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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6320321" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't dissent from the bulk of your post, but I did want to respond to this.I'm not baffled. I spent nearly 20 years GMing Rolemaster, and have played and GMed plenty of Runequest and Classic Traveller too. I understand the pleasures of a simulationist rule system. My contention is simply that a simulationist system is not a necessary condition of a consistent gameworld.The 4e gameworld - the 4e default setting as presented in the books for that system - is in fact one of the most consistent ever developed for D&D, with a coherent conception of its cosmology, mythic history, and so on. The monster books (mostly) fit smoothly into the setting and backstory.But the consistency is achieved via free-text description of things; not via mechanical modelling. In this respect 4e uses methods that are more like authorship and less like wargaming.What is an example of an inconsistency in the gameworld that results from the 4e approach? Or of things being more work?A creature doesn't have stats when its by itself. It has a narrative description (eg powerful enemy even for paragon heroes; able to cause fear with but a glance; etc) from which outcomes can be inferred. The game does not expect the GM to deploy its action resolution mechanics to determine what happens when no player has declared an action.Given that the outcomes "figuring it out long hand" is random (within a fairly wide parameter of possible results) free narration is not going to cause any difficulties for a GM who has a firm grasp of those narrative descriptions.Whether or not one likes this technique (a matter of preference), it is not a source of inconsistency in the gameworld.</blockquote>

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