Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="P1NBACK" data-source="post: 5566238" data-attributes="member: 83768">Right on. That's exactly what I don't want to do to you, and you to do to me. So, I'm glad we're clarifying. Good stuff. 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? 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? 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. 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. 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. 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. Do you agree? 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. 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. No. It shouldn't. 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. 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? I think so... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />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 could roleplay Monopoly too, right? But, you'd need houserules. That's why I said, "as-is". If we're playing Monopoly, I can't say, "Well, my banker dude wants to chill out on Park Place for a couple weeks holed up in his penthouse with some hookers and blow." I can't do that right? I gotta roll the dice, move that many spaces, pay rent, etc. That's how the turns work. The fiction is not tied to the mechanics. What I can do without houserules is apply a completely disassociated "aesthetic" to what the rules tell me happens... So, I take my turn, roll my dice, land on Park Place, pay my rent, etc... And after the fact, say, "Oh, yeah... I was in there with hookers and blow the whole time, and now I'm moving on since it's my turn again." It's completely irrelevant. It's not roleplaying. It's story telling... Ok. But, not roleplaying. At least the way we've agreed to define it. Except, imagine the 1000s of actions you could possibly do. Are your rules covering them all? Probably not. That's why they added DMG Page 42, which is unfortunately often overlooked... I'm not saying 4E is not a roleplaying game. I am NOT saying that. I am saying, 4E moves closer to a board-game than any other RPG I've played. Maybe that's appealing for you? I don't know. But, if creative and imaginative roleplaying (as in, making an impact on the shared imagined events) is what RPGs excel at, then why not focus on making rules that inspire and promote that? 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. 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?</blockquote>

Verification