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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ydars" data-source="post: 4596919" data-attributes="member: 62992">The problem with defining a "feel" as in "videogame feel", is that the person actually experiencing that feeling is not always aware of what particular set of stimuli has triggered that reaction. So defining it becomes a game of cat and mouse with your own unconscious. Add in twelve people on ENworld telling you, " you're wrong and you have the ingredients for a flame-war. Also, to those of you like TwinBahamat, who feel that the comment "too videogamey" is negative to video games, I would say this. Some computer RPG conventions are NOT appropriate for porting into PnP based RPGs. They are fine in a computer game but don't belong in some people's PnP games and here is why I think this is the case.  A computer game is essentially an audio-visual experience, it does not happen primarily in the imagination. This is why we can accept many conventions like complete healing after a short rest, daily powers, etc that bother many people about 4E. The audio-visual cues, in a CRPG, are stimulating enough that they allow us to get past any feelings of disbelief so that we are still immersed in the world/story. Essentially what we are seeing is overiding our own internal sense of the world and reinforcing the game world. In a PnP based game, the imagination is where the action happens for many people and in this type of game any "flag of disbelief" is much more serious. The pictures and feelings are being formed from cues in the unconscious mind so it can literally ruin the atmosphere if something doesn't "feel" right. You can't start logical arguments with your unconscious and so the feeling of the game becomes all important in a PnP RPG where vermisilitude has to be a vital component of the game. The disageements about 4E probably arise because, for many people, imagination is NOT where the D&D primarily happens for them. These kinds of people tend to be strategically or tactically involved in the game and love the combat most of all. They use battlegrids and view the whole game as about killing things and winning. Their imagination only happens in short flashes and then they are back to planning their next tactic. This style IMHO goes back to Gygax himself, as it seems to me that his games ran this way.  I like both types of games but feel that the true potential of PnP RPGs lies in the use of the imagination; after all, no computer yet has one.  So when I say D&D is becoming too video-gamey I mean that elements of the 4E mechanics, ported from video games for reasons of game balance or playability, are intruding into the narrative/storytelling aspect of the game and ruining my suspension of disbelief.</blockquote>

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