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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cbas_10" data-source="post: 4017345" data-attributes="member: 55767">If 4E forces any of us into a particular style of playing as much as this statement seems to look down at any particular player's individual desire for gaming how they want...then 4E will really be a dog of a boring game.  Let's put all these lables (simulationist, gamist, blah blah blah) aside for a bit.  Who needs 'em?We all have various types of imaginations and different threshholds for suspension of disbelief.  Even among groups of friends who have been gaming together for ten years or more, we have various feelings and opinions about what is cool, lame, interesting, or "too out-there to give a crap about."  Granted, in a solid group of players, we tend to either have more similar feelings than others....or we are tolerant and more willing to comprimise.  But when we get out of our play groups and see others, talk to others, and even experience others' role-playing games, it is a simple fact of life that different games will be very different experiences.  Much like there are vast differences betweed reading Tolkien, Jordan, and Wies&Hickman.  We are not playing Monopoly or Chess, here.  Certain rules exist in D&D in order to create a "level playing field," while others exist to facilitate a new player's experience, while even other rules exist as optional uses in order to facilitate the telling of a story.  In the end, the "rules" of 3.x were malleable enough to support a great number of gaming styles and preferences (yes....some things needed to be fixed....not jumping into an argument about that).  THAT is the number-one reason that I enjoy 3.x and am hesitant about 4E until I can actually see the finished product.I don't want any person, group, or game company to tell me how to play or to try to limit my options with how I want to run my game.  I want to find and buy the game that is the best balance between Point One: Provided/printed gaming ideas for me to spawn my ideas from ...and... Point Two: Customization of the game itself for my purposes of telling a story vs. staying with a consistent set of rules that is fair to players (players should be surprised by plot twists...not wierdo houserules they were not told about).Take the Exalted game as an example.  Great game, written well....but the anime influence is far too entwined in the game for my tastes.  I don't like anime, so I tried to look at the game and remove the anime influence and feel from it (since I liked other aspects of the game's system and certain bits of character types).  It did not work out.  It was far too much work to remove the elements that I did not want.  With D&D 3.x, however, it was far easier to customize things to work how I felt the most comfortable and enjoyed the most.  Various settings to choose from, a number of classes that still allowed for player choice if a handful were excluded, and more.  In the end, D&D was D&D in my game.....but it was greatly personalized and uniquely "ours" with only 2 pages of houserules and setting exceptions.  Very little work on the structure of the game allowed us to spend a lot more time on the storyline, the action, the characterization, and other bits of fun.So, if 4E strives to "stomp out" simulationism by formatting the game in a manner that makes it difficult or time consuming to customize or personalize....that will be thier mistake - not my loss.</blockquote>

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