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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6581422" data-attributes="member: 82106">I'm not sure what 'nothing but GM fiat' is in this case. 4e has a perfectly well-articulated set of resource management rules. Admittedly it eschews some of the more traditional resource categories, or at least doesn't emphasize them, but I don't see it as being inferior in that sense to AD&D, which tried to have many resource games and yet they were still in some sense subject to the GM. 4e seems to measure time, when it bothers, in dramatic terms and plot terms, but it can do it. It certainly manages HS/HP/AP/DS/Power Use as well as any system. So, maybe we represent a continuum. I believe in the use of tools which foster drama, like the use of an SC to bring a time restriction into an objectified mechanical domain, and some degree of 'framing', to the extent that the situation of the characters is pregnant with opportunities for them to formulate their character's dramatic needs. The narrative will then be built around those. However, I feel that part of the tension also arises from matching the player's resource management and strategic thinking skills against the situation at hand. So that situation does need to be in some degree 'objectified'. That is it needs to be spelled out such that the players understand the task at hand and can make these strategic and logistical choices. Sometimes they may also choose to gamble, but it should be an interesting choice. I can easily accomplish all of this in 4e, and I don't agree with LS, JC, or Saelorn when they insist on what I consider unattainable objective adjudication of every detail of the game world. I'd much rather those details would often be open to arbitration. It may mean that at times the people at the table subvert the resource game, but so what? It will always go on. We don't really play with only one narrow specific agenda.So in fact I may often emphasize different things in different parts of the game. A trek across the Great Desert might be a hard resource test, but the intrigue in the Sultan's Palace is probably pretty much going to be "I'm throwing monkey wrenches at you, have fun catching them!", etc.</blockquote>

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