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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9223914" data-attributes="member: 42582"><a href="https://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/rpgs-and-definitions/" target="_blank">Here's a very interesting blog post</a> from a first-rate RPG critic:What is an rpg? . . . A better definition would be this: Roleplaying games are games where imaginary fiction is the focus of play and influences choices and outcomes of play. . . . In roleplaying games, the things that aren’t numbered, aren’t rated, might just be the most important things to pay attention to. “That’s not a roleplaying game!” Aside from the usual strawmen arguments this gets used in, from throwing it at games that are different than what folks are used to, to using it when the rules are actually expected to be followed, there is a small subset of folks who are basically saying, “I don’t know how to engage with the fiction in this game”. . . .  they’re having a tough time seeing how to take fictional choices and carry it over to the mechanical aspects, and then take what the system and Cues deliver and put it back in the fiction. . . . I see it a lot with crunchy games like Burning Wheel or D&D 4E, where, folks see the rules, but fail to see how and where fiction makes an impact in the rules (for Burning Wheel, it’s embedded in to skills, Helping Dice, FORKs, and Advantage Dice, for D&D4E, it’s all in Skill Challenges, Quests, and pg. 42 on the DMG). I suspect in both of these cases it has to do with the fact that the major rules for carrying fiction to mechanics in these games has a few pages compared to a few hundred pages of other rules. The monkey-brain easily mistakes quantity for importance.Hugely insightful!Here are some actual play posts (that I also just posted in another thread) that provide some examples of the point being made about 4e, and how the fiction is carried over to the mechanical aspects, and then the system outputs brought back into the fiction:</blockquote>

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