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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ST" data-source="post: 4864778" data-attributes="member: 14053">Prep is absolutely essential to play. It does inform and shape that play. I disagree that it is a part of play, specifically the play at the table. Hm, I think I see something, in 3.x the rules for play could be used as implied rules of prep. Whether the rules were actually strictly followed is not the issue, just that they could be. This makes sense, as 4e has rules for prep that are specifically not part of the rules of play. (Well, guidelines, few traditional games have concrete prep 'rules'.) I feel they work pretty well, specifically in that they offer advice for bridging stuff like "What is the in-world thing that these monsters are doing" to "How do these monsters behave in combat", although it's not extensive. Okay, so in my head I phrase it as a philosophical difference in how the prep phase of the campaign (which I'm not calling 'play', because there's only one person involved) is done. That makes sense. The two editions give very different GM advice on how to handle this phase, with 3.x expecting the GM to apply the rules effects to simulate the world, and 4e expecting the GM to apply the prep advice to create the scenario. Yeah, okay, put that way the huge difference in approach is obvious. My contention is that whichever approach a group uses for a campaign will work, and provide consistent, believable, and complex results -- if the group buys into the approach. So, yeah, if a GM personally feels that the 4e approach, or the 3.x approach, does not give him the tools he needs to build a world with proper vermillisitude, then it doesn't. It's not really up for debate, it really won't work for that group because they do not want to buy in to it. I'm just saying that is a very different thing from "It won't work, period."</blockquote>

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