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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5746999" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree that 4e is fundamentally different in mechanical design from earlier editions of D&D (although this and some other recent threads are also giving me a better idea of how different 3E is from classic D&D).I don't agree with your A to B analysis, though. My view is that pre-4e editions of D&D are designed assuming roughly simulationist mechanics (ie mechanics model the internal causal logic of the gameworld) though with puzzling additional features like hit points and universally scaling saving throws (and it's noteworthy that these were the two AD&D mechanics that generated apologies from Gygax for their non-simulationist character). The non-simulationist accretions provide some guarantees as to fictional outcomes (eg a degree of plot protection for PCs), but on the whole the mechanics provide no guarantee of, in play, generating a story with any particular thematics or dynamic.4e is designed, rougly, to determine fictional outcomes via its mechanics, but to permit a much looser fit between fictional and mechanical process. In some mechanics (eg skill challenges) it expressly confers authority on who gets to narrate the fictional process (a GM, in the case of a skill challenge). In others, it leaves it open how the table arrives at a shared account of events in the fictin (eg Come and Get It). (The technical term for this sort of action resolution is fortune-in-the-middle.) The mechanics are also designed to generate a certain dynamic, and (in my view, at least) the integration of mechanical and story elements also strongly suppots generating strong thematics (provided one is looking to play within a reasonably conventional range of fantasy tropes and themes).Nor do I agree that it is easy, or even generally possible, to play A so as to deliver the B experience. Simulationist mechanics offer no promise of story (in the technical sense, of having dramatic dynamics and thematic content). This is why games which used simulationist mechanics but wanted to deliver story - like (some versions of) 2nd ed AD&D, Storyteller, etc - have instructions to the GM to suspend or override the action resolution mechanics from time to time in the interests of the story. 4e does not need such an instrution (despite the retrograde step in Essentials of including it), because its action resolution mechanics will reliably deliver story (in the relevant sense) just by being used.One way in which A can be played so as to come closer to delivering B is mid-to-high level Rolemaster (and I suspect name level and above D&D), because - provided the players are on board - they can use the "narrative control" magic that PCs of those levels enjoy to collaborate with the GM in scene-framing. But while this can solve some issues of pacing between scenes (in my last high level Rolemaster campaign, liberal use of group Time Stop magic worked wonders for this), it doesn't help with pacing during scenes, which I know from experience is a big issue in Rolemaster.TL;DR - people who switch from Rolemaster to 4e, or from Runquest to HeroQuest, aren't just confused about the possibilities attainable within those various systems. They know what they're doing.</blockquote>

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