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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6341454" data-attributes="member: 27160">A couple of folks seem to have taken this passage as criticism, so I think I must have made it insufficiently clear: I didn't intend to present either of these options as problematic or in any sense "wrong" in themselves. They are simply alternative ways of handling strict world consistency and what I assume is meant by "Narrative Mechanical Consistency" (i.e. the mechanics and the "world physics" are aligned).I put "realism" in inverted commas because I think it will necessarily be (a) subject to a variable amount of "leeway" for most or all players and (b) reflective of the players' respective models of "reality" rather than the collected and synthesised understanding of reality that represents the "state of the art" of science (let alone the real, ultimate "rules of reality" for the real world that we as humans don't know!)So, yeah, it will naturally be whatever model of reality is "negotiated" between the rules'/GM's vision and what the players imaginations can accept.I think models of reality can diverge radically, in fact, but this only matters if the players decide that it is important for this specific game. I think also friends (and most RPG groups are, I think, composed of friends) will tend quite naturally to have at least broadly compatible world models.I agree that communication is key; open DCs and passive knowledge rolls are things I use extensively, too. As a matter of preference I generally prefer most communication to be up-front via the rules, but as I say that is pure personal preference (and not an absolute one, at that).Abstraction is definitely not realistic - I hope I didn't convey that with my post! My favourite edition of D&D uses bucketloads of it to achieve results that are plausible to me with simple, abstract mechanics.I don't take this post as harsh at all <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I don't find immersion at all times essential for a good RPG experience, myself, but I enjoy it enough to understand the desire for it. Other 'angles' include intellectual exploration and building (of another's imagination or of concepts and real-world history and features), team cooperative tactics and challenge beating (with I/C dialogue), engagement with an in-game situation and collective story building.I agree that most players have these points as priorities, not absolute and separate needs. I think that is partly why most can enjoy a wider range of game systems than they imagine they can!On "dissociated mechanics" I can't really comment as I'm not sure I understand the term, yet. On the definitions given, I don't find supposedly "dissociated" 4E mechanics to be dissociated (by the definition) at all. When people say that there "is no in-game reason" for CaGI or Encounter Powers I simply don't see that as true. And the reasons that are there for those phenomenae I imagine the character as being aware of. I obviously don't really understand the argument.Partly, yes. Another aspect is that you may be so used to picking up on a mass of data immediately upon appraising a situation (through the combined bandwidth of your eyes, your ears, your nose, your sense of touch and taking in details the untrained would miss) that a "twenty questions" session may itself break up any immersion and engagement with the situation that you had.I think that most traditional style RPGs can be played this way, for sure - and I think that is a definite comment on the place of PFS in the history of roleplaying. I can think of several systems, however, where it would be a bit of a challenge; PrimeTime Adventures, for example, or Fiasco. Maybe even Hillfolk.Here I think Edwards got trapped by the very traps he pointed out! As soon as we go for a consistent set of rules I think there is some internal pressure to slide toward a model of the real world. I am convinced that this is two separate things, however: the desire for rules that reflect a consistent and working game world on the one hand, and a game world that has broad similarities to the real world on the other. The two are entirely compatible, but neither requires the other.Here I disagree. I don't think either hit points or action economy in D&D break game-world causality; the proof of this is simply that they provide in-game causality, so if we assume that the game-world is determined by the rules then it, too, must have unbroken causality. The only reason that game-world causality might be compromised is if we require it to have some specific causality that is incompatible with the rules system. Like, for example, one modelled - however loosely - on the "real world" system. If we assume that "divine favour" and "heroic energy" and such like are real forces in the game world and that creatures in the game world perceive things such as to make consistent action and reaction the way things work out, then it can be perfectly "sensical", even though it might clash with our "plausibility filters".Once again, sorry if my post implied that these two points are "problems" - that was not my intent at all. They are merely approaches to ensuring world consistency against the rules. Both might be susceptible to problems in certain circumstances, but neither is "a problem" in itself. Indeed, I know from personal experience and hearing from others that fun games are perfectly possible using both approaches (as well as others besides).</blockquote>

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