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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6162083" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think experiences with 4e are fairly varies (and that's not very surprising, given how many people play any given edition of D&D). I think GM judgement remains pretty crucial - in combat, it is especially prominent in the setting up of encounters and making choices for NPCs/monsters; out-of-comat it is crucial not just to framing skill challenges but to adjudicating the consequences of each skill check so as to reframe the unfolding situation as the challenge progresses towards its resolution. That is a different sort of GM role from (say in classic D&D) deciding the percentage chance of discovering a particular secret door, but nevertheless makes GM decision-making pretty central.I think this is very contentious. After all, there are metagame-heavy games like MHRP, or Burning Wheel, or HeroWars/Quest, or FATE which, to the extent that they have good reputations, have reputations for driving roleplaying rather than getting in its way.Runequest and Traveller are the most metagame light rulesets I know, but I don't think for that reason are distinctively excellent roleplaying vehicles. (Call of Cthulhu is an interesting case of both a metagame light and renowned roleplaying vehicle. My own theory is that is because it is so heavily GM-driven, and hence the players' real contribution is to get into actor stance, or a very richly developed author stance, and to "be" those investigators spiralling into madness.)Interesting point. Maybe players could track their own inspiration? It depends how the system characterises "roleplaying" - if that means rampant thespianism, probably someone else has to judge - it's hard to adjudicate your own artisitic effort. But if they are more like MHRP XP, or some (not all) features of BW's points systems - ie focused on the ingame actions and situations in which the PC find him-/herself, rather than focused on the artistry of the PC's portrayal of his/her PC - then player self-management becomes more viable. Like you, I would tend to prefer the latter approach.I think you're right about the sort of ground this style of mechanic can cover. I think your last point is key, though - how are the various earning/recharge options going to be framed, and will other parts of the game mechanics support them or push against them. In 4e, for instance, the pacing dynamics of recharge for APs, encounter powers and the like are supported by power durations, the short rest mechanics, and the like - everything pushes towards "the encounter" as a unit of measurement in the game.Good point on the contrast between "problem" and "question". And I agree it's interesting to see this kind of thing being looked at.In the context of D&D, it reminds me of an issue that came up in the "what can we learn from BW" thread a month or three ago: because of D&D's level system, a player who tries to build his/her PC into the centre of some sort of epic conflict is precluded from engaging directly with that conflict at start, because the epic enemey is (say) 10th level and the PC only 1st. So inevitably the authorial control passes back to the GM to frame the intermediate story steps that will progress things from 1st to 10th. I wonder if they are looking at how flatter math/"bounded accuracy" might help with this issue?</blockquote>

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