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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2211910" data-attributes="member: 4937">The above statement indicates that you aren't understanding my points.  I'm sorry I've been unclear, but its worth noting that I don't get the same impression from Dr. Strangemonkey's replies, so maybe it's not all me.  Perhaps if you don't understand what I'm saying, then you should speak your own mind rather than commenting on mine.In case it wasn't completely clear, my principal objection to tokens is that they needlessly complicate the game and will increasingly complicate the game as character level increases.  And in particular, it bothers me that this complication is added to the game for the express reason of getting away from magical world altering effects but in fact what the system really seems to do is give magical world altering effects a mundane explanation.   So, when I refer to the token system as a 'magic system', I mean that in a gamist since.  Obviously, from a simulationist/narrativist perspective, what's going on isn't magical.  But at some level its starts to 'feel' magical to me.All of which are expressly magical in a way that the token system (at least for non-magical characters) isn't.That it and every other 25 sq ft. area of the universe contains something which provokes a DC 20+ balance check (the difficulty of running on a oiled balance beam) is somewhat amazing.  Alot of this seems very Mage the Ascension to me, with the "You can do magic, but it just has to not look like magic."I'm perfectly willing to allow PC's to assume that the universe is more complete than the description.  A forest floor contains leaf clutter, sticks, and detritis even if I don't mention it.  There are ants crawling around and so forth.  You're particular example though shows exactly why such assumptions by the PC's must be grounded in the particular game world that you are in.  Specifically, in my campaign world most taverns would not have tableware - you'd eat with your fingers off a slice of bread - and if you did have a spoon it would almost certainly be made of wood and thus not silverware.  There would far more likely be a dagger on the bar than a silver spoon.  If the PC was dining at a formal ball in a nobleman's house, the assumption that there would be some silverware present is on the other hand a pretty good one.And that's the problem I have.  I think that in a given environment, the assumption that there is a spot which is slightly more trippy than the rest of the floor is reasonable.  But for the most part, this is not useful information, because the assumption that there is a spot on every floor as trippy as an ice rink is unreasonable to me.  I already force players to make low DC balance checks on any reasonably trippy surface.  You know its my campaign when you charge through the forest and I call for everyone to make DC 0 balance checks.  It wouldn't be unreasonable for a player to try to place a trippy surface that forced someone who charged him to make a DC 5 balance check.  But DC 20?  DC 25?  That's not taking advantage of the terrain.  That's magic, or more to the point cinematic/dramatic movie magic.But let's not get sidetracked.  The principal objection I've had to this since the first is that adding all these tokens to the game is a complication I don't really need that doesn't solve the actual problems I have.  It doesn't seem like its going to be able to help me run a high-level gritty campaign more easily.  It doesn't seem like an extension of the D20 system.  It seems like a completely new (and perhaps in the right genera interesting) system.  The rest is just an excercise in exploring the ideas in the game out of my pure enjoyment of game mechanics as a thing in and of themselves.</blockquote>

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