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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5567384" data-attributes="member: 82106">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.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).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.</blockquote>

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