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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6185185" data-attributes="member: 42582">CoDzilla isn't an outcome of d20 as such, though - it's an outcome of pre-d20 remnants (mostly AD&D spells and spell-by-level charts). I think those parts of 4e often criticised for "blandness" - AEDU, monster build rules, magic items etc - are more in the spirit of d20 than CoDzilla, as they further move away from the crazy AD&D lists and in the direction of technical consistency characteristic of d20.I think that 4e shows, in general terms, the limits of taking d20 in a more story/narrativist direction - how can that be done, whilst staying true to the technical fiddliness of the underlying engine. Reading 13th Age, I think it relies more on non-d20 elements (eg OUT, icons) to achieve that goal - though the escalation die is an interesting technical device for injecting pacing into d20.I can't comment on 3E, but I don't think this is an entirely fair contrast for 4e.In MHRP, genre/character constraints on framing are in place - so permissible declarations are limited by those considerations. But with XP gain, and adding new powers or specialties, that can change.In 4e, the parameters of the fiction change with level-up - things become more gonzo - but the constraints at lower-level are in my view better seen as occupying the same space as genre constraints in a free-descriptor game like HeroWars/Quest or MHRP, than as occupying the "permissions" space that they would in a rules-tight version of AD&D.Agreed. Every PC is at roughly the same degree of "gonzo-osity". I think that as long as you have non-abstract resolution (in d20, I'm thinking of combat) you can't achieve rough balance of effectiveness across players while allowing variations of gonzo-osity across PCs.Overall, I would say that the issues you see in d20 are some of the reasons that 3E doesn't appeal to me, but I think I see a much bigger difference between 3E and 4e than you do - similar fiddly techniques, but deployed to quite different ends.</blockquote>

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