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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5774982" data-attributes="member: 2011">Everyone's ideas are different in this regard. I do think that a game system that has simple rules that handle 95% of combat situations is better than a freeform system where the DM changes his mind from week to week. A system with decent rules where too much on the fly modifiers do not have to be used is, to me, what I consider a mature system.4E falls apart in some areas. Specifically, having too many conditions and effects with too many differing durations, and too much bookkeeping to keep track of all of this. It also has too many options for many players to handle. Sure, when it's 2 At Wills, 1 Encounter, and 1 Daily at first level, it's pretty darn simple. But by 21st level when the player has at least a dozen and possibly more options, it starts getting daunting. Finally, it has no meta-rules for power, item, and feat creation balance, hence, the designers did what was cool as opposed to what was cool and balanced and pertinent to a given power source. That is why some powers suck and others are errata-ed.I'm a firm believer in not giving the DM the power to do whims in combat though. I'm not playing LARP. I prefer solid rules. With regard to adding more story into combat, I personally don't see the need for the game system to do this. The narrative portion of that can be handled by the DM and players to whatever level they wish without changing rules or adding a bunch of free form modifiers on the fly. Imagination can be handled in the game without resorting to yanking out the game elements that allow a player to intimately understand the situation as if he were there (which miniatures and squares give players).One way to get past your issue of counting squares (which I too dislike) is to prevent players from counting squares. Move the PC along the path that the PC is moving. If you've moved too far to still get in a standard action, I'll let you know as DM. Kind of like the touch rule in chess. You cannot take your miniature back to the starting square and start your move over, just because you picked a poor path. As a player, you can be alert enough to not make a mistake, but I guarantee that mistakes happen in all games. Oh well. Players, especially in 4E, have a birds eye view of the situation, so they already have an advantage over discriptive forms of combat without miniatures.I really don't want to go back to the days when the DM described the situation and 3 different players had 3 different ideas about what the DM just said, and the 4th guy who was drinking his Coke never heard the DM at all. Some people are more visually capable than audibly capable. Miniatures and squares and colorful images of an area give a much greater visual "in character" feel than all of the verbal description did for many decades. And online tools can make that even better. If I can see a bed on the board, I don't need the DM wasting time describing it as a bed. He can spend his time describing what's on the bed instead. The generalities are in front of me and the DM is describing unique specific things. I also know that the bed is within 5 feet of my PC, I don't need the DM asking me why I am doing a given action because I am 30 feet from the bed in his mind, but right next to the bed in my mind like the old days.Sometimes, the good old days weren't that good. There were pros and cons then, there are pros and cons now.</blockquote>

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