This thread is apt to show edition-specific divisions, because our modes of thought about what makes good or bad gaming have been framed by the edition differences.
Or because we play one edition instead of another because we can do more fun things in it?
Yeah, I know, that sounds crazy. Everybody knows game system choices stem from fundamental moral failings and corporate brainwashing.
Settings that read like they came out of myths and stories. I actually don't think I've ever encountered this one, but it's a dream of mine.
It's funny you should mention that. I have a player who can basically freestyle settings. I have no idea how he does it, but he's great at it. He came up with a convincing story for as near to a minmaxed death machine as he could come up with - a bugbear ranger with twin frost scimitars, Wintertouched, Lasting Cold, Scimitar Dance and the Storm Warden prestige path. His village is suffering from a terrible drought, so he is out questing in pursuit of the myth "Strong Legs Tames The Storm", which for you Glorantha people is exactly what you think it is.
So every so often I will run one complete sidesession combat which is him and the other players reenacting a scene from the myth in the spirit world. I asked everybody a couple of questions at character generation including "what is your character's favorite animal?", so he turns into Strong Legs and everybody else turns into their "spirit animal" forms. The paladin is an otter in platemail brandishing a giant rock on a stick, the warlord is a giant owl, the cleric is an unassuming deer whom every animal in the world is pledged to protect, the wizard is a hawk surrounded by perpetual winter, and the starlock is a space dolphin.
The one fight I've run so far was the story of how Strong Legs tamed Storm's hunting-wolf, Lightning, when for sport it was flushing the Six Prey and, when Strong Legs and his companions killed them, was impressed and decided to follow him. Though I described it in those terms, it was mechanically identical to the ordinary characters fighting six heavy warhorses that just trampled them repeatedly with a hazard representing Lightning, who bites anyone who looks at him. Basically I locked everyone "facing north" at the start of combat, and if you use a move action to move other than shift or teleport (both of which let you pivot), or attack in a direction you're not facing, you're assumed to have met Lightning's gaze, and he jumps you, +4 vs. Reflex, 2d4+1 lightning damage. (Or something along those lines, I haven't got my notes on me.)
But yeah, we all took a break from the normal run and talked in the third person past-tense instead of first person present-tense, and turned all the attack powers into hyper mythic equivalents, so
freezing cloud was basically Fimbulwinter and
burning hands from the starlock's wand was a giant meteor strike.
I don't think I could run an entire campaign along those lines, because it requires a certain improv-friendly mood, but it was a fun sidesession.
