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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4077885" data-attributes="member: 40961">There are three justifications you'll see floating around.  Note that I am not defending them- in fact I think they are rather dumb.1) "These rules are all about combat!  The game is all about combat!  I don't want to play some hackfest!  I want to roleplay!  Obviously this isn't the game for me!"The problem with this reasoning is that the need for combat rules is greater than the need for roleplaying rules, because roleplaying tends to be freeform.  Its also a bit of a zero sum fallacy- there seems to be an underlying conviction that the better the combat rules are, the lower the quality of the roleplaying rules.  This is of course silly, but I do not think that Celebrim is making this very silly argument.2) "The rules for 4e are so focused on combat that only combat hungry munchkins will play 4e (and/or it turns the people who play it into munchkins)!  If I want mature, roleplaying based games, I'd better play something with crappier combat rules."The problem with this, of course, is that it implies that the presence of cool combat choices turns you into a worse roleplayer.  Roleplaying is then portrayed as something people do because sweet combat rules haven't seduced them away.  This argument almost makes you feel sad for the person making it, because they apparently view roleplaying as what you do when you can't do something better, and yet they have some sort of self flagellation urge that makes them want to keep doing it.  Think of this as the "cool combat rules = pornography" analogy.  They want it, but they don't WANT to want it, and they're convinced that everyone else has been seduced by it.  I do not think that Celebrim is making this argument either.3) "The rules for 4e combat are too abstract.  If I take them literally, then it leads to silly conclusions about the rules and physics of the gameworld.  This disrupts my ability to roleplay.  (Hidden argument, sometimes made- it disrupts YOUR ability to roleplay, too, but you just aren't sensitive enough to notice)"This is the argument Celebrim appears to be making.  The best I can say about this is that I disagree.  I've never found that silly consequences of good gamist rules really ruined my ability to run or play in a cool, roleplaying focused game.  If this premise were true, then previous editions of D&D were absolutely sucktastic.  The contortions necessary to explain healing magic in previous editions were absolutely beyond me.  But fortunately, we could just ignore them and go play the game, roleplaying and all.</blockquote>

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