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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PrecociousApprentice" data-source="post: 4242721" data-attributes="member: 61449">I think that I will address several posts at once here.For those that have claimed that worldbuilding is nonsensical if any game constructs that describe the elements of the world are inconsistent in a one to one mapping fashion, with mutability of the results/game elements being a weakness of the process, I would point to the many millions of published fiction books out there that require no game constructs or concrete modeling at all to create fantastic and very detailed worlds. No one to one mapping of game concepts to world building required. These examples seem to be zero to one in their mapping of game to world. The world building is entirely fluff. No crunch required.The point of the rules are not to create the world. Your imagination does that. The point of the rules are to organized play and distribute power within the playgroup, and to provide an agreed apon action resolution system framework so that the process can be a game. This doesn't require a one to one mapping of game construct to game world in exactly the same way that collectively writing a novel would not require this. That being said, most people prefer not to interact in a system of anarchy, so rules are important in creating fun even for the collective writing of novels.I can understand that there are people that prefer that the world building logically emerge from the rules of the game in a one to one mapping fashion. This is one way. It inherently depends on the degree of infallibility of those rules to create worlds that are not jarring or bizare. There are many people who would likely self identify as sumulationists who would fall into this camp. I was once one of them. I was very frustrated for quite some time because there were many logical inconsistencies that would emerge in play. I eventually drifted away from gaming because the inconsistencies were too jarring for me and my group. I think that there will be a lot of frustration about 4e because of this type of problem. The rules when taken to relatively simple logical conclusions turn out some jarring results, and we haven't really even tried hard yet.I would like people to understand that many people do not require that there is a one to one mapping of game construct to game world. These gamers have no problem letting the world and the game exist in parallel conceptional space, with the game helping to guide the creation of the world, but not expecting that the world be an emergent property that springs forth in a perfect state as a result of applying the rules as written.There have always been, and will necessarily always be abstractions in the rules that will lay the groundwork for imperfections in the world if the world is expected to be a logical consequence of the rules. The human brain is the most amazing computing object known, but there are definite limits to it's capacity. Saying that we will never be able to create a model that we could use to predict outcomes of any complex system without logical inconsistencies does not imply any Cthulu mythos to be true. It admits that from our side of the equation, there are limits, and from the universe's side of the equation, illogical outcomes might be unavoidable. Advanced science is coming to grips with this. Gamers, working with less resources and smaller brains (myself included) will either need to come to grips with this or be doomed to frustration at some point.4e seems to have embraced a design paradigm that sidesteps the problem at the cost of frustrating many gamers that don't embrace the paradigm. This is unfortunate. The problem for many remains as great as ever, WotC just ignored it. I also think that the problem is unsolvable, and I think that ultimately the paradigm that 4e sprang from will create more rewarding games. It seems to have created a more robust gamist platform, empowered narrativist play greatly, and sidestepped the problems of strict simulationist gaming, much to the chagrin of those players who prefer sim.EDIT:I think that I should address this. The rules do not describe actions. They give a framework for action resolution and a division of power, upon which the division of power allows those with current authority to describle the event in a wany that is enough in accord with the results of the action resolution to make the game fun for all. No one to one mapping of mechanic to game world result. The mechanic guides the description, but doesn't prescribe much at all except whether there was a success of failure. These can be described many ways. Frustration emerges when imperfect rules are not allowed a descriptive fudge factor. Recognizing a role that the rules fulfill that sidesteps the logical results of imperfect rules allows one to play with much less frustration.</blockquote>

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