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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6300556" data-attributes="member: 42582">I personally have seen no evidence that what Ahnehnois says is true. In my own case, there is basically no correlation between worldbuilding (rules-based or otherwise - AD&D didn't really support rules-based worldbuilding, but Rolemaster does, and I've used both) and successful play experience. I've had successful play experiences with worldbuilding, and without. And I've had bad play experiences under world-building GMs and non-world-building GMs.I do agree with Aenghus, though: I regard unrevealed backstory as a means to an end. It is not an end in itself, and has to yield to the demands of play (which include, but aren't limited to, maintaining drama, maintaining engagement, and keeping up the pressure on the players).To me, this is all confused.There is a metagame level of confusion, which [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] points out: there will never be a combat involving a level 25 minion against a 25 AC (ie approx level 8) paladin. Against the level 8 paladin, the GM would use the level 7 solo.There is also a mechanics-to-gameworld dimension of confusion. In the gameworld, the spectators do not observe "attack rolls" and "hits". Just like turn-by-turn initiative, and 5' squares, and the action economy, attack rolls and hits are metagame abstractions. In the fiction, the spectators see the giant fighting the paladin. The fact that we can mechanically represent this as one +30 atttack doing 20 damage (the minion) or four +12 attacks doing 20 damage (the solo) has no relevance to what the spectators see.Just as in Mearls' recently-announced Battlesystem, the spectators don't see anything different just because we have changed the way in which the mechanics abstract out of the combat situation (eg one attack roll per 10 orcs per minute rather than one attack roll per orc per 6 seconds).Absolutely this.No. This claim assumes that the function of the mechanics is to represent causal processes within the gameworld. But in 4e this is not so. The function of the combat stats is to resolve concrete conflicts between particular protagonists and antagonists. It is not to provide a basis for extrapolating to events within the gameworld generally.Another way to look at it is this: I know how the gameworld works, and this informs application of, and narrative extrapolation from, the details of mechanical resolution. I don't use mechanical resolution to find out how the gameworld works. What I do use it for, though, is to find out whether or not the protagonists get what they want.</blockquote>

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