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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5722851" data-attributes="member: 27160">First of all I apologise if I have misrepresented what you meant to say; that was not my intent.I will note, though, that only the first of the two paragraphs of my post that you quoted was intended as a characterisation of your position.  The second paragraph was more an explanation of my position, and it used "story" (in quotes, and deliberately so) in a slightly odd sense as described in the first paragraph of my post.Story, in the usual sense of the word, clearly is a simplified relating of the actions and events of play.  But the way I see the concept and phrase "story elements" being used in the WotC article and in this thread seems to be to describe the setting elements of ecology, history, psychology and physiology of the creatures in the game world - as I said in the first paragraph of my post.  And it is these elements that I would rather see emerge from campaign design and game play - as well as the story of the game in the more usual sense - than be dictated by the game rules.  I want such elements to evolve to explain what happens in the game, rather than having the game railroaded so as to support pre-defined "truths".  I realise that this is an option, and not a "correct way to play", however.I'm fine with it, as far as it goes, for reasons that might become clearer later.  The monster stat blocks are, to me, purely there for combat.  Do creatures need characteristics beyond this?  Sure they do - but those need not be tied to the stat block used for combat (and I'd generally prefer them not to be).I take that as a compliment, though it may be meant wryly <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Games like chess and go allow for breathtaking creativity and invention without ever needing ad hoc rules modifications to allow for them.  I find that roleplaying rules, at their best, can work similarly.That is interesting - as I said, my hypothesis was merely speculation.  Anyone else care to chip in?OK, here you hit on a hobby horse of mine (because I basically agree with you), but I put a slightly different spin on it than you.I would really love to see proper, mechanical rules for all the examples you quote and more; I absolutely agree that the scope for interesting, engaging and exciting sub-games for a myriad of non-combat conflicts has been left fallow to date.Where I disagree, however, is that these rules - or even the parameters for these rules (in the sense that hit points, "to hit" bonuses and so on are the "parameters" used for the combat rules) - should be tied to specific combat stat blocks.  By all means have rules for a manipulative and charming (in the magical sense) creature in combat, and have rules for temptation, deceit and manipulation in "social" ("anti-social"?) conflict and have rules for penetrating disguises, alter-egos and so on.  But I would rather not see them all tied together as "the succubus" in the rules.  Let the formulation of the conflicts and the individual creatures' parameters for those conflicts be building blocks that can be combined in the game as the DM sees fit, not as the rules writers dictate.I don't see the need for this "context" at all.  I can tie game elements together to make varied and interesting game world context myself - it's not something I need game designers to do for me.  Give me the tools - the system elements - and I will fit them together to make my own model of the (game) world, thanks.  I just want a wider range of good, solid building blocks - I don't need instructions telling me what shape they should be used to construct.</blockquote>

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