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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5759346" data-attributes="member: 27160">I'm beginning to think this &quot;is the fiction important&quot; thing comes down to what one means by &quot;important&quot;.If &quot;importance&quot; is taken purely in the sense of &quot;will the flavour/colour description change the mechanical outcome of an action&quot;, then the situation in 4E is that it will have no &quot;importance&quot;. And, FWIW, I say &quot;halleluja&quot; to that.If, on the other hand, the &quot;importance&quot; of the colour/flavour elements is taken to be allowing each player present to have a coherent picture of the fictional events - to have a model that makes sense for them of what has occurred in the fictional space - then I would submit that (a) the treatment of colour/flavour in 4E is capable of doing this and (b) it is very important in that it allows a player to visualise the events that motivate and influence his or her character.On fireballs burning stuff/setting paper on fire, frankly I see no compelling &quot;realism&quot; argument either way.&nbsp; A flamethrower-type effect would certainly set stuff on fire, but it would also create ongoing fire effects (which the Fireball spell does not do). A gas explosion, on the other hand, for many fairly small gas clouds (and a 25' cube is &quot;small&quot; in this context), will not persist long enough or heat the air hot enough to set paper on fire reliably. It will also cause burns to exposed persons without the likelihood of ongoing fire damage. So having it work either way in a (fantasy) game seems like a non-issue, to me.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 5759346, member: 27160"] I'm beginning to think this "is the fiction important" thing comes down to what one means by "important". If "importance" is taken purely in the sense of "will the flavour/colour description change the mechanical outcome of an action", then the situation in 4E is that it will have no "importance". And, FWIW, I say "halleluja" to that. If, on the other hand, the "importance" of the colour/flavour elements is taken to be allowing each player present to have a coherent picture of the fictional events - to have a model that makes sense [B][I]for them[/I][/B] of what has occurred in the fictional space - then I would submit that (a) the treatment of colour/flavour in 4E is capable of doing this and (b) it is [I]very[/I] important in that it allows a player to visualise the events that motivate and influence his or her character. On fireballs burning stuff/setting paper on fire, frankly I see no compelling "realism" argument either way. A flamethrower-type effect would certainly set stuff on fire, but it would also create ongoing fire effects (which the Fireball spell does not do). A gas explosion, on the other hand, for many fairly small gas clouds (and a 25' cube is "small" in this context), will not persist long enough or heat the air hot enough to set paper on fire reliably. It will also cause burns to exposed persons without the likelihood of ongoing fire damage. So having it work either way in a (fantasy) game seems like a non-issue, to me. [/QUOTE]

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