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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jessemock" data-source="post: 1343401" data-attributes="member: 15694">A good number of the responses here have been either:  try some other game system or Rule Zero.  Both of these amount to an agreement with tbitonti's complaint:  "yes; everything you say is true, but you can just go ahead and not follow the rules you're talking about."An odd apology.Why not try to see if the rules do what he says they do?1.  I don't see that Imagination belongs at the core of Role-Playing--at least, not if we're talking about Invention.  Most RPGs (and RPGers) are wholly imitative.2.  I think that most of the massiveness and complexity of the D20 rules-set comes from the Balance Drive, which has as its ultimate goal a system that permits a wide variety of characters--aka, a drive towards "whatever you can imagine",  if we need to stick to that line.The question becomes, then:  does the rules-set achieve this or implode?  In other words, does the struggle for Balance balance with playability?  Again, appeals to Rule Zero have no place here:  we're talking about the rules, not whether we may over-rule them.I'd say D20 veers toward an excess of rules, largely because of the millstone of perpetuating crummy D&D traditions, such as Hit Points.This may not be a fault:  I think a good number of players come to D20 precisely because they enjoy the perverse pleasure of messing with its bizarre rules.There is almost no aspect of the D20 combat system that does not take away from the grit and realism of encounters.  Everything from Hit Points to Armor Class to AoOs on down both removes realism and lessens the tension from play--unless, of course, the goal is to play D20, rather than play D20 as a representation of something else.  D20 is, really, just a fairly arbitrary, fairly complicated, self-contained game; it really doesn't have much more meaning beyond itself than, say, Pac-Man.A perfectly valid point:  damage, in D20, occurs exactly as it does in a video game--actually, in older video games:  a hit is indicated, the life meter goes down; no other effect.  The rules-set offers no remedy for this.  Better to say:  intuitively designed.  Feats have no formula.  D20 designers have a 'feeling' that tells them when they've hit the upper limit for the effect of a Feat.  Players enjoy a similar tingling when they read the description.  How to tell whether it is justified?  Simple:  if an argument over the appropriateness of a Feat goes to five pages on Enworld, the Feat is appropriate.It has been pointed out that Tumble is not a Feat, nor does it provide automatic success, but your point is, probably, that maneuver Feats should be available to everyone as, well, maneuvers.That's a good one and a tough call:  typically, the Feat system allows a character either to overcome or reduce a disadvantage or to exploit an advantage--while (hopefully) maintaining Balance.  Spring Attack would be a good example of a Feat that shouldn't fall under this description, but it does, because of the turn-based combat system you earlier decried.Feats are almost always an end-run around the rules, which begs the question:  why not change the rules?  See that bit about the millstone.In short, I agree with most of your assessment, but I continue to play D20 for two reasons:  1)  I enjoy figuring out tactics within the system (arbitrary and pointless as this excercise may be); 2)  D20 has inherited from D&D an atmosphere of extreme weirdness, which I also enjoy.</blockquote>

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