I noted this upthread - or maybe in one of the crossover threads with much the same posters. It was in response to something posted by Jameson Courage, explaining why he(?) doesn't like narrative-style play, precisely because it breaks immersion.if immersion is one of your goals, better that the GM rules and the game moves on.
I never said that it makes the GM a bad one. In my previous post to this one (#370 upthread) I said thatit may be a "Fate Point" at your table; it is not so at all tables. And, if a DM chooses not to treat powers as "Fate Points", that does not making her a bad DM!
For some rulesets, it's just not true that the GM has the level of power over the game of being entitled to say "yes" or "no" to a player's call in respect of any of his/her PC's action. Now for some potential players, that might be a reason to avoid those rulesets, or to add such a rule into the way they play the game.
But I do think that treating powers in a non-Fate Point fashion is departing from the general orientation of the 4e rules. At least in my mind, the most coherent reading of the 4e rules is the Fate Point/"distributed narrative authority" reading. And I believe that this reading is supported by the designer sidebars in DMGs 1 and 2.
I agree there is a degree of tension. As I've posted in the past, the 4e rulebooks aren't entirely coherent. Some people think this is the inevitable consequence of trying to right a rulebook that will appeal to a wide spectrum of gamers. That may be so, although I tend to think that some of the incoherence also comes from a reluctance on the part of the writers to drop some of the conventions of earlier D&D editions in their presentation, even though those conventions don't really fit with the overall direction of 4e - ie my diagnosis tends to be one of overcautious conservatism on the part of the rules writers, rather than the necessity for them to maintain mass appeal (of course, the two are related to an extent).That contention seems in conflict with the bit you quoted about the DM being allowed to change the outcome of die rolls and interpret the rules. Indeed, it seems to be in conflict with any passage in the RAW which states that the DM can disallow a power if he feels it doesn't make sense.
All of that said, in my view the tension is not terribly great. For example, the treatment of powers as Fate Points doesn't mean the GM has no interpretation to undertake, because there is a lot to the game's action resolution mechanics besides powers - for example there are rituals, and also the interrelated devices of skill checks, skill challenges and page 42. All of these requires interpretation and adjudication by the GM, which the rules make amply clear.
But I'm curious as to which bits of text you have in mind when you talk about "passage
Well I wasn't such a person. I've never been coy in expressing my belief that 4e does change the role of the GM in certain aspects of action resolution, and even encounter design (the DC guidelines, for example), from traditional D&D. That's why I play it. (And the rules of previous versions of D&D in relation to these matters were one of the reasons why I didn't play them very much - this is especially true for 2nd ed AD&D.)Back when, when the complaint was that 4e removed quite a bit of DM power to run a game, these sections were pointed out vehemently by some of the same people wanting to minimize their impact now.
One interesting thing, which I've also commented on before, is that in some respects the tone of Essentials tends to hark back to those earlier approaches to the game. Upthread I posted the following extract from the Rules Compendium (page 9):
Referee: The DM decides how to apply the game rules and guides the story. If the rules don't cover a situation, the DM determines what to do. At times, the Dm might alter or even ignore the result of a die roll if doing so benefits the story.
The corresponding passage in the original 4e PHB (at page 8) reads:
Referee: When it’s not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules and adjudicate the story.
I regard the difference between these two passages as more than merely a difference of wording. I think that they state two different roles for the GM - in particular, the Essentials one is closer to 2nd ed AD&D/White Wolf-style versions of the GM's role and power to suspend the action resolution rules, although what is said is perhaps not quite as strong as some of those statements from other, earlier rulebooks.
Moreso than the changes in character building, which simply increase the range of options available, it is this change in the game's rules that makes me relatively unimpressed by Essentials. (It should also be noted that Essentials doesn't eleminate the incoherence. The statement I've quoted about the GM's power to suspend the action resolution mechanics for the sake of story, for example, doesn't fit at all well with the Rules Compendium's presentation of skill challenges, which makes fairly clear - especially via the example - that the whole point of a skill challenge is to turn a starting situation into a story via the application of the action resolution mechanics.)
4e also has elements like this, where the rules make it clear that the role of the GM is to adjudicate such matters in the way you describe.I don't play (and have never played) 4e, so I'm not sure how all the new kids are doing it, but back in my day (re: 30+ years ago), the DM was there to *adjudicate* situations. If he was lucky, it was a simple yes/no decisions. Alas, players (well, at least in my day) were a crafty bunch, and would find the most unusual ways to use a rope, a grappling hook, a block of cheese and a 7' ladder to open a stuck door...and in that case, it's not a yes/no decision. As a DM I was forced to think about the situation, then using my experience and expertise in the rules system come up with a likelihood of success.
But not all elements of 4e are like this. Some elements of 4e - the so-called "powers" - are things that a player can have his/her PC do. They are not unusual, or the result of crafty play. They are analogous to an AD&D PC making an attack or receiving a saving throw.
In the AD&D DMG Gygax writes that the PC is always entitled to a saving throw, even if the situation seems hopeless, not because it is realistic (within the fiction) but because the PC always has a chance of some last-minute luck or escape - a chance that is much higher in the mechanics than in the fiction. In my view, 4e powers make the most sense when read in this sort of way.
When an AD&D fighter chained to a rock with a shackled neck and eyes propped open by matchsticks nevertheless makes a save against the medusa's gaze, the rules don't encourage the GM to veto that save based on a sense of realism. They make it clear that the GM's role should be to narrate some last-second piece of luck - perhaps the shackle slipped or broke and the fighter managed to turn his or her head at the final instant.
Similarly, when a 4e fighter uses a power to knock a snake prone, the rules don't encourage the GM to veto that act based on a sense of realism. They make it at least tolerably clear that the GM's role should be to help the player narrate some lucky blow or trick or whatever that resulted in the snake being flipped or winded or otherwise in a worse position than it was.
In 4e, this will typically come up because the rules do cover it - namely, the PC in question has a power that lets him/her knock things prone (even snakes, which as per the rules don't have any general immunity to being knocked prone).with regards to knocking a snake prone, the DM's job wasn't just to veto player ideas "just because the rules don't cover it" or becaus the "rules don't say that".
So what we're talking about here, in relation to 4e, is not an action the rules don't cover, but rather the GM houseruling on the fly so as to prevent a player using a PC ability in a way that the rules, as written, fully contemplate and permit.
That could be one way to go, although I personally don't feel the attraction of it. Are snakes so underpowered that they need a special power of righting themselves that the rules as written don't grant them? Is verisimilitude so threatened by a snake, like every other monster, needing to spend a move action to right itself?In the case of the snake/prone thing, perhaps I'd let the PC 'knock the snake around' in such a way that it becomes somewhat disoriented, granting the 'prone' adjustments, but also rule that the snake doesn't have to take time to 'stand up' from a prone position, so as soon as the characters attack is over, the snake is back to normal.
My feeling is that this sort of "special case" approach to snakes is pushing against, rather than playing with, the key features of 4e as a ruleset. I can see why you might do it if there are some features of 4e you like (perhaps the generally slick monster and encounter design) but you don't like the non-simulationism. But add in enough of these sorts of special cases and you're perhaps starting to lose some of those other features too.
I can't XP Rel at the moment, but I agree entirely with this. That's why, in my view, talk about "the GM's role in adjudicating when the rules run out" or when players try tricky things, is quite inapposite when it comes to a discussion of a player's use of a PC power in 4e.Are we even talking about a 4e power that knocks a foe prone at this point? If the player has a power called, "Prone Punch" that says that they do unarmed attack damage AND knock the foe Prone then that doesn't mean the execution must be described as a punch.
If the player says, "I want to use Prone Punch on the snake." and your reply is, "I cannot envision a way to punch a snake in such a way as to make it prone." then that strikes me as rules lawyering the player by the GM. The player could justly respond, "Well I don't feel that my PC must punch the snake per se. Maybe I'll grab him and twist him, causing my normal Unarmed Attack damage and it'll take a moment for the snake to get itself untwisted and ready to attack, reflecting the Prone condition."