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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5759375" data-attributes="member: 27160">The &quot;fiction of the character's actions&quot; does have an effect - via the stipulations on the power card. The description is there to build the visual model that the characters see in the (imaginary) &quot;game world&quot;.A poor word choice on my part - I should have said &quot;the treatment of colour/flavour in 4E is capable of allowing this&quot;. This is, of course, also possible with other RPGs (with prescriptive flavour elements and without). But making the colour/flavour non-prescriptive in the power descriptions means that the actual game mechanics can be made explicit and clear, which in turn allows all the players to have a clear view of how the game world &quot;physics&quot; really works without reliance on DM judgement*, and thus gives far more agency to the players when we want impartial &quot;challenge based&quot; or collective &quot;story driving&quot; gaming.Given the pre-existing features of D&amp;D as a system, I think this was the correct design focus to choose; the alternative is a drive to support &quot;simulationist&quot; priorities, which have, when pushed, never really worked well with D&amp;D's core mechanics/assumptions.*: FWIW I don't subscribe to the &quot;fireball burns objects at DM's whim&quot; argument. My &quot;default&quot; reading of the rule is that it normally does not, but if the player asks for it to the DM may agree to it (well, duh...).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 5759375, member: 27160"] The "fiction of the character's actions" [I][B]does[/B][/I] have an effect - via the stipulations on the power card. The description is there to build the visual model that the characters see in the (imaginary) "game world". A poor word choice on my part - I should have said "the treatment of colour/flavour in 4E is capable of [B][I]allowing[/I][/B] this". This is, of course, also possible with other RPGs (with prescriptive flavour elements and without). But making the colour/flavour non-prescriptive in the power descriptions means that the actual game mechanics can be made explicit and clear, which in turn allows all the players to have a clear view of how the game world "physics" really works without reliance on DM judgement*, and thus gives far more agency to the players when we want impartial "challenge based" or collective "story driving" gaming. Given the pre-existing features of D&D as a system, I think this was the correct design focus to choose; the alternative is a drive to support "simulationist" priorities, which have, when pushed, never really worked well with D&D's core mechanics/assumptions. *: FWIW I [I]don't[/I] subscribe to the "fireball burns objects at DM's whim" argument. My "default" reading of the rule is that it normally does not, but if the player asks for it to the DM [I]may[/I] agree to it (well, duh...). [/QUOTE]

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