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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 5478051" data-attributes="member: 957">You are just wrong here.  As I readily admit, it may take a great deal of exposure for a reader to catch on to the pattern, but given a large enough exposure it WOULD emerge.But that misses the point I was making.  The point is, the relevant audience is the players at the table.  And they ALREADY know.  So regardless of your argument about how easily you think a reader would catch on.  The players at the table have caught on before play begins.First, unless Heroquest is more popular than 4E and I just missed it, it is not meaningful to bring it up.  I don't dispute that games on this end of the spectrum exist.  Hell, I'm actively describing 4E that way.  Are you trying to bring me around to understanding that 4E exists?  Because, if you are, congratulations, you win.My point is not that they don't exist, but that they are demonstrably differentin way with more significance than you seem willing to accept.  And the sense that "this ain't Rome" comes from those significant differences.  (And variations in overall popularity does as well.)  But I certainly could not and would not argue these points if I didn't think they existed.  I'm afraid you wasted a chunk of typing on a wild goose chase.But, as a second point, you have still described a mathematical model.Certainly it is very different than 3E, but we already agree on that.I'm not familiar with the system, all I have to go by is what you posted.  But you have starting point A and an ending point Z and a lot of B, C, D,... in between.Certainly 3E takes the approach of calculating B1, B2, B3,... and then C1, C2, C3,... and on and on until Z is reached.As you describe this system it appears to be here is A, now we directly calculate Z.  Everything else in between is interprelated at the player's discretion.  So, there is little to no math on THAT part.  But it is still a mathematical model.  It is just way far out on the approximations and rules of thumb end of the spectrum.Interestingly, this sounds far better to me than 4E or your three jump cards systems because it seems to strongly describe a system in which the mechanics are submissive to the narrative.  Say a character needs to jump over a ten foot chasm.  In both HeroQuest, as I understand it from the above, and in 3E you simply look at the challenge and at the nature of the jumper.  It sounds like the nature of the jumper is more qualitative in HeroQuest, but it is still his nature that counts.  In the three jump cards system the first deciding factor is, does he have any jump cards left.  4E, in this particular example, is not too bad.  Certainly the process looks nearly exactly like 3E: D20 + bonus, compare to target.  But in 4E all 12th level characters, regardless of concept, with have a "math works" +6 bonus, and all 22nd level characters, regardless of concept have an arbitrary +11 "math works" bonus.  So instead of looking at the narrative nature of the character, 4E looks at the mechanics demands.  So it is less bad than jump cards, but still falls short of good.</blockquote>

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