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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6188229" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree with you that, in an RPG which makes numbers central to its action resolution mechanics, the maths is fundamental. But my agreement is grounded in a particular approach to RPGing - namely, that the action resolution mechanics are the pre-eminent mode for the players to have their impact upon the gameworld, and that once the action resolution mechanics are in play its the GM's job to adjudicate them but not to suspend or disregard them. I don't know where I learned this approach to RPG play - I guess from Moldvay Basic, although I don't think it's expressly stated in that ruleset, and maybe also from Traveller with its many subsystems for skills and other things - but I know that I consolidated it over years of playing Rolemaster. And then brought it to, and further developed it over the course of, my 4e play.But I think that many players, many GMs and many groups don't approach the game in that way. They are the audience for the sidebars on pages 1 and 3 of the most recent playtest DM guidelines, about ignoring the dice and setting DCs ad hoc and ex post facto . And for those players the maths is not fundamental, I think. What's important to them, as best I can tell from the outside of that outlook, is that the PC build rules should lead to character's whose numbers, on the page, convey the right flavour (so my barbarian should be naked but still numerically tougher than a mage; my fighter should have a high weapon damage number; etc); and the action resolution rules don't really have to do much other than convey a flavourful sense of effort on the part of a PC. The work that I (and I think you) would like the maths to do, they are happy to achieve via GM fiat at various points of action resolution, and perhaps even PC build.I played a C&T-using game back in the late 90s, but my memory is pretty hazy, I never read the rules at the time, and I have a feeling my GM got OAs wrong.I picked up a copy cheaply a year or three ago, and read it earlier this year. I didn't do the maths on the crit system and so have no idea how it would work out in play. Otherwise there was nothing too inspiring. I certainly think it's a mistake to look at 4e and see nothing but the precision of a wargame grid as the difference between its combat resolution and Next's "theatre of the mind". Other fantasy games - d20 and non-d20 - show that you can have 4e-style visceral combat, in which PC build sets the framework of resources that will then feed into significant choices (significant both in mechanical and story terms) within the context of action resolution, without requiring a grid.In other words, I'm agreeing with [MENTION=56051]Raith5[/MENTION] upthread.</blockquote>

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