Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6296648" data-attributes="member: 42582">In my view this is too simplistic. Perhaps you are generalising particular experiences you have had, without considering that others have different experiences.For instance, one feature of 4e that I have noticed over several years of playing it is that it produces adventures closer to "the reality found in legends and fantasy fiction" than I get from more traditional fantasy RPG rulesets, and this is for at least two reasons: (1) it does a better job of enabling high-level "mundane" PCs like fighters and rangers to be mechanically comparable in their effectiveness to magic-users; (2) it produces more dramatic pacing during ingame moments of crisis (especially but not only combat) than do those other more traditional RPGs. "Metagamey" abilities like martial encounter powers are utterly central to both (1) and (2).In my view it is hard for a highly simulationist RPG to achieve the pacing, in play, that is typical of legends and fantasy fiction. (I don't disagree with  [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION] that this is an issue that has GMing dimensions. But I think some rulesets can foster those GMing approaches more than others.) And once you allow, for instances, that magic-users are going to be more mechanically effective than other character types it becomes hard to achieve the feel of such fiction in play.But if you run a D&D game in which (say) the hobbits are 0-level or 1st level characters; Boromir, Gimli and Legolas (say) 6th level; Aragorn 10th level; and Gandalf a 12th level cleric; than you probably won't generate a play experience anything like the books without massive GM intervention and hand-waving of resolution. It will end up more like those jokes about flying on an eagle to drop the ring into Mount Doom.Gandalf may be an angel, but if we try to imagine a play experience that resembles the books than it is clear that, in play, much of the time Gandalf's player's abilities are limited to modest buffing of allies via encouraging words (like a 3E bard or a 4e leader), and also an ability to declare the successful completion of off-screen missions like finding the Scroll of Isildur or meeting up with the Ents (Burning Wheel has mechanics a bit like this with Circles and Wises; d20 Conan uses Fate Points for this sort of thing; off the top of my head the only D&D example I can think of is the rogue's Read Languages ability, which Gygax in his DMG explains corresponds to the character's "off-screen" familiarity with that language).Conversely, while Sam may be a serf, Sam's player has some sort of ability that allows him/her to bring about the consequence that the orcs in Cirith Ungol think he is an elf-lord. And Frodo's play has some sort of ability that allows him/her to "kill" all the orcs in Cirith Ungol by making them fight over his mithril shirt (part of the cost of using that ability is obviously having to scratch the shirt of his/her equipment list!).There are various ways to achieve this sort of result in RPG design. Marvel Heroic RP illustrates some. I gather so does Buffy. And 4e does as well, in some ways at least. If you won't use any of those metagame oriented techniques, your game might be process-simulation in its resolution sensibilities, but I don't think it will do a very good job of simulating the fiction of LotR.In my view, and experience, it is not true that thinking about numbers distracts from the fiction if it pushes the players into the same emotional and cognitive space as their PCs. For instance, if the point of the fiction is that the PCs are in a tight situation, then I want the rules to make the players feel that they are in a tight situation. Certain ways of designing the numbers, and then having the players think about the numbers, can certainly achieve that result.</blockquote>

Verification