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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6334446" data-attributes="member: 42582">Is this based on experience, or inference from the testimony of others?I don't know if you've ever read the play reports for the original Giants or Tomb of Horrors tournaments. To my mind, they don't suggest that the game had "more story and imagination elements" - at least not for any very meaningful sense of "story" or "imagination".Here are some excerpts from the ToH Origins report in Alarums & Excursions no 4 (Sep '75):Finally we entered the central entrance, and headed down the 20' wide passage. The walls were plastered and covered with murals. 40' down there was a picture of two dogheaded beings holding a coffer- which stuck out of the wall. . . . Our elves reported no secret doors or traps. Ten more feet and out #2 and #3 fighters fell into a trap . . . At this point I ordered a Locate Traps spell used- a bit late- and we avoided two more pits on the way down to the end of the corridor- 60'. Still plastered walls, still the elves detected no hollow spaces or hidden doors. What a time to pick defective elves! At the end of the passageway there was a devil mouth- with an open, black mouth. Things shoved in did not return. On the left there was a door with a blue haze covering it. anything that went partway in came back, Things that went in all the way did not. Paul, a F7 and the only other useful person on the expedition to this point volunteered to investigate the door. He went through and the Dmaster took him outside. In a bit, I decided it was time to charge through all together. . . . We found ourselves inside a 10' square, 30' high room, without doors and possessed of 3 levers. At this point I announced that we were all driving spikes into the walls and standing on them. Various conditions of levers were tried. All three down resulted in the floor opening for a stimulating view of a 100' drop. At this point the Dmaster told that the levers had started in the neutral position. all three were put up, the ceiling opened and we climbed up and into a 3' high and wide crawlway. . . . We got out along the crawlway. The room was plastered, the elves detected nothing and I had not yet grasped that a 1/2" of plaster was elf proof. Gygax's elves have to see secret doors, reasonable but not what I am accustomed to. . . . Someone else had a brilliant thought- what's behind the plaster? We broke some and found a door. . . . Now through a maze of 10' square rooms with walls that pivoted vertically, horizontally, slid up, down, and sideways. Each direction had to be individually specified. The party agreed and our 18 (80%) fighter started making holes in the wall instead. This git up to another 20' corridor . . .  which got us to a chapel. Blue altar-which our Paladin warned us not to touch (26 point lightning bolt as it turned red, so I learned from another party later)  . . .Here are some excerpts from the Oct 1978 number of Dragon, reporting on the winning team in the Giants tournament at Origins:We gained entry through the east side entrance, which turned out to be the kennel. After casting a silence 15’ radius spell, the dire wolves inside were quickly dispatched. We then searched a major portion of the upper level and killed four or five giants in the process . . . We made a brief and fruitless entrance into the lower level . . . We returned to the upstairs and charmed a hill giant into pointing out which giant at the feast going on in the Great Hall was the chief. We surrounded this room from two sides and sent the charmed giant into the Hall with the order to point out the chief by kissing him on the cheek. This was also to be the signal for our two groups to attack. Two fireballs, a javelin of lightning, a confusion spell, and a good deal of slashing and hacking later, the giants were wiped out to a man and the Steading was aflame . . . As the second ettin fell in the south, the east hall [of the Fire Giants] became a bloodbath leaving only one giant as survivor after another six melee rounds. As the 12th level MU charmed this last battered survivor, we fell back and regrouped. After making sure of our charm by having him be affectionate to our dwarf, we demanded that he take us to King Snurre. With our 14th level fighter carrying our thief, we followed the giant as he set off down the south corridor. We turned east and entered into a large chamber to be greeted by a ballista bolt which felled our charmed giant guide. We were then doused with water and flour, thus making us momentarily visible. Our thief quickly tossed up another pinch of disappearance dust and we all “hastily” dispersed as boulders began to crash into our former positions. While the 12th level MU stood back in a corner against the wall and began to conjure up an elemental, the rest of the party split, with the ranger and the 9th level MU attacking the giants manning the ballista and the rest rushing the six fire giants in front of the King. . . . While the MU continued to blast with his cold wand and the thief moved across the ceiling, the elemental began crushing the hell hounds. The next round the 12th level cleric dropped his giant and shouted “Rush the king!” The giantesses moved to block our way, but, being both invisible and hasted we easily avoided their awkward blows. As the thief dropped on the king, the elf, dwarf, cleric, and fighter all also struck and King Snurre feel dead. The thief then cut his head off and placed it in his bag of holding while the others turned and killed the queen. As more fire giants began entering the room, a previously unnoticed group of gnolls rushed to attack. The round was called as plans were being hastily made for escape. . . .Some of this looks like fun stuff - the Giants moreso than ToH, in my personal opinion - but I wouldn't say it is dripping with story, nor with imagination except in the sense that some of the tactics are clever.Frankly this sounds like badly designed rules - for instance, PC build rules that put no limits on the degree of action-resolution oomph a given player can bring to bear in a single "move". D&D's traditional device for limiting this in combat is hit points - and its interesting to see how important hit points, rather than save-or-suck, are in the Giants report. That is a module and an episode of play that draws on D&D's strengths.This is a mischaracterisation of 4e, at least as I see most players of that game describe it on these boards. The mechanical nuance is what generates story distinctions. In the Giants game, what made that MU with elemental and cold wand a potent wielder of magic wasn't some mere flavour text on a character sheet, but the fact that the player of that character could effectively engage the ingame situation by casting spells and using a wand. 4e is much like that - "show, don't tell". And as a player (or as a GM, for that matter, once the PCs are in the frame) you show by engaging the action resolution mechanics.Yet a system that doesn't permit this - 4e, which does not require the GM's ideas to adhere to or be generated by application of PC-build or action resolution rules - is widely decried for this very feature. And the most popular current FRPG - Pathfinder - seems to be based around the idea that the GM's ideas are subordinate to the PC-build and action resolution rules, even when the GM is not building a PC nor resolving a player's action declaration for his/her PC.This seems unobjectionable. But if you're talking about your own experience, why is your post framed so much in the second- and third-person, as if diagnosing the problems that others are suffering from? This was a feature of the blog posts referenced in the OP too.</blockquote>

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