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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4270556" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think what you say here is quite right.Incoherence is not a property of the play experience, it is a property of the game system. Wherease "trying to run a pure game" is a property of the play experience, not of the game system. So the contrast you are trying to draw doesn't work, as it involves a category error.I am no great believer in trying to run a pure game. I GM Rolemaster quite regularly, and my own agenda as GM is primarily narrativist, most of my players share a vanilla narrativist agenda but one is really more of a simulationist (he likes to explore the parameters of "his guy). Luckily, others' narration doesn't get in the way of his exploration. Most of the players also have a strong gamist streak and an associated aesthetic sensibility - all except for me are long-time wargarmers/boardgamers.But one thing I do appreciate about Rolemaster is its high degree of coherence as a purist-for-system simulationist engine. You know what it is and is not set up to deliver. It gives very detailed exploration of situation and character every time. And one can compensate for what it doesn't deliver in relevant ways (whether via house rules, resolving issues as they come up at the table, etc).The problem with the incoherence in D&D as a system is that this incoherence reliably engenders misunderstandings among the participants as to the sort of play experience that the system will deliver, and thus makes it hard to accomodate the system to any actually desired goals in actual play. Just one example: in 3E I build my character, and its all points-buy stats, and skill points, and feats, and . . . I'm in charge - whether I'm a gamist, a narrativist or a simulationist my PC is my guy . . . and then I choose an alignment, and suddenly in ways that the rules leave criminally vague and unexplained the GM has been handed a huge chunk of narrative power over my PC. How did I suddenly find myself playing Cthulhu? And at least the latter is upfront about the narrative function of the San score.Just one example of the real-life unhappy play experiences that incoherence (and the associated reluctance to expressly talk about the relationship between rules and play experience) leads to.</blockquote>

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