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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5771987" data-attributes="member: 42582">From my perspective, that has never been in doubt.I agree with this too. At least to me, 4e comes across as the most deliberately focused version of D&D, when the mechanics, the scenario/encounter design advice, the adjudication advice, etc are read together as a whole.As has come up on other threads, there were already signs of this in Essentials - not in its mechanics, which are straightforward updates and additions to 4e, but in some of it's advice, which (for example) framed the GM's authority in slightly more traditional terms.In the PHB, for example, at p 8, the GM is described as:Referee: When it's not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules and adjudicate the story.In the Rules Compendium, at p 9, the corresponding text on the GM's role says:Referee: The DM decides how to apply the game rules and guides the story. If the rules don't cover a situation, th DM determines what to do. At times, the DM might alter or even ignore the result of a die roll if doing so benefits the story.It will be interesting to see how 5e frames these sorts of issues, and how it tries to achieve inclusiveness. Judging from the tone of the Legends and Lore columns, I'm not expecting a clear framing of the various playstyles and the way that mechancs and GM adjudication can be adapted to produce them, but it may be that I'll be happily surprised!On a recent thread (I can't remember which one - maybe the "Do you love 4e thread" on the 4e board) someone suggsted that Essentials would be better as a single RC-style book - there is a huge amount of redundant text across the two HotF* books, the DM book and the Rules Compendium.That editing would cost money, though, which would detract from the 5e efforts. But Essentials seems to me at least to be a bit of a hopeless shambles in its current form (not from the mechanical point of view, but in its presentation).</blockquote>

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