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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6567103" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah, we are just VERY different, and I think your variety of game preference is pretty idiosyncratic. I've gamed with people who similarly had very unusual tastes and game culture. Usually, like you, they end creating a whole system that only works for them. Its cool, and maybe there are aspects of it that are more generally interesting. However, I think the success of a group like yours depends heavily on the fortune of finding a core group of players that your style suits very well. I don't think it happens too often. One could argue that the original D&D system and Gygax is an example of the same thing, except applied to wargaming. The whole RPG concept was of course potent enough to break out into a bigger mainstream thing and escape the constraints of its originator. Sadly for us latter day GMs we play in a smaller arena! In any case I think the very empowerment of 4e is the total transparency coupled with a simple generalized system that lacks over-specificity. That allows the players to look at the fiction and, without many constraints, imagine how their character's mechanics can be applied through some narrative to that fictional situation. If there were a vast number of detailed procedures and checks specified for every conceivable thing, then each character would be very tightly bound in terms of which things he or she could do or not do, and it would tend to be quite difficult to color outside the lines. Well, there are plenty of game engines which work this way. I agree, you could reconstruct 4e, or something like 4e, as a story-telling kind of system with each player given some sort of plot power resource that was used to invoke powers, take extra actions, raise the stakes on checks by modifying the fiction, etc. This is all quite doable. Honestly I suspect Pemerton is going to say "Yeah, BW does a lot of that", and it probably does (I've only played one game that used a BW-derived rule set and only very briefly, so I'm a bit unschooled on the details of it). However, what I've found is that the common player in most games has a hard time absorbing the full story telling kind of player-driven plot thing. I ran and played some DW, another game where players don't exactly control the fiction but they use it to actively drive things forward, and its hard as heck for 50% of the people I got at those tables to absorb that. In my own 4e-hack there are 'Vitality Points' (maybe they should get a new name) that serve as both HS, AP, and general plot coupons (they can recharge certain powers for instance, if I keep elaborating the system I'll probably make a longer list of things players can specifically do with them). However, its still at its core a pretty standard D&D-like classic RPG. The more stodgy players I have can play it a lot like 4e with a few rough edges ground down, and the more adventurous can color outside the lines if they wish.Anyway, the upshot is that we have a bit different ideas about player empowerment. IMHO your approach wouldn't work for most tables. I think in particular that more casual or less rules engaged players wouldn't find it approachable enough to work for them, but its hard to say. Maybe someone will publish a game along the lines you seem to be suggesting and we'll find out.</blockquote>

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