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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5404917" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think page 42 has anything in common with rule 0.I agree that good games don't have a rule 0 - if the rules work, there is no need to suspend them. (The issue of the GM having permission to include/exclude certain particular game elements, like certain PC races, is mostly orthogonal to this - it becomes more prominent in D&D than other games because of D&D's huge laundry list of possible game elements.)Page 42, on the other hand, is not a permission to the GM to suspend the rules of the game. Rather, it is precisely a version of the sort of abstract action resolution system that one has in modern games. Also, particular features of it - like DCs for different difficulties, and a range of damage expressions that may be chosen from - are 4e's version of the pass/fail cycle from HeroQuest.So far from distinguishing 4e from modern games, page 42 makes 4e an example, or close to, of such a game. (The most obvious thing that's missing is a version of Burning Wheel's "Let it Ride" rule - which means that in 4e it's always a bit ambiguous how much "check mongering" by players or GMs is permitted. I treat skill challenges as the canonical alternative to check mongering, but the rules could be better on this.)</blockquote>