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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Incenjucar" data-source="post: 6256264" data-attributes="member: 6182">Engagement is neither of those things, but who is engaged by what varies by individual and context. But certain things have a long history of being engaging for a large portion of the species (and, indeed, animals too). Surprises and mysteries are universally appealing, albeit in different doses and contents for different people.It can actually be observed and measured, so I don't see why that's so. It's true that people respond differently, so there's no one right way just as there is no badwrongfun.The fluff and crunch were never very firmly attached, and "I have a Fireball spell" is not significantly different from "I have a spell that creates a ball of fire" except for nostalgia, which irritates as many as it endears. Having most of the old tricks of the old days is fine, and having spells that create those effects is fine, but making spells the source of effects rather than universal descriptions which are produced by those spells just makes things clumsy and unwieldy.I don't think that every magic-using monster needs to be a spellcaster. A demon summoning up a ball of fire shouldn't be casting Fireball unless they are ALSO a wizard or whatever. A demon summoning a ball of fire should be summoning a ball of fire in a way that a demon would. It's like if every punch to the face has to be using a monk ability. And, frankly, the lore of the game doesn't explain it all. People are used to it, but it doesn't make any freaking sense with the actual story material in the game. I can't speak much on earlier versions of the games, but 2E and 3E did not have an explanation for why monsters were born with powers that happened to exactly replicate spells. Now if D&D wizards were said to be running around ripping off natural magic instead of inventing their own, that would be one thing, but that's not part of the core lore.You're better than hyperbole. I'm 100% for the idea of different damage types having their own explicit effects, but even without those "Fire" still means something to the trolls. Moreover, damage spells usually have a rider effect or other special trait that makes them unique beyond the damage. There's nothing special about Fireball that makes it more interesting than a 2d6 30' sphere or a 10d8 10' sphere. Throwing bat poop just isn't that interesting.While it's true that WotC's skill with words is often dubious, you can fit an interesting power into a short space if you have a decent enough codified and consistent system and people don't try to explain what fire does in the ability itself.Now, it's true that someone may want to make a monster with a couple dozen old school two-page-long spells, but as it happens, 4E actually gave you advice (like, several pages) on giving monsters PC powers, so that's never gone away if you really want to do it that way specifically when it's the only good way.</blockquote>

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