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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5764986" data-attributes="member: 54877">OK, I think I'm with you now, and with the above not even in disagreement.  However, I'd direct attention back to what Monte pointed out in the article that started this discussion: That the designer cannot produce such nods to satisfy everyone--or even close to everyone. To be satisfied, you must be able to customize those nods to your version of the simulation. Because not only do people suspend disbelief in widely different (and frankly, highly inconsistent) ways, they also want to simulate different things, and to vastly different degrees.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say logical consistency is the last thing you want, if you want to cater to such a wide audience. Sure, you want a thread of consistency running through the main set of rules, to keep people from pulling their hair out. No need to include the 1E grapple rules, for example. That is something the designer can do.  But defining what fireballs catch on fire, exactly, is the last thing they should be doing.  (They might give you better advice on how to be consistent at the table, whatever you decide.) Part of the big disconnect that those of a simulationist bent have with 4E is that it is fairly rigorous in its version of playing the heroic action tale. Take something that rubs me a bit wrong, even otherwise appreciating it for what it is--magic crafting dust out of disenchant rituals as almost a currency. You can't get any more consistent than that. Disenchant, get a certain amount of dust based on the magic in an item. Turn around and use that dust to enchant something with X loss of dust. It's like a machine. Whereas, what the simulationist approach wants is that you make bags of holding this way, and +1 flaming swords this other way. They may be roughly balanced on average, but circumstance of campaign or adventure or even character--can turn one into a better deal than the other. That feels "real", even that is more inconsistent.  Gee, never thought I'd trot out this paraphrase to hit 4E, but if by G. K. Chesterton's definition, 4E is a bit insane. He defined experience with the actual insane as not too erratic, but ultra logical in too tight of a loop. If the madman thinks that he his is the king of England, deposed by a broad conspiracy, nothing you can say will argue him out of his logic. His logic is tight. To cure him, you'll have to say something like, "Yes, yes. Given all that, though, wouldn't you be happier moving on with your life?" <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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