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<blockquote data-quote="P1NBACK" data-source="post: 5472919" data-attributes="member: 83768">Moot point. As a DM, I can say that the corner of the wall you just moved behind for &quot;cover&quot; is crumbled in despite the bold lines I drew on the grid and doesn't provide the bonus you expected. As the DM, it's your duty to describe the world and fill in those details on the fly. As a player, it's your job to ask questions that help the DM fill in those gaps. &quot;Would that corner provide me cover?&quot; &quot;Only slightly, it's not a full wall, but a crumbling ruin of one...&quot; Therefore, the real problem here is not &quot;rigid battlemat play&quot; versus &quot;loose DM rulings&quot;. The real problem is description vs. real world cues (battlemats, minis, etc...); and it's something 4E fails completely at. If Mearls wants to design the perfect 5E, that uses real world cues to segue into the shared fiction, he's going to need to design rules that allow and inspire that. Part of that is giving DMs guidelines to make rulings based on what is going on in the fiction and the real world. This is the challenge 4E faces currently, as the combat rules (which use the real world cues the most) poorly translate into a vivid fictional situation that the &quot;loose&quot; rulings favor. So, the question Mike needs to be asking himself is, &quot;How can I utilize those real world cues to efficiently and effectively translate a vivid fictional situation?&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="P1NBACK, post: 5472919, member: 83768"] Moot point. As a DM, I can say that the corner of the wall you just moved behind for "cover" is crumbled in despite the bold lines I drew on the grid and doesn't provide the bonus you expected. As the DM, it's your duty to describe the world and fill in those details on the fly. As a player, it's your job to ask questions that help the DM fill in those gaps. "Would that corner provide me cover?" "Only slightly, it's not a full wall, but a crumbling ruin of one..." Therefore, the real problem here is not "rigid battlemat play" versus "loose DM rulings". The real problem is description vs. real world cues (battlemats, minis, etc...); and it's something 4E fails completely at. If Mearls wants to design the perfect 5E, that uses real world cues to segue into the shared fiction, he's going to need to design rules that allow and [I]inspire [/I]that. Part of that is giving DMs guidelines to make rulings based on what is going on in the fiction [I]and [/I]the real world. This is the challenge 4E faces currently, as the combat rules (which use the real world cues the most) poorly translate into a vivid fictional situation that the "loose" rulings favor. So, the question Mike needs to be asking himself is, "How can I utilize those real world cues to efficiently and effectively translate a vivid fictional situation?" [/QUOTE]

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