Right. Which is why I used it to respond to pemerton's (apparent) assertion that it's possible to use mechanics like this in-character.
But
it is not a mechanic. So your claims are rather pointless. If you mean that it's possible to use declarative actions (like picking up a rock that has not been previously established) in character then yes it is.
If you're referring to "page 42," then I'm given to understand that this is a shorthand for setting the DC of skill checks, rather than attack actions.
Try reading it. It covers both.
They're trying to stick to them, but suddenly the "trad" RPGs are trying to reinvent themselves as some sort of hip new indie game. People tend to feel upset when the rug is yanked out from under them.
4e is pretty trad to be honest.
That's not a caveat - magic is it's own justification.
Anything is its own justification.
But not all games co-opt the player's agency of their character which is the point. The character can try to do anything they want, unless they play 4E.
When they can tr
y anything they want. This hasn't changed. They also have specialisms which they do not have to negotiate with the DM.
Try and Come And Get It in AD&D. Most DMs will just laugh at you.
4E (wrongly) failed to make that a priority, limiting the character's options in the name of "only the fun options remain," which presumes far too much about what the players think of as being fun.
Other than disarming what do you think 4E fighters can't do that AD&D fighters can?
I'm not sure how you don't get this from hit point loss as physical damage, since a character is presumably going to feel it when they take wounds.
Hit point loss has always been cosmetic damage. Someone is as competent and capable on 1hp as on full HP. This is and has always been the case.
When you're in a fight, you're going to know how your wounds feel.
Nope. Although this is irrelevant.
4E, with its insistance that hit point loss could be wounds, or fatigue, or loss of luck, or loss of divine providence, etc. seems to fly in the face of your character knowing how they feel.
Given you've just almost quoted the
1E definition of hit points, I don't think this really needs a rebuttal.
You're mistaking associated mechanics for some sort of "perfect" simulationism, which has never been what they are.
What they are is a focus on foolish consistency that isn't how people think and doesn't get outcomes right while ignoring literally everything that doesn't fit into the small subset of factors they cover.
The problem is that it's only immersive if you accept that arbitrary set of restrictions on your character's agency.
Just like every set of associated mechanics. The ability to have metagame mechanics (whether AEDU, Fate Points, or WoD Willpower) is
essential to me for immersive play for when you want to say "This thing matters to me". Without it you lose the ability to say what matters. And the ability to pace yourself.
If you want to go anywhere that the game doesn't funnel you, then suddenly the entire concept falls apart.
Good bye most games with associated mechanics.
Up-ending an intuitive system of hit point loss being physical damage to solve one minor issue of proportional healing spells is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Hit point loss being physical damage is not and has never been intuitive. It's Streetfighter 2 (or other combat) game mechanics. If you are hurt, this
slows you down. Hit points are a risible simulation other than of genre.
You keep confusing having the ability to attempt to do anything with actually succeeding in that attempt.
So do you in your accusations against 4E
You do realize you undercut your own point here, by mentioning that there are in-character circumstances for these, right? That's very different from saying "you suddenly realize you don't have the same focus to repeat the maneuver you just did six seconds ago, at least not with anywhere near the same effectiveness."
You do realise that you can't step in the same river twice.
Which doesn't speak to the issue. You're still telling the player that suddenly there character can't do something they just could
Apparently in your world fatigue isn't a thing?
D&D is a role-playing game. Every edition.
All of the World of Darkness games are role-playing games.
13th Age is a role-playing game.
Hillfolk is a role-playing game.
All of the *World games are role-playing games.
Shadowrun is a role-playing game.
Mouse Guard is a role-playing game.
Fiasco is a role-playing game.
Heck, even Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine is a role-playing game.
Embrace some of these games, hate some of these games, that's fine. But trying to categorize some as a real "roleplaying game" and the other games as "something else" is a fool's errand. Shoving certain games out of the category out of a twisted sense of linguistical purity does nothing to help the community.
This
If you prefer blueberry pie to apple pie, then great.
If I prefer apple pie, you should have no problem with that.
If you say that me calling blueberry pie different than apple pie is untrue and just intended to antagonize people who like blueberry pie then I'm going to look at you funny.
And if you are saying 4E is different to AD&D that's fine/
If you are saying that 4E isn't an RPG then you aren't saying blueberry and apple pie are different. You are making the claim that blueberry pie
isn't a pie. At a pie lovers convention.
If the Alexandrian (and those who reference him) had referred to "first-person full-immersion games" as a separate thing from "story-games", and left the term RPG out of it - would it have been less "dismissive"? Then we'd just be arguing over which style is preferable for D&D.
This.
Story-games is typically used dismissively, so not really. If he had specific, no-history terms for both, then yes. That doesn't mean his piece would be good or well-reasoned, just the terms not dog-whistles/dismissive.
Story-games was first used to describe My Life With Master after people threw their toys out of the pram on RPG.net and claimed it wasn't an RPG. Some people shrugged and said "OK. It's a story-game then." We can see where that lead.
It seems like you're getting hung up on the word "mechanic" here. I don't want to get knotted up in semantic quagmires. So lets drop that word and call it a "method."
The wishlist is a method the DM can apply to realize the stated goal of players getting items they want, by having them tell the DM what their characters want.
That method cannot be applied in an in-character way, because characters cannot really control the items that they get (though the player can).
This dissociation is a problem sometimes for some people.
And now your claim becomes the trivial "Out of character suggestions can't be applied as in character mechanics." Which is trivial and irrelevant.
). He didn't think the rule made the slightest sense or withstood the lightest analysis, but he wasn't forced to use it, either. So he didn't. You know I've DM'd 4E since release w/o using wishlists, right?
