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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3823409" data-attributes="member: 42582">Actually, I used the following paraphrase, in post <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3788416&postcount=1103" target="_blank">#1103</a>:For whatever reason, you do not accept that mechanical interest can result from the dynamic unfolding of an encounter, in any round of which the players do not know whether or not it will result in resource-attrition, if in the end it does not result in such attrition.Furthermore, despite your protests, I don't feel this paraphrase to be significantly inaccurate. You may quibble over the fact that there is no reference to "win/lose" in my passage. But (as Jackelope King has pointed out) you had earlier <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3766437&postcount=698" target="_blank">defined "mechanical significance in the following manner:</a>It is basically my argument that, if you can have any number of encounters X, and at the end of those encounters you are at 80% resources, then an encounter that leaves you at 80% resources without a significant chance of loss of permanent resources falls below the mechanical threshold of significance.And, in your earlier <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3759744&postcount=502" target="_blank">definitive presentation</a> of your argument you suggested that character death, the paradigmatic form of loss, consitutes a type of resource attrition.You may also quibble over my lack of reference, in my paraphrase, to "significant chances". This notion does not appear in your <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3759744&postcount=502" target="_blank">definitive presentation</a>, but does appear in your later <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3766437&postcount=698" target="_blank">basic summary</a>.I have thrashed this out in detail with gizmo33, but in summary, I think there is a very important distinction between encounters which pose a significant chance of loss because of the probabilities, and those which (if played well by the players) present no such chance. The latter sort of encounter can be mechanically interesting although (because the players play it well) it presents no significant chance of loss.I tried to summarise this notion in the following ways:At post <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3770294&postcount=874" target="_blank">#874</a>:*We can suppose that the threat of mechanical significance (in your sense of that phrase) is present in encounters. "Threat" here is not equivalent to "significant chance" - it signals that such a chance may arise, but only if the encounter is played poorly.At post <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3786841&postcount=1100" target="_blank">#1100</a>: *It is true that, once the fight is over, if per-day resouces were used it does not matter in which round they were used. Likewise, once the fight is over, if they were not used it does not matter in which rounds their use was or was not contemplated by the players. But the interest of an encounter is not something which is determined by reflection on it after it is over. It is something which unfolds within the very encounter itself - and during the encounter (i) the players do not know whether or not their per-day resources will end up being consumed or not and (ii) are able to determine whether or not they will be through their own mechanically interesting choices. In response to this latter post, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3792527&postcount=1107" target="_blank">you stated that</a>:*This is a win/lose situation. The players know they might win; they know they might lose. They do not know which it is going to be.You have given no reason for me to retract <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3793426&postcount=1118" target="_blank">my characterisation of this</a> as an inference from "because the players do not know, at time T, whether or not they will win or lose, it is therefore (objectively) a win/lose situation."You <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3793800&postcount=1122" target="_blank">denied that you drew such an inference</a>. However, I have no alternative but to interpret it as an inference, because the situation I described was one in which the players do not know whether or not their per-day resources will end up being consumed or not, and it can only be from this description that you drew the inference that the encounter, as described, was a win/lose situation.Does "outside the bounds" mean "counterexample"?I take it that this means you accept his counterexample, but regard it as having only limited applicability.I have several times put forward a model, and examples, of mechanical significance which differ from that Shilsen described. In particular, these examples:*Can operate within the paradigm of a game with per-day resources; *Do not depend upon resource attrition; *Are not "win/lose" scenarios.Assuming that these examples are plausible, they are therefore counter-examples to your position.As I noted above, you asserted that these examples are, in fact, win/lose examples. It therefore seems to me that the crucial quesiton for this thread is this:*Is it possible to have a mechanical frawework in which the probabilities of an encounter unfold dynamically, in response to the choices that players make about their use of PC abilities, such that (if the choices are made well) the encounter is an easy one for the PCs?I think the answer to this question is "yes". A good part of my reason for this is that I GM such a game (namely, RM) which involves a mix of per-day resources (spell points) and per-encounter resources (sustained adrenal moves) and round-by-round decisions about deployment of at-will resources (attack vs parry).I think that those who take the answer to be "no" are confusing difficult for the players with difficult for the PCs. In a purely simulationist set of mechanics, the two are of course the same. But 4e will not have a simulationist set of mechanics. We could summarise this non-simulationism thus:*Adversity for the PC need not be adversity for the player; *A challenge for the player need not be a challenge for the PC.</blockquote>

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