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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8155724" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah, I don't see these as being, in any way, opposed. I think D&D has had 3 'phases' in its history. Classic D&D (OD&D, B/X, 1e AD&D) are designed for what you call skilled play, and I agree with your definition of that paradigm pretty much. However, this didn't at all preclude Role Play, although players might feel conflicted about the potentially opposed goals of maximum skill exemplification and consistent playing of a PC role. Usually this was resolved by having simple characters who's main personality trait was basically greed. This lead to the 2nd phase, the 'storyteller' phase, which was ushered in by 2e AD&D, in which the DM was no longer a referee and trap/puzzle author, but became a 'teller of tales' where inconvenient die rolls were to be ignored or fudged, etc. 2e lacks most of the exploration and related rules of 1e, but adds a bunch of rules for skills, different combat maneuvers, etc. as well as a lot more character customization options in general.3.0 and 3.5 are really just extensions of 2e in this context, they continue the same basic paradigm, though there is an increasing emphasis on elaborate rules, detailed combat procedures, and whatnot which kind of get in the way. It wasn't a very coherent design (not that 2e is either, but I'm not sure the designers of 3.x really knew what they were getting into). 4e ushers in a new phase, 'game as narrative engine'. Now the role of the GM is to propel the story forward by framing the PCs into conflict and moving to the exciting parts of the story. SCs, Powers, and a thorough structuring of the rules governing how things worked, coupled with keywords and exception based rules, can allow a GM to run a game in a way that is almost reminiscent of a PbtA game or FATE-based game.5e backed off of the main innovations of 4e, which were little appreciated anyway at the time by most D&Ders (WotC either got cold feet or just didn't know how to explain what they had written). Anyway, you can do a bit of all three paradigms in 5e, though it is pretty weak on the 'narrative play' one, and doesn't really explicitly include all the skilled play exploration rules (maybe some of the supplements help here, I'm not sure).</blockquote>

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