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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5570651" data-attributes="member: 27160">Ou tof curiosity, did you notice what post I was responding to with this comment?  Because it was the one you originally gave the explanation in.  I am using a forum facility to "multi-quote".Except that, in that post, you were listing "far too many threads that amount to:...", not describing your own position.  Am I to take it that you are adding one more post on that topic to the "far too many" we have already?I'm sorry that you see it as me trying to make your argument seem irrational - I wasn't trying to do that and I certainly don't think I did so (nor that it would be possible - your argument was as rational as mine, as far as I could tell).I can grasp the concept of fiction; I even described what it is (a model in each player's head of the game setting and situation).  What I disagree with is that "the fiction" can "have primacy" over anything - because it doesn't have an independent existence.  The fiction is merely a set of models that are manipulated by the players, in much the same way as they might also be manipulating miniatures and terrain, to play the game.  The model in the players' heads will have much more detail, and be far more vivid, normally, than miniatures and a mat, because the effects budget of an imagination is much less constrained! <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=";)" />  But the content of the fiction can come only from the players aesthetic and presuppositions or the communications from the game publications and between the players about the game.  In other words, either the game rules, the players' preconceptions about what the game world looks like, the players' tastes as to what game worlds "should" look like or the communications between the players must provide every element of the fiction.  What "giving the fiction primacy over the rules" means, therefore, is that the players' preconceptions and tastes about what the world looks like should override what the game publications say.  This is a perfectly valid approach to roleplaying games, but so is agreeing that the publications define the game world and all other sources of content for the fiction must comply with that.  You seem to be saying that this latter technique makes roleplaying (as you describe it) impossible - my personal experience is that it does not.The board must always be representative of a mental model that each player holds - that is just how our brains work.  You may find it hard to get a model that you find aesthetically pleasing without the freedom to apply certain preconceived ideas about how a roleplaying world "must" work; you may simply not like the game world described by the 4E rules.  Either of these positions is entirely reasonable.  But neither constitutes "proof" thet the 4E "world vision" is dysfunctional for roleplaying (by your description) or that it somehow, for all people, prevents happy visualisation of a functional game world.Repeating these comments verbatim while ignoring the comments I made on them will not make them inviolate, no matter how many times you copy-paste them.  I can do it, too - look:Wheras with "I attack with a Spinning Sweep" or "I attempt to perform a Footwork Lure" it's not!?!?What is physically happening is that you are rolling dice and consulting tables/comparing values; none of these action descriptions relate directly to that.  All of the descriptions relate to the game-world model in the players' heads, not to what is physically happening.  But you object to one set and not the others?  Colour me baffled.If the statement of the character's action is decoupled from the world model it fails utterly as a game device, since it cannot, by definition, change the situation in the model if it is decoupled from it.  Statements of a character's action do change the model - that is their very raison d'être - ergo they cannot be decoupled from the model.You trip on the stairs but manage to grab the handrail, spraining your ankle rather than plunging head first down the steps - is that a "success" or a "failure"?After it is explained what "I polymorph the XXX" means you readily interpret it whenever it comes up in the game, and yet for some reason the phrase "is rendered prone" cannot be incorporated into the game lexicon in the same way?Well, so you can.  Good job neither I nor anyone else defined "roleplaying" that way.  Any more straw men to demolish?Oh, yes, here's one.I'm not saying the problem doesn't exist - I'm saying it's in the minds of those who have the problem.  I'm not trying to be dismissive, here - the whole activity of roleplaying goes on in our minds, so a problem in your mind is a real problem, where roleplaying is concerned.  But the problem does not exist for all people, and appears to be fixable, if someone wishes to make the effort.Hopefully they also see that the solution is not to make an inconsistent and dysfunctional published system, such that the players' preconceptions and preferences have to substitute for the game publications, since the game publications present an inconsistent and dysfunctional world.Possibly less than you might think.  I enjoy collaborative world-building and "real-world-with-twists" worlds, too - I just don't like only such worlds.</blockquote>

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