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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 2115905" data-attributes="member: 10201">Maybe my position is misunderstood: I'm claiming that changes to setting are not wholly independent of changes to rules, and vice versa. The only argument that counters that is one wherein there are no exceptions. Conceding an exception supports my argument. I never claimed that there is an exact one-to-one correspondence between the rules and the setting, or that you could never change one without changing the other. I apologize if my wording was ambiguous on this matter. My point is that there is a relationship between the "fluff" and "crunch", in that one defines the other (which defines which becomes a chicken-and-egg problem, since while the setting may be defined by the rules, the rules are generally designed to model the setting). So, i didn't miss the "minor" and "although"--because they're irrelevant to my point. Minor or major doesn't matter, exception or general rule doesn't matter. The point is that there is *some* relationship between the physics of the fictional world and the game mechanics, as evidenced by the fact that you cannot always change the latter without changing the former, and vice versa.To use an example from this thread, you can describe decreasing hit points of a foe in any number of ways with no mechanical changes, because that is an element that the rules do not explicitly define. But at some point, you have to change one when you change the other, or suffer some serious dissonance. To use a fairly ridiculous example: if you changed the description of elves to be "10-12 feet tall, heavyset and powerfully-muscled, though clumsy, and with rolls of fat and grotesque, afflicted skin" but made no changes to the rules (i.e., still defined them as Medium (the same size as a 6' human), with the existing ability score adjustments, etc.), most would think a mistake had been made.</blockquote>

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