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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 3759056" data-attributes="member: 30001">You might be right.  I think you're summary of the thread thus far was interesting and it did a good job of capturing my thoughts, at least.That's a shame.  The reason I don't play monopoly, chess, or WoW is because I prefer the sense of versimilitude.  If it devolves into a series of superficial encounters I'm not sure what RPGs would have to offer.  Someone on this board told me recently (and emphatically) that the "status quo" style of adventure was discussed in the 3E DMG and discussed an adventure that was designed according to what I've been calling versimilitude.  Why would that be there if it was Monte's design goal to exclude it.  Do you have a link where he's quoted on this topic?I have two problems with this.  One is that IMO it's not actually true of people trained to handle dangerous situations.  Experience adventurers who have survived numerous conflict are probably no longer operating at a level of impetuousness as does a noob.The second problem is that people in stories have feelings, but their actions are infrequently irrational.  A novel is able to capture the thoughts and subtleties, but the game happens at a higher level.  The way we play, people don't sit around and talk about how their character feels about stuff, it's usually just a series of actions, and ultimately you can gain insight into how the character feels by what they try to accomplish goal-wise.  The suggestion (and I've seen it several times from folks advocating this 4E style) is that somehow players put aside rationality and start acting according to extreme personality stereotypes.  This would be an uncomfortable thing for me to do in my games because my players know that an adventure could kill them.  Honestly, I'm not sure that really applies to a good percentage of other people's games.Possibly.  Gygax was a wargamer.  War has a tendency to be treated as a science by folks (Sun Tzu and all of that).  Most field manuals on war don't advise you to tap into your "heroic passions" for anything.  Ultimately I guess this is a cultural thing.  This, literally, is the opposite of open-ended.  Perhaps the expression is unfamiliar.I think popular music is a close analogy.  Genre's evolve over time because the herd of folks generally unfamiliar and uninterested in music will listen to a watered-down, refined version of music that was developed in a more creative mode by folks with taste.  Sure, the numbers and sales figures will tell you you're being successful when the huge herd is in to what you're doing.  But the strange thing is that the herd tends to follow the experienced people, and when you lose the experienced people (which happens every decade or so), you're not going to keep the herd for long.Why is it interesting?  Part of the assumption that the 4E style of play makes is that adversity=un-fun.  Given that the outcomes are pre-determined, and there's a shrinking list of strategically interesting options for the game, it's just a matter of time IMO before players realize their on a story-telling treadmill.  IMO this is only successful in the short-run because story-telling games rely on a spirit of the game established by wargamers - the only reason people think they can die in such games is because they read something about Gygax's game which described someone dying.  Sooner or later they'll catch on, and the story-telling game will have to sink or swim on it's own merits and not because it diguises itself as the type of game with variable outcomes.Hey!  That's a 30 year long nightmare called "Dungeons and Dragons" AFAICT.</blockquote>

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