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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5647608" data-attributes="member: 42582">The Quiet American is about colonial and post-colonial political and military misadventure in Vietnam. So is Apocalypse Now. Of course they're not identical - but I'm not sure that it's trivial to tease out their differences just by reference to what it is that they're about.I'm not sure that a lot follows from this, except to point out that you're putting a fairly heavy burden on "aboutness" in your post.I voted "yes" on art (allowing "art" to range widely over all sorts of pursuit of aesthetic value) and "no" on combat. But I don't want D&D with stripped-down combat rules. There are other games that do that. With 4e, I feel I've got reasonably narrativized D&D including crunchy combat rules. That's what I'm looking for in the game!4e has skill rules that run for 40-odd pages in the Rules Compendium (300+ pages overall). Some of that pertains to combat. About half the warlock and wizard utility powers in the PHB are non-combat - I haven't looked at other classes, but would think they'd be a little less but not negligible on the non-combat front.There's no doubt that 4e treats combat as a primary site of conflict resolution, and probably the primary site. Like I've said upthread, I don't think that this makes the game about combat. (Anymore than the large amount of fisticuffs in The X-Men makes that about fisticuffs.) It may be that I'm using a different notion of "aboutness".Well, this depends on a few things.First, I thnk you're ignoring the significance, in 4e, of Quest XP, and also the DMG's discussion (and encouragement) of player-defined quests. These don't affect action resolution, but do affect XP awards.Second, you seem to be assuming that encounter design/scene framing is not part of the mechanics. I think that that is up for grabs. It also seems to assume that a GM won't have regard to this in making decisions in the course of action resolution. I think that that is very much up for grabs. I think one major difference between combat in D&D and combat in a wargame or minis game is that reasons and motivation with a scope beyond the tactical matter D&D, but not in the war- or skirmish game.If a GM plays all opponents in such a fashion that values, relationships, threats, promises, etc never make a difference, never influence the decisions that an NPC makes in battle - then, yes, I think the game has become about combat.Third, I think that one feature of 4e is to build beliefs/goals/motivations into at least some class features. Divine casters, for example, have lots of radiant powers, and this is (in my view) not unrelated to their hostility to undead. Many paragon paths bring with them a certain thematic logic.Of course, the game leaves it open to build a paladin of Ioun who enjoys consorting with liches because of their great knowledge, but I think that's a fairly marginal instance of PC building.Overall - I don't agree that because a game lacks relationship/belief/goal mechancis of the HeroWars/Burning Wheel/TRoS kind, it becomes "about combat". (Which seemed to me to be what you're pushing towards.)Now this I agree with.Unlike you, though, I don't feel that I have to push at all against 4e's rules to get it to do what I want. As I think I posted upthread, to get my game going all I had to do was to tell my players to build PCs (i) that are legal as per the PHB and the default setting therein, (ii) that have some sort of loyalty to someone/something, and (iii) that have a reason to be ready to fight goblins.It hasn't got the mechanical bells and whistles of BW beliefs, but like I posted upthread I don't think those are essential to engaging players in the situation. And I think 4e has other features that are very good at doing this.</blockquote>

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