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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8623727" data-attributes="member: 42582">4e also illustrates the possibility, that Edwards talked about and that I mentioned upthread, of convergence of gamist/step-on-up and narrativist/story-now in respect of techniques.The same things that you point to about 4e - encounter-based play, balance across PC build options, letting go the simulationist trappings - are what made it a vehicle for light/low-stakes narrativist play that has often been talked about on these boards. Like Burning Wheel and HeroWars/Quest and Maelstrom Storytelling - all unequivocally narrativist RPGs - it is scene-based. Because PCs are balanced, the GM does not have to curate the action to make the game work, so everyone can play to find out. PCs can use their cool abilities not just to "win" in a gamist sense but to express their protagonism. And the setting is cleaned up into its best version of itself, with all the thematic conflict but no predetermined answers that will support a setting-oriented (rather than character-oriented) story now agenda.Naturally those who value the proximity of "traditional" D&D to the thin line between gamism and PCs-face-problems/challenges-simulationism  went ape! Because 4e D&D is nowhere near that line.Here is something I posted back in Feb 2011, in a thread about why 4e was not so popular:</blockquote>