution to a consistent story, "like a fart", nothing but a caricature rather than a contribution to a real character. That can't possibly be inferred from a single reported instance of play.As it happens, the whole raison d'etre of that PC is to explore his personal relationship to the Raven Queen, as well as her relationship to the rest of the mortal world. Being saved from toad-dom by her power is just one part of that ongoing focus of play.Your measure for coherence and consistency of story seems to be concerned entirely with the causal mechanicsm whereby events are produced. I don't read a lot of fiction, but the most recent modern novel that I read was The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Like most modern fiction that I read, causation of the sort that seems to concern you wasn't at its core. Theme, emotion, history, politics, love, hate, fear, struggle - these are what make for a satisfying drama, at least in my view. Whether or not the Raven Queen came to the aid of her paladin in need contributes to that sort of drama.Happily for me, I also play with good players.Why would a player, who - as I made clear in my first post on the topic - himself decided to treat the duration of the effect as a metagame mechanic to which he could attach his preferred narrative - then decide to have his PC undertake an investigation that would wreck the very narrative that he has decided to create?Or, conversely, if the player decides that his PC is undergoing a crisis of faith, and therefore does decide to undertake the investigation that would show that the Raven Queen didn't save him at all, what would be the problem? And who are you saying would stop him? Where are the mechanics that would get in the way of the player pursuing this story about his PC?I would just add to this - and written by the player also. (As in my crisis-of-faith hypothetical above.)Also, your discussion of the way that the mechanics work in relation to encounters rather than in relation to the ficitonal world per se is first rate!This is just false. In what way is the player of the paladin, in the ACTUAL PLAY EXAMPLE that I gave, reconstructing the reality of the game when it happens? And what is the house rule that's been created?And why is this not ideal?There have been a couple of recent Tomb of Horrors threads on this forum. From those threads, I've learned that the best way to play the ToH is using a thief on a rope with a fly spell (the thief is more expensive than driving sheep through the dungeon ahead of the party, but also a more reliable and versatile scout).Now, I want to say "Playing a game in which a thief scouts ahead flying while attached to a rope is hardly ideal - it's tedious and stupid, and bears no resemblance to either modernist fantasy like Howard or anti-modernist fantasy like Tolkien". But that would obviously just be an expression of my aesthetic preferences. So, until now, I've refrained.Maybe you don't like a game where it is open to you, as a player, to decide that the reason the effect ended on you is because of the benevolence of your deity. But it would be easier to talk together about playing RPGs if you didn't start from the assumption that everyone likes and dislikes the same things as you.All this tells me is what I already knew - namely, that some players don't like various sort of metagame mechanics, don't like stances other than Actor stance, etc.Maybe those players shouldn't play 4e.I don't want to tell stories about superheroes, after all. That's why I don't play Champions or Mutants & Masterminds.</blockquote>

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