NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8502059" data-attributes="member: 82106">I don't think it was really praise, more just an example of a rightward arrow, a situation where the fictional account of the environment dictated a specific use of the rules that was at variance with the most basic straightforward interpretation of RAW (IE RAW doesn't really discuss elevation that much, and even if it did a blast would probably catch someone in between you and the target in its area, but the plinth was held to modify this). Now, you MIGHT also argue that the rules account for 3d and if you count the plinth as a wall, then the rules cover this situation, but the sense of the example is certainly clear.As you say, DMs using other editions of D&D would probably make similar rulings, for basically the same reason, which is that players generally reason from fiction to mechanics and we expect the fiction to be both logical and preeminent. So, I think what all this really illustrates is the degree to which the fiction is central. This is really the essence of 'open games', that instead of being entirely rules and cues, they include a fiction which at least has the POTENTIAL to shape how the other elements are used, and definitely explains when and why they are used, if nothing else. (IE even in AD&D combat or 5e combat the fact that we invoke melee rounds and the orc is swinging at the fighter is a RESULT of fictional considerations about orcs and fighters and of this particular orc and fighter and their fictional relationship). This is the sense of the whole Lumpley Principle thing, the fiction is at the center of the game. It COULD be there aren't 'rightward arrows', but EVEN THEN the point is fiction and the game is ABOUT the fiction. I think we all fundamentally agree on that.</blockquote>

Verification