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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3820075" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't accept that per-encounter resources make player choice inconsequential. As an example, sustainable Adrenal Moves in RM (per RMC IV) and HARP are a roughly per-encounter resource, and the player choice as to when to enter the move, and when to come out of it, is highly consequential. It's just that the consequence unfolds within the encounter itself.I also do not accept the notion that because resources reset after an encounter, "whatever happens outside of combat has no relevance to combat." Suppose that, outside of combat, the PCs attempt to recruit an ally and fail. That has relevance to combat. Suppose that, outside of combat, the PCs fail to persuade the guards to let them pass. That has relevance to combat (perhaps being a cause of it).Not all interesting strategies flourish in a per-day system, because the need to conserve resources can get in the way. This will particularly be the case if implementing the strategy would (in 3E terms) require succeeding at more than 4 EL=PL encounters in a row. Of course it is possible for the GM to create a gameworld in which this is not the case. But it's not obvious to me that the players' or GM's creative desires are the things that should have to give here.I don't really follow what you mean by "skill" and "roleplay". For example, winning a high-level combat in 3E tests the following skill: how well do you know the mechanics, and especially the character build mechanics (so you have a decent character), the combat mechanics, and the spell mechanics.Succeeding at Tomb of Horrors tests a completely different skill: how well can you conceive of, and plan, a grinding expedition into hostile territory. From memory, Tomb of Horrors has about 4 combats - and the final one barely follows the standard combat rules in any event. Someone could play a PC in Tomb of Horrors, and do very well, without having the least grasp of the (sparse) action resolution rules of AD&D.Operational play tends to test the second sort of skill (under its more pejorative description, it is therefore described as "reading the mind of the GM").The sort of mechanical play that per-encounter abilities (such as sustained Adrenal Moves) give rise to tests the first sort of skill.The success of 3E, which has bucketloads of mechanics but downplays the operational side, suggests that some players at least want to use the second sort of skill.RM, RQ and HARP aspire to what you describe as "mechanical illusionism." 3E seems to come very close to it. Whether it makes for a good or bad game I will leave for others to judge, but I don't think it is fair to say that RPGs are an exception to it.Undoubtedly, AD&D and other early versions of D&D are exceptions. 4e may be a limited exception (given the mooted absence of craft and profession from the character build rules). But given that they are working on social challenge mechanics and environmental challenge mechanics and trap encounter mechanics, I don't think it will be an exception in any of the domains of activity that PCs typically engage in.Turning to roleplay, this can mean all sorts of things, but probably at a minimum it requires treating ones PC as a character in a world (this is a matter of degree, of course, but it marks the difference between an RPG and a wargame). The extent to which mechanics interact with roleplay, in this sense, varies a great deal from system to system. In AD&D, because of the sparsity of the character build mechanics, most of the roleplaying is independent of the mechanics. In 3E (which is in this respect closer to RQ or RM) the ruleset purports to give a total description of the character, and so roleplay is closely tied to the character build and action resolution mechanics. 4e on the whole will continue this trend, I think (though not entirely, if craft and profession skills are no longer part of the character build rules).For many players, what encourages roleplay both within and out is that they want to play out a PC's intereactions with the gameworld - perhaps because they want to develop a certain plot, or explore a certain theme, or have fun blowing things up.I don't see that resource management particular encourages roleplaying. It does encourage the player to set goals and plan around them, but on its own this is no different from playing a wargame campaign.By "plot" I mean something like "sequence of events in a narrative" - in the context of an RPG, I mean basically the stuff that happens to the PCs.Why should players not know the rules? If they are to exercise their skill with the rules they must know them. And I don't really follow your objection to metagame mechanics - basically, these are devices for allowing the players to determine certain aspects of the in-game reality. I assume you don't object to character-build mechanics which (outside of RQ and Traveller, where it's just about rolling dice that simulate in-game processes) are essentially metagame mechanics that allow the players to shape a certain aspect of the gameworld - namely, their PC. Hero Points are just metagame mechanics on the action resolution, rather than the character build, side of things. If such mechanics (as is typically the case) are designed in such a way that players are able to exercise such control only when developing or resolving certain plots or themes that they have chosen to explore through their character, then such mechanics can contribute significantly to roleplaying.I would also have thought that Hero Points fit very much with your "players are responsible for their own fun" philosophy.I know that if my players wanted to battle single kobolds all day long they could not, as I do not have any adventures involving kobolds written up. In practice, I think most RPG groups come to the table with a broad understanding of what sort of activity the players want their PCs to engage in, and the way in which the GM will provide those opportunities.This might be good advice for a group who have no time limit on their playing, who are happy to spend many hours having their PCs killed as they discover the way the world works, and who are prepared to devote days or years of play to learning how their GM's mind works.For many groups of players and GMs, none of the above conditions hold, let alone all of them.PCs may or not treat a battle as their "first encounter of the day" depending on what in-game knowledge they have about the way the day is likely to unfold.In a system of per-day resoruces, players will treat a battle as the "first encounter of the day" when they are hoping, or expecting, to play out more battles at the game table without their PCs recovering per-day resources. In a system of per-encounter resources, players will treat a battle as the "first encounter of the day" when they are hoping, or expecting, to make choices which lead to the result in-game that their PCs engage in more battles. The resource-management constraint on player decision-making will be absent. For some play styles this may be a bad thing, for others a desirable thing.Finally, some miscellanea:I don't know about the "at will" abilities for fighters or mages. The per-encounter abilities, however, I suspect will not be easily treated as weapons as far as flavour-text goes.I don't see how this device can't equally well be used to explain any other PC ability that is acquired despite its acquisition not being explained by the in-game events actually played out at the table.</blockquote>

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