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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 3760373" data-attributes="member: 30001">But I was assuming that only the tactical issues are of relevance here.  Who you choose to kill is possibly an emotional issue, but *how* you choose to do it is probably based on a more rational assessment of the situation (or at least it is if you want to live).  The dueling culture operated according to a formal set of rules so largely passions had little or nothing to do with how such things resolved themselves tactically.In any case, a move to encounter-level resources AFAICT has no bearing on how easy emotional issues are to interject into DnD.  This came up because someone (I think) claimed that emotional issues could help replace the dimension of interest lost when you lose the operational/resource dimension from DnD combat.The only think I would think that would be a counter example would be cultural inertia - "we've been wearing platemail and using swords, and it's cowardly to not wear armor and use guns" sort of thing.  However, those sorts of decisions were complicated by the fact that IRL no one can read a "manual".  In comparison, players of DnD are very well educated about the effectiveness of various weapons and tactics and it's hard for me to imagine that they can put aside that knowledge for the sake of roleplaying.  Or that they should in order to make a certain set of rules viable (which is a debateable point, granted).Perhaps, but if folks are going to argue for a magic system that emulates literature, here I would equally argue for an operational approach that emulates literature.  It would require an excessively detailed analysis to establish this, but I would argue that characters like Conan and Aragorn, while they have personality and emotional issues, those issues are not a significant factor in their tactical approach to combat.  They still use optimal weapons and tactics available.Well, I don't want to quibble about the metaphor, but open-endedness is talking about the ends, and therefore having a number of ways you can reach a pre-determined conclusion is not open ended by virtue of the existence of the pre-determined conclusion.(IMO it's also a very controversial thing to say that a typical 1E module is linear, I (and other folks) strongly believe this actually the opposite of the truth and that lack of linearity is a distinguishing characteristic of old-school modules, but I guess that's a tangent.  - I can't believe you said that though, I'll stop hyperventilating  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )Outcome of what?  Some of this I just don't get at all.  Other stuff, like the use of "open-endedness" I suspect we have significant differences of definition.  Finally, I'm not sure why a the resource management aspect of DnD is getting in the way of folks' exploration of themes.  All aspect of the game have the potential of getting in way of themes - story-telling and the use of dice to randomly determine outcomes are in direct opposition to one another - though they can be managed and blended. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Yea, there's always 5E to render any of these other considerations a moot point.  One thing though, I don't know what you mean by "thematic exploration" - perhaps that's something that's worth another thread to define.  I suspect it has to do with a kind of story-telling style that doesn't suit my gaming style, but other than the vocabulary I have nothing to base that on.  In any case, I think I'd rather see a story telling game, than what I think 4E might turn into, which I think is more along the lines of the "playing my guy" thing you talk about.Well that's really useful because some of us are scratching our heads thinking "what in the heck are they thinking" so it's helpful and brave of you (and the others) to try to make sense of this, even if it's not exactly your fight.Ok, I'll check it out.Change to what?  To storytelling?  IMO 3E actually was a reverse direction from the 2E culture.  It put dungeon crawling, action, and hack-and-slash back into the mix with a degree of respect that was missing in 2E.  There are so many moving parts to this picture that I guess you could make all sorts of generalizations - but I'm pretty sure that the 3E DMG describes the "kick down the door" style of adventuring as one of the core, supported styles.  In fact, I don't think anything really changed with 3E concept wise - mostly it was a change in the tactical aspects of combat and the detail level of character building."Moved on" ?!   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />   I think the world is still the same inanimate pile of minerals that it always has been.  That there is a vocal, aggressive, and influential (and possibly numerous) group of people that don't think like I do doesn't particularly concern me.  I got used to it when country music was popular, I'm sure I'll survive this.However, I don't think this encounter-level resource issue really serves the roleplayer-storytellers very well either.  I don't think their needs and those of the wargamers are necessarily in opposition, and as you point out (I think IIRC), the eventually design of 4E might suit neither one of us properly.So I don't see how removing the operational aspects from the game improve the story telling aspects.  And I don't see that as part of Wyatt's core thesis.  It doesn't hurt the story to say "you guys got really beat up today and you'll have to spend the day healing and recovering in order to continue"  It's not necessarily contrary to a plot-driven game to have pseudo-realistic consequences for getting hit in the head with an axe over and over.The type of gaming IMO that the operational stuff interfers with is *not* plot-driven story-telling - it's hyper-accelerated hack and slash gaming of the type I see in the descriptions of World of Warcraft.  I don't think anyone would argue that World of Warcraft is an optimal story-telling vehicle.  And making the game more like WoW IMO is going to make it hard for the hobby to survive because it doesn't play to the strengths of what RPGs have to offer - the WoW engine and system does what it sets out to do extremely well.  It's like this:  I say pick the right tool for the job - and a paper-and-pencil, human-moderated RPG is not the right tool for a WoW style adventure game.</blockquote>

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