Mearls' "Stop, Thief!" Article

[pemerton]

I think the most constructive thing I could see WotC (and Mike Mearls in particular) do is communicate some sense that they do understand what is so great about 4E* and that they have no intention to sacrifice that for what they seek to add to the game.

<snip>

perhaps what is needed is something to try to communicate to WotC what exactly it is about 4E that makes it a uniquely excellent roleplaying game in my opinion. Maybe if several 4E 'patriots' were to make an honest attempt at this, it might either (a) increase understanding inside WotC or (b) prompt WotC to say "oh, yeah, we agree with this - we have no intention of taking this away!" Result, either way around, I think.

* Like inspiring creativity, improvisation and innovation within the rules, instead of the "sub-game" of influencing the GM to let you do other stuff that's more powerful/fun than what's in the rules...

there's a difference between combat rooted in what is happening in the fiction and combat that is rooted in what is happening on the table.

<snip>

with 4E, we've gotten to the point where most of the action happens at the table, the moving of minis, selecting power cards, etc. What happens in the fiction (in our imagination) is largely irrelevant.

<snip>

You can see this when people on 4E forums argue against basic fictional tactics (most recently, pulling a cloak off a vampire)...

Wtf?

What's largely missing (and I think what many people are actually referring to when they say 4E has no "soul" or that it's "not really D&D") is that aspect of creativity, imagination and fictional weight.

I tend to agree with both these posts, which probably puts me in a pretty awkard situation. The one point where I (perhaps) disagree with P1NBACK is that I think his/her comment about 4e shifting the focus from fiction to the boardgame-like reality of the battlemap is perhaps true as a generalisation of tendency, but is not a universal truth.

I don't recognise the lack of situational importance in the play of 4E. My experience is that players are still thinking very much about the terrain and situation surrounding their characters as they play. They may be doing so in a more "game system" way than a "world physics (as I see it)" way, but that is a style issue, to me, not a right way/wrong way issue.

<snip>

I think we need to be very careful to think about what is really going on, here. "The fiction" does not actually have any independent existence. It resides in our imaginations - often there is assumed to be a "master copy" residing in one person's imagination. Imagining things that have no independent existence is commonly called "making stuff up". So, actually, the 'system' in use in these games is actually "we make stuff up".

<snip>

Often there are strong guidelines that shape the "making stuff up". A particular world concept, personal aesthetic sense ("taste") and personal beliefs about how the "real" world works are common influences. But to assert that "the fiction" itself dictates anything to us, as an independent entity, is in my view both erroneous and dangerous.

I like these points, and share your experience of 4e combat resolution.

But if P1NBACK was right that 4e's rules tend to discourage the creation of a shared imaginative space as the locus of action resolution - that is, if s/he was right that the rules tend in the direction of all the action being resolved at the board game/dice rolling level with no need for the players to engage one another with respect to the fiction - then that would be a pretty serious indictment of 4e. As P1NBACK has said, it wouldn't show that 4e is not an RPG, but it would diagnose a certain sort of weakness or flaw in 4e as an RPG. Because rather than a criticism of the particular system used to generate the fiction (eg dice mechanics vs "make stuff up"), it would be a criticism that there is no fiction in these sense that is integral to an RPG.

Sorcerer's conflict resolution rules work like this.

<snip>

You can't say "I roll Stamina" without describing what you're doing. The game literally cannot proceed; we don't have enough information.

<snip>

When you use Spinning Sweep on a snake, it doesn't matter what your character actually did; what matters is the attack roll, HP damage, and condition applied. I think that none of these are part of the fiction, they're part of the real world, the same way landing on Park Place is. They suggest something fictional - you flipped the snake over on its back, you spent a week holed up in the penthouse with hookers and blow - but that fictional element isn't part of the game; the game doesn't need it to proceed.

It is just a different level of abstraction and different representational tools.

I tend to agree with AbdulAlhazred on this. In 4e, for example, that Spinning Sweep can't happen unless you explain, in the fiction, how your fighter crosses the distance to the snake. So some aspects of the fiction are in play, and (in my experience) moreso than in many other fantasy RPGs.

Of course, the retort to this is that the player of the fighter doesn't have to engage the fiction, but simply move a piece on a board - which is to say, that AbdulAlhazred's "different representational tools" are actually "RPG-negating action resolution techniques". I personally don't agree with this - I think the player has to engage with the fiction that the battlemap represents, like "is that difficult terrain rubble or a tree - so does it grant cover or not?" or "how high is that wall?" - but I understand that experiences could differ with respect to this.

But as a general proposition, I don't agree that the 4e rules don't encourage the creation of a shared imaginative space that is relevant to action resolution. The skill challenge guidelines in both PHB and DMG, for example, are very clear on this, despite frequent suggestions to the contrary - but I do think that WotC consistently fails in its publications - particularly its adventure publications - to explain how to use 4e mechanics to support the share imaginative space. 4e material needs more good advice to both players and GMs on how to run the game so that the fiction matters.

For example, while the skill challenge guidelines make it clear that there is to be a shared imaginative space which both players and GM are to engage in when resolving a skill challenge - but it doesn't give any advice on how, in practice, this is to be done. As a result, I didn't learn to GM 4e by reading 4e books - I learned to GM it mostly by reading rulebooks for HeroQuest, Maelstrom Storytelling and the Burning Wheel, plus reading essays and threads at the Forge. In my view, this is a problem that I think WotC is yet to address.

(I think that the guidelines on combat encounter design are better than those for skill challenges - they encourage design elements that make the representation suggestive of the fiction rather than a subsitute for the fiction - but again in my experience the adventures often don't comply with the encounter design guidelines. Also, there are some interesting disuccsion of some of these issues on the recent Fictional Positioning thread.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with disarm. What happened was, the devs created a problem with disarm by forcing items into being "required" for the maths. Therefore, disarm suddenly becomes "tainted" because it means changing the math dynamic in the game.

Poor design.

Very poor design.

I beg to differ:

beeing able to disarm a fighter at will is bad design... A fighter who is capable of fighting is not disarmed regularily.

So an encounter power that allows you to try under some circumstances. Ok. Something you can do at will. No.

The only thing I can imagine that resembles a disarm at will is a 2 stage attack with quite good chances to do so.

=> Standard action to prepare the disarm. (feint). Second standard action to actually do it. (With good chances or one of them even near automatic) The defender may react between those two actions, disallowing such a trick usually.

But if you spend your action point, you can pull off the trick well enough. (And it is sure, that the standard monster can´t do this trick with no chance to defend against.)

The question is, if you are willing to have a system with 2 staged actions. (Like getting CA + sneak attack)

 

[Raven Crowking]

But if P1NBACK was right that 4e's rules tend to discourage the creation of a shared imaginative space as the locus of action resolution - that is, if s/he was right that the rules tend in the direction of all the action being resolved at the board game/dice rolling level with no need for the players to engage one another with respect to the fiction - then that would be a pretty serious indictment of 4e. As P1NBACK has said, it wouldn't show that 4e is not an RPG, but it would diagnose a certain sort of weakness or flaw in 4e as an RPG. Because rather than a criticism of the particular system used to generate the fiction (eg dice mechanics vs "make stuff up"), it would be a criticism that there is no fiction in these sense that is integral to an RPG.

In 4e, for example, that Spinning Sweep can't happen unless you explain, in the fiction, how your fighter crosses the distance to the snake. So some aspects of the fiction are in play, and (in my experience) moreso than in many other fantasy RPGs.

You and I know that there are many people who would claim that the DM ought not to, say, disallow a power that knocks a snake prone, on the basis that he doesn't believe it makes sense within the fiction.

Should you like, I can scour EN World for many, many pro-4e posts that demonstrate, for those players at least, that a shared fictional space is not so very important to the experience of the game. I.e., if it's Bob's character, and the use makes sense to Bob, it should be allowed.

This is very different than a role-playing game in which a Game Master exists, among other reasons, specifically to ensure that resolution creates a shared fictional space.

How many posts do you require where it is claimed that the DM should simply allow something, whether or not it concurs with his image of the fiction, before serious questions about the nature of that fiction begin to arise?

However, 4e does provide a shared fictional space in the form of the battlemat, wherein things are defined by their rules alone. Unless, of course, like the rules for "prone", the RAW turns out to be rather inconvenient when trying to use a power to inflict that condition on a creature that is already, by the written rules, prone.

This has been called a lot of things on this board -- "pop quiz role-playing", where one has to decide how the fiction is changed secondary to the use of a power (How exactly did I knock that snake prone?) is evocative. I prefer, however, "rules-first", where the rules take primacy over the fiction.

You do not have to play the game that way. Some don't.

Some even go to elaborate lengths to make their own "hacks" of the system that restores primacy to the fiction. From the current WotC blogs that I have read, I actually have some small hope that the designers are among those creating their own "fiction-first" hacks, and I have some small hope that 5e will return to more "fiction-first" game play.



RC

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You and I know that there are many people who would claim that the DM ought not to, say, disallow a power that knocks a snake prone, on the basis that he doesn't believe it makes sense within the fiction.

Should you like, I can scour EN World for many, many pro-4e posts that demonstrate, for those players at least, that a shared fictional space is not so very important to the experience of the game. I.e., if it's Bob's character, and the use makes sense to Bob, it should be allowed.

This is very different than a role-playing game in which a Game Master exists, among other reasons, specifically to ensure that resolution creates a shared fictional space.

How many posts do you require where it is claimed that the DM should simply allow something, whether or not it concurs with his image of the fiction, before serious questions about the nature of that fiction begin to arise?

However, 4e does provide a shared fictional space in the form of the battlemat, wherein things are defined by their rules alone. Unless, of course, like the rules for "prone", the RAW turns out to be rather inconvenient when trying to use a power to inflict that condition on a creature that is already, by the written rules, prone.

This has been called a lot of things on this board -- "pop quiz role-playing", where one has to decide how the fiction is changed secondary to the use of a power (How exactly did I knock that snake prone?) is evocative. I prefer, however, "rules-first", where the rules take primacy over the fiction.

You do not have to play the game that way. Some don't.

Some even go to elaborate lengths to make their own "hacks" of the system that restores primacy to the fiction. From the current WotC blogs that I have read, I actually have some small hope that the designers are among those creating their own "fiction-first" hacks, and I have some small hope that 5e will return to more "fiction-first" game play.



RC

You're in severe danger of coming across as condescending...

Also, don't put this at 4e's door. Nowhere in the rules or presentation is such a concept as "rules trump story" ever so much as suggested. In fact (particularly in DMG2) quite the opposite. This whole myth seems to have arisen based on one FAQ entry where someone in CS suggested that oozes can be 'knocked prone'. Note too that in that case the suggestion was simply "the fiction can easily accommodate such a thing." and in all fairness all that was suggested is that the associated game effects of prone made enough sense as a way to portray some kind of equivalent effect that it was sensible to just go with it.

 

[Balesir]

My previously promised responses - this turned out LOOONG - sorry!

You're saying you haven't experienced a session where only the numbers matter. I get it.

Of course you haven't, because at that point it's not roleplaying right?

Exactly. When the focus is entirely on the systems, props and numbers it can't be roleplaying. But, while I agree that the system used affects whether or not those are the entire focus, I do not agree that it determines whether or not those are the entire focus.

My point is: 4E comes as close to this as D&D ever has. We're moving further away from roleplaying and toward a miniatures game. That's FINE for those who love miniatures games! Sweet! And, it's FUN too. I love miniature combat.

But, it's not roleplaying. Yah dig?

I disagree, because I think a miniatures game can be roleplayed - but more on this below.

Shared imagined events is not enough. That's just the term I'm using for fiction. What we agree that is actually happening, right?

"I charge with my lance and stab your rook!"

We can both imagine that happening during chess right? But, is that roleplaying? I don't think so.

If we're playing chess, and I say, "Now, that I've charged your rook, my Knight draws his sword and attacks the Pawn adjacent to him!"

Well, I can't really do that right? Because the Knight piece has to move 2 up and 1 to the side and land on a space to take a piece.

How do you do that when you are "roleplaying" the White Knight who decides to turn against the White King and join the Black King's side?

You fundamentally have to break Chess' rules for this to happen. Fundamentally. Hence, Chess is not a roleplaying game.

How this is up for debate is beyond me...

If I'm playing Chess against Vladimir Akopian and I decide that my Knight is going to take his Bishop prisoner and torture him for information about the King's plans... Well, I think he'd have problems with that.

I have grouped these excepts from your posts together because they all illustrate one assumption I think you are making and that I want to point up as an assumption, not a necessary fact.

Throughout all this 'chess as roleplaying' discussion you assume that the "world" of chess is much like our own. Knights have swords, and can use them to cut down creatures standing next to them. Bishops are physically capable of being tortured. A 'knight's move' represents a lance charge.

You do the same also with Monopoly - the "world" of Monopoly necessarily has hookers, penthouses and the characters there desire some "blow time".

This is what I am talking about when I refer to "aesthetics". Having a world where more-or-less mundane "real world" features largely apply is your 'taste' in roleplaying games. But it's not a required basis for any roleplaying game. For me, roleplaying games range far wider than that in their potential scope of "realities" they might cover.

Well, what if I don't move my white knight into the situation where he would checkmate the black king because I'm RPing him as a traitor? Is that not RP affecting the course of the game? Sure it is! Notice that it also inherently implies that I have a wider range of goals in playing that particular game of chess than simply winning the game.

This is just one example of how a treacherous 'Chess Knight' might behave if he was living in "the world of chess" where the world "physics" really do constrain him as the rules of chess stipulate. Note, though, that, to be fair, you have already added a rule - that the characters in chessworld are psychologically capable of treason. A chessworld canon purist might take issue with you over that point...

What happens is, there's a disconnect between what's occurring in the fiction, and what is happening in the rules. If I can't describe something that's totally plausible (a knight drawing his sword and swinging it at the pawn next to him), because the rules are so disconnected with the shared imagined events, well, then we're not roleplaying.

No, what happens is that there is a disconnect between the fiction as it is described by the rules that were accepted as the basis for the game world, and what you think the world should be like. Who says the knights in chessworld have swords? You do. Who says that physical adjacency must be what enables attacks in chessworld physics? You do.

You are limiting "roleplaying" to only being acceptable in worlds that fit your own personal aesthetic of what roleplaying worlds "should" be. There is nothing wrong with you limiting yourself to that - that is entirely your prerogative. But understand that that is not a definitive restriction on what roleplaying worlds can conceivably be. Even if we accept the limitation that the roleplaying world should accord with the aesthetics of those playing, peoples' aesthetics differ, so not everyone will share the same set of limitations.

I wouldn't want to take this whole argument to the completely absurd level. Chess is a terrible RPG.

Winding it back more to the original discussion though clearly more rules or more restrictive rules don't make some game 'not an RPG', they just make it a more or less useful one.

Just to pull things back a little, I agree with this - chess would be a really poor basis for a roleplaying game. I think the reason is not so much the tight constraints as the lack of easy, intuitive "hooks" to allow the players to really grok the world's physics. I can't imagine ever actually roleplaying chess except as some sort of challenge, to prove to ourselves that we can do it!

Even if I could not do it, though, I can still imagine how another could, so I would still maintain that it could be roleplayed - it would just require extraordinary powers of imagination.

Roleplaying occurs when the things you do in the fiction (our shared described and imagined events) has an impact on what's happening at the table - and vice versa.

OK, but this happens in all roleplaying, regardless of the system in use, regardless of the props in use, and even if there is no actual table. This is simply a description of a shared fiction - by description, either aided by system conventions and props such as miniatures or not, we share additions to the fiction to keep all our fiction-models in synch. The fact that we may have agreed descriptions of the gameworld physics in the rules, or agreed representations of the gameworld situational layout formed by a battlemat and figures merely defines the techniques we are using to communicate our additions to the fiction in a codified, clear and unambiguous way. We can still decide, each for ourselves, the form of the "imagined space" in our minds that is taking input from those representations. It's interesting that I nearly said "whether or not we have an "imagined space"" in that last sentence. Then I realised that we necessarily, always, must have some sort of model in our minds - it's just how we operate as sentient beings. All we really can control is whether that "imagined space" contains representations of miniatures, rulebooks and a battlemat or representations of creatures and elements in an imaginary world.

The hallmark of a roleplaying game is: what we imagine, describe and agree to can impact the rules and what is actually happening in the fiction.

Impact. My description actually makes an impact on the game. Not just me moving my piece.

So you want the power to add rules and capabilities to the gameworld. That's fine - not necessary, in my opinion, but fine. It may well be helpful in more closely aligning the gameworld to your aesthetic of what the gameworld "should" be.

But my view of roleplaying is simply that we approach it from the angle of picturing the imaginary world in our minds as we play, instead of picturing the props and people in the "real" world that we are gaming with. How we settle upon the forms and rules of that world is an immensely mutable thing. A thing that determines what style or focus of roleplaying we are doing - but does not determine whether what we are doing is "valid" roleplaying or not.

If the battlemat, dice, minis and other real world cues are empowering roleplaying, then we have a good system. Right now, I don't think we're there with 4E.

It's not about aesthetic. It's about what I was describing above. How we define roleplaying.

Aesthetic, as pointed out in our chess example, is irrelevant to what it actually means to roleplay.

As I just described. It's a part of roleplaying - what people might call "Color" or "Fluff" or whatever. And, I don't know if you could roleplay without it, but it's not what I mean by roleplaying.

And here's why I said last night that I need to further explain my use of the word "aesthetic", because I do not just mean "colour" or "fluff".

By "aesthetic" what I mean is what quality of imaginary world you are happy to roleplay in. What aspects of world physics, what "truths" of reality are needed in the imagined setting for you to be capable of and/or comfortable with roleplaying in it? Some people find the very idea that fireballs in 4E are cubic unpalatable; but, really, why should a world not exist where fireballs are both possible to create and cubic? Certainly, it's a world somewhat different to the one we ordinarily interact with, but there really isn't anything that says such a world cannot (or even should not) exist.

I even specifically include ideas about "reality" in aesthetics, here. A short illustrative story as to why:

Back in the day I was a fan of "realistic" combat systems. We used complex mechanics where every weapon had statistics for reach, 'speed' and so on. Hand-and-a-half swords, naturally, had fair reach, slow speed and were severely handicapped if the combatants were "inside" (close together). Then I saw some professional recreators fighting with bastard swords in the style they had recreated from medieval fighting manuals. I suddenly realised that just about everything I had been assuming about how fighting with such swords worked was wrong. Fair reach - yeah, OK. Slow? Garbage. Disadvantaged in close? Drivel. I realised that there was only one sort of fighter that would use such a sword as I had previously imagined - one with an extremely short life expectancy!

My lesson from this is that we all have a picture, a model in our minds, that is vast and complex and represents how we think the "real" world works. But it's not necessarily accurate for any specific case - and, overall, it's most definitely not accurate for all cases. It's an aesthetic. It's the way we think the world is, combined with a bit of how we think the world should be. But it's still a fiction - our own, personal conception of the "shared imagined space" that is "reality", if you will.

If I could draw a Vinn Diagram, it'd have Aesthetic as a big circle, and roleplaying inside of that circle as a smaller circle. You can imagine that, yes?

Right - if the (small circle) roleplaying is inside the (big circle) aesthetic then you are saying that only worlds fitting with your aesthetic count. I don't say that - my venn diagram has two circles that overlap, but part of the 'roleplaying' one falls outside the 'my aesthetic' one.

I never played squad leader. But, yeah, from what I've read about it, it could probably be roleplayed, but you'd likely need house-rules.

You would only need houserules if, instead of deciding to play in a world where the physics was determined by the Squad Leader rules, the physics were those of your personal model of the "real world" or otherwise fitted some specific (non-rules-described) aesthetic that you (and, presumably, the rest of the players) had decided to use.

I suppose I'm asking you to see that this choice is arbitrary. You are choosing to play (exclusively?) in world settings that are defined by your personal aesthetic. There is nothing essential or definitional about this - it is a choice. It's a perfectly valid choice - there is really nothing wrong with you playing the way you wish to play - but it is not a choice that everyone else must, should or will select, for a simple reason. Their own aesthetics will differ from yours; indeed, part of finding a "good gaming group" might be finding others whose aesthetics fit well with your own. The reason I said my venn diagram had areas of "roleplaying" outside the "my aesthetic" circle is that others will have different "aesthetic" circles, and the parts of "roleplaying" that fall outside my "aesthetics" circle may well fall inside theirs. Just as one example, to me, roleplaying in an Anime-styled world sounds difficult and cludgy, but to others it sounds easy and fun!

As an side: I don't think there's a "perfect copy" of the shared imagined space. There's a piece in each of our heads, and through roleplaying, discussion, questions, maps, etc... we build a "best version" that we can all agree on.

Right - I mentioned that only because some people do seem to see the "authoritative version" model as required. I wanted to make it clear that it's a possibility, but not a requirement - I think we're on the same page, here.

The DM may have control over the environment and the player our character, but unless we agree on the fictional events, well, it's not really happening is it? If I say, "I leap 100 feet into the air..." and everyone else is looking at me like I'm an idiot... Well, it's not really happening in our shared imagined space is it?

If I make a rule that's decidedly for fostering creativity and imagination, how is that possibly constraining?

I'm saying, open the box up entirely - so, you don't have a box anymore. There is no "outside" the box because everything is "inside" the box.

I grouped these two excepts because they seem to highlight a contradiction - or maybe a clarification. If the game group defines 100ft leaps as impossible, isn't that a "box"?

It seems to me as if what you are saying is "for a roleplaying game to be really roleplaying, the players should (implicitly) agree that the game setting (the "fiction") should be defined by the unstructured aesthetics and predefined assumptions of the players about what a roleplaying world "should be", rather than by any text or similar world definition". My question is "why should the game world for D&D not be described by the text of the rules?" Sure, subordinating the rules to the players' personal notions of "D&D world" is a valid option - and can be a fun one. But it's not the only valid option.

As I said, playing by the rules. For example, I can't "hail a taxi" in Arkham Horror instead of moving by spending my move points along the line. I can't gather clues outside of the normal method, I can't make any decisions about my character other than the prescribed actions dictated by the rules of the game (exactly like Monopoly or if you want to use cooperative games, Castle Ravenloft boardgame).

I'm in danger of being repetitive, but who says that, in arkhamhorrorworld, "hailing a taxi" is a meaningful concept? Or that it does not result in the character moving through locations as restricted by their movement points? You say "I can't make any decisions about my character other than the prescribed actions", but if "I say, "I leap 100 feet into the air..." and everyone else is looking at me like I'm an idiot", isn't that exactly analogous? It seems to me that we are discussing how the rules of the gameworld are defined and ascribed, not whether there are such constraints at all.

I can play any game and plaster a "story" over it to describe what happened. That doesn't mean it's roleplaying.

Sure - stories are ways we organise the relation of past events when presenting this relation to others for social and political reasons, they have no direct relation to roleplaying (or, indeed, to "truth").

There's a reason why Castle Ravenloft is a boardgame and not an RPG expansion.

Yeah - it's a way to sell more stuff.

Not to be too cynical, but I am certain that CR (well, the Ashardalon game, to be exact) can be roleplayed - I have done it - but it doesn't support a persistent roleplaying world in the way D&D does, for sure.

On the other hand, i hate thinking along the lines of:

"Hmmh, it would be a good decision to disarm the foe instead of killing him... but i don´t have the feat, so i have to eat an attack of opportunity, and then i need to win the opposed check..."

Actually I would also hate:
"My thief would try to find traps, but my chances are so slim, that i better send the fighter, because he has the highest hp... (or for that matter, the cleric, because he is the most perceptive)"

I'm not sure I really "hate" this manner of decision making. I would certainly ideally prefer the chain of thought to be more intuitive and subliminal than such explicit evaluation of the rules systems, but in the end I see this as the player only clumsily mimicking the character's native understanding of how the gameworld works. Unless we take the (in my view lazy and unnecessarily constraining) view that only world settings that are immediately and intuitively understandable by the players are valid for roleplay, then I think some period of adjustment, as the players get used to how the game world operates, is inevitable.

There are rules for X in roleplaying games. In most traditional games, it's a DM who adjudicates those "non-specified" actions.

That's a rule. It's there. It make not be "BAB + 1d20 to attack" but it's still a rule.

Just to clarify I didn't call it a flaw, and I don't see it as a flaw. Page 42 of the DMG and pages 101-109 of the DMB are both part of the standard rules.

I have grouped these two as pointing up a distinction that I failed to make, earlier. Page 42 and similar rules are certainly part of the game rules, but what they do is interesting. They do not describe or define the world setting - they describe and define who has the authority to describe and define elements of the world setting that are not already described and defined.

As such they are not part of the definitional structure of the game setting - the "agreed model" - that I was lazily referring to as "the rules". They are a description of how new elements of that "world physics model" may be created. This is a very valuable rule to have in any roleplaying game - but I still maintain that the rules as published (for a gamist game, I should perhaps specify) are better if they have already done the job of "world physics model definition" for the majority of cases that come up in the game as it is intended to be played. Having said this, it's perfectly true that you can have a functional roleplaying system that only defines how and by whom the world definition may be created - Universalis is a fine example of this.

The problem I describe is when players self-restrict to a subset of the standard rules and completely obviate others that can be applicable and open up more avenues for them. If a player restricts himself to only performing move actions on his turn, and never used standard, minor or immediate actions he would be missing a plethora of possibilities. When players limit themselves only to the things written on their character sheet they fall into the same trap.

I agree that the player's understanding of the game world should, ideally, approach the level of facility that the character has, with their native, intuitive comprehension of the world in which they live their lives. But, unless we restrict ourselves entirely to imaginary worlds with which we are already familiar, some period of "acclimatisation" is going to be needed for every new world. Simple worlds that are very similar to ones we already know will require less adjustment time; complex worlds with significant differences will require more, as a general rule.

A D&D character is only limited by the imagination/creativity of the player. The page 42 rules are part of the rules design exactly to allow that imagination/creativity to be used, and still remain within the balance of that design. They open up entire highways of actions that cannot simply be described in the Powers Mechanic.

I would say that, following on from what I wrote above, the D&D character is limited by the conception of the gaming group of how the D&D universe works. Page 42 tries to shape this conception by adding some sketchy guidelines, but even when specific rules are given the "real" limitation in most roleplaying groups is "what the group sees the world as being like". Some take their cues from existing rules for this, some follow the DM's lead, some discuss and collaboratively agree a world model and some assume a model based on preconceived or previously used ideas. All methods are fine, but it can help to be clear which you are using.

The designers of 4e wanted to have more options/action within the design space and they provided a very good way to do more. What they did not provide was an easy to remember way to "know you can" do more. I just added one thing that allows players to know they can do more.

An invitation like this is good. I really like the ideas of terrain powers and such like, too, to expand the interactions between characters and environment, for example. But more useful, still, might be increasing clarity on what the world model that is in use is based on, exactly.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You're in severe danger of coming across as condescending...

That's not my fault.

It's a warm, humid room, and my skin is cooler than the air temperature.


RC

 

[pemerton]

You and I know that there are many people who would claim that the DM ought not to, say, disallow a power that knocks a snake prone, on the basis that he doesn't believe it makes sense within the fiction.

Furthermore, I'm one of them - my view, stated over many threads including the recent snake thread that got closed, is that an encounter power (or, at least, a martial encounter power) is a Fate Point that the player players to gain narrative control in respect of that particular event.

But I don't see how this is relevant to the post of mine that you quoted - what I said is that, in order to use any power against a target (be it a snake or something else) a PC must close to within range, and that this is something which happens in the fiction and is constrained by the fiction - as I said in the post you quoted from, by walls, trees, rubble etc. Cover, difficult terrain etc are mechanically-defined notions that are read of the fiction.

It's true that some aspects of the fiction don't matter all that much to 4e's action resolution - including facing and body shape (which makes the inclusion of a mechanical condition called "prone" a dubious design choice) - but most RPGs disregard some elements of the fiction which could conceivably be made relevant to action resolution.

I also don't see the relationship between a shared imaginary space and GM authority over the content of that space.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually, prone for most things make sense. And for those, where it does not, just wing it. And the best thing is the interaction with flying monsters.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Well, then, don't mind me.

But terrain hazards which occur when you enter a space as "something which happens in the fiction and is constrained by the fiction" happen in Snakes & Ladders, too. That seems to lend support to P1NBACK's post, to which it seemed as though you were replying (with some uncertainty).

But, as I said, if I misread you, don't mind me!

I'll just be quietly condensating over here.



RC

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Furthermore, I'm one of them - my view, stated over many threads including the recent snake thread that got closed, is that an encounter power (or, at least, a martial encounter power) is a Fate Point that the player players to gain narrative control in respect of that particular event.

Agreed, powers are just plot tokens really. People should think of them like action points, just a limited number of instances where the player can take over the narrative coupled with a mechanical explanation of what he can do with it.

But I don't see how this is relevant to the post of mine that you quoted - what I said is that, in order to use any power against a target (be it a snake or something else) a PC must close to within range, and that this is something which happens in the fiction and is constrained by the fiction - as I said in the post you quoted from, by walls, trees, rubble etc. Cover, difficult terrain etc are mechanically-defined notions that are read of the fiction.

Yeah, I don't really understand the notion that just because a wall has a mechanical representation that it somehow "isn't part of the fiction". I would extend this to state that in ANY game where some aspect of the mechanical game state is representing something in an imagined space/fiction is a part of that fiction. Mechanics are secondary, they only aid the story telling. Even in Squad Leader the terrain marker of a ruined building is just a representation for something in a shared fictional battle.

I'd also argue that despite all the apparent argument for the contrary that the shared fiction you have in a more abstract game that lacks physical representations of things at the table is no higher quality than that you have in 4e with its battle maps and grids and such. Nobody pays attention to the details of what the wall looks like unless it becomes relevant to the story in some way. The simple fact of some proxy for that wall existing on the table top doesn't change that at all. The notion that such proxies somehow destroy my imagination is actually rather close to insulting (not to give the impression I'm all insulted or anything, not at all, just saying give my imagination a little credit, it isn't impaired by the fact that I have a mini on the table).

It's true that some aspects of the fiction don't matter all that much to 4e's action resolution - including facing and body shape (which makes the inclusion of a mechanical condition called "prone" a dubious design choice) - but most RPGs disregard some elements of the fiction which could conceivably be made relevant to action resolution.

I also don't see the relationship between a shared imaginary space and GM authority over the content of that space.

ANY amount of the fiction can be made relevant to action resolution. I can't speak for others, but my position has always been that the players and DM will decide exactly how and when the fiction has an affect on the mechanics. The rules cover the typical situations and generally form the basis for further adjudication. Some people might enjoy the rules aspect of the game more and just say "the snake is prone, it suffers x,y,z" and others might say "well, we'll just apply a little salt to this, the snake is discomfited but we'll ignore x because it doesn't match what we're imagining." Really, all the gnashing of teeth on this subject I've heard over the last several years seems extraordinary to me. Every RPG works this way. Some rely on it more than others, but sooner or later you're going to make these choices.