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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5754558" data-attributes="member: 42582">Of all the Monte Cook Legend and Lore columns, I think I found this one the most frustrating, because (at least as far as I can tell) he does not distinguish between (i) realism/verisimilitude as a constraint on outcomes generated via the action resolution mechanics, and (ii) realism/verisimilitude as a constraint on the processes of the action resolution mechanics.To explain: suppose the game says that, when I want my PC to do something (say, cross a narrow ledge above a cliff) and the GM thinks it might be risky (my PC is wearing high heeled shoes and have little experience as a climber or acrobat), then I have to toss a coin: heads, and I get to narrate how my PC succeeds; tails, and the GM gets to narrate how my PC fails. Suppose, furthermore, that there is a rule that governs both PC and GM - that the narration, whatever it is, must be realisitc/verismilitudinous. So if my klutzy PC successfully traverses the ledge while wearing high heels I can't say "I suddenly developed Spider Man-style wall walking ability". I have to say something like "Despite the narrowness of the ledge and the inappropriateness of my shoes, I just don't look down, and inch across without falling".Now we have a game that produces only realistic outcomes in play, but it doesn't have very simulationist mechanics. The coin toss is, very obviously, a metagame technique for allocating the authority to decide what happens in the game. (<a href="http://www.halfmeme.com/WFDrules.html" target="_blank">The World, The Flesh and the Devil</a> is a more sophisticated version of this.)A game like D&D can have comparable sorts of mechanics, too, although probably more heavily disguised. For example: in building up my PC's ability with a sword (proficiency, feats, better magic items, etc) am I (i) changing the nature of my PC within the fiction (ie making him/her a better sword fighter), or (ii) building up player resources that give me a better chance, in conflicts involving sword fighting, of declaring that my PC is the winner? Most of the time, I think D&D assumes the first answer. But some aspects of 4e probably make more sense interpreted in the second way. For example, it's one way of making sense of a CHA paladin's attacks - it's not that the paladin charms his/her enemies into stepping into the path of his/her sword, but rather the PC's CHA is a resource the player is calling upon to make his/her paladin the centre of the action. Likewise the STR paladin power "Valiant Strike", which grants a bonus to hit when surrounded by multiple foes. Does the paladin actually get fiercer in the fiction, like Conan when surrounded? That would make sense for a babarian power, but for Valiant Strike I prefer the "player resource" interpretation: by using that power you actually make it more likely that your paladin will be valiant, because you increase your chances of getting to describe your paladin smiting foes if your paladin is surrounded by many such foes.None of this vitiates realism/verisimilitude - at least in a fantasy game, there is nothing unverisimilitudinous about a valiant knight smiting the foes that surround him, nor about a Galahad-like figure who seems in some ways frail and innocent, but nevertheless smites foes with divine power.But clearly these are not simulationionst mechanics of the sort Monte Cook seems interested in (weapon vs armour, speed factor, etc).Particularly in this most recent column, I don't feel that Monte is asking the questions that will help the WotC designers reconcile 4e with 3E/PF, because they don't recongise the key dimensions in which those games differ.</blockquote>

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