NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5477964" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't know what this means. The fun for me in playing 4e comes from participating in creating a story of heroic fantasy adventure with strongly (and growing) mythic overtones. The system is a means to this end.You assert this as if it is self-evidently true. When in fact I can name a number of influential RPGs the systems of which are not mathematical models of anything: HeroWars/Quest, The Dying Earth, Maelstrom Storytelling, Nicotine Girls.Not to mention The Shaman's encounter tables, which aren't models of anything, but rather techniques for injecting genre-appropriate coincidences into the game.No. At most, they might realise that no character does ever jump more than three times per day. You would need to know a lot more than that to actually make an inference to the physics of the world - assuming that wondering about the physics of the world was even a salient issue! - which for those playing a non-exploration based game it probably is not!Here is somf of what the HeroQuest 2nd ed rulebook has to say about the relationship between physics of the gameworld and the action resolution mechanics:Pages 7-8 In a traditional, simulative game, you'd determine how hard [an action] is based on the physical constraints you've described [as obtaining in the fictional situation] . . . In HeroQuest, you start not with the physical details, but with the proposed action's position in the storyline. Page 36 Your resolution point score tells you how well you're doing [in an extended contest], relative to your opponent . . . However, the exact physical harm you've dished out to him [in a combat resolved via extended contest] remains unclear until the contest's end. . . In interpreting the results . . . (1) No consequence is certain until the entire extended contest is over [and] (2) When a character scores points, it can reflect any positive change in fortunes, not just the most obvious one. Page 74 The process of deciding whether a proposed outcome is possible is called a credibility test. . . As Narrator, you are never obliged to allow a contest just because two characer's  have abilities the can be brought into conflict. If the character's proposed result would seem absurd, you disallow the contest, period. . . Players are typically as attuned to common sense narrative realit as you are, and wil not routinely propose patently absurd actions. You'll find that they do almost all of your credibility testing for you. [This if followed by a discussion of varying thresholds of credibility across settings and genres.]This is a RPG sytsem that is not a mathematical model.</blockquote>

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