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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6241546" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think there is more in the "quest" discussions than you are allowing for here, but I still generally agree with you. My reading and play of 4e is heavily influenced by World & Monsters, which was the first 4e book I read, in my view one of the best GM-side books that has ever been produced for D&D, and which deals much more with the "story" (and how mechanics feed into story) rather than the tactical side of constructing encounters.I certainly agree that 4e is narrativistically light. I think it's an impediment in the Forge discussion of narrativism that it defaults to a presentation of narrativism as heavy and thematically avant-garde. (Though Edwards correctly recognises that The Dying Earth supports narrativist play, though it is clearly much more light-hearted and superficial than, say, My Life With Master.)I was reading colour as "mere colour". If the colour feeds into the resolution - either by interfacing with the mechanics, and/or by shaping the narration of the consequences of success/failure - then I agree with you.I don't disagree with that at all. But this is true - perhaps truer - for 3E. My disagreement is that 4e is specially suited for gamist play. I therefore think I'm agreeing with those who mock 4e for being D&D with "boffer swords" (is the the right terminology?) or feather dusters.I think that would be similar to HeroQuest revised, and also Marvel Heroic RP.Iosue, an interesting idea.I don't think it can be disputed that 4e is "rules heavy" and, to that extent therefore, not for the faint-hearted or casual!But nothing I've read or heard about 3E/PF makes me think it's different in that respect.D&Dnext, as per recent playtests, I don't have a firm opinion on.In 1st ed AD&D they are in Oriental Adventures (but not linked to stats) then in the two Survival Guides (in the same stat-check form as in 2nd ed). But there were not Diplomacy or Bluff or Intimidate skills to be used in the 3E or 4e sense. (See [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] above for a discussion of the Etiquette proficiency which gels with my experience.)Relating this back to the balance theme - in my personal experience one significant obstacle to deep immersion that is active rather than passive is when a player who is unfamiliar with the mechanics and expected resolution dynamics of a system declares an action based on an estimation of the colour of his/her PC, and then discovers that it doesn't work.I remember this in the one extended 2nd ed AD&D campaign I played. We were using Skills & Powers with rolling for stats, and I had a good set of stats and built a rather twinked-out cleric who had fighter hit dice and STR. Another player, who was new to D&D, built a swashbuckling fighter (and here's a shout-out to [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION]). (Both PCs were 1st level.)In our first encounter, which was a combat encounter, the other player struggled to take out one enemy combatant while I, with my cleric, took out 3 or 4. The player subsequently took advice for me on how to mechanically optimise character builds, and in due course brought in a mecanically more effective character. But there is no doubt that his immersion was badly affected by the disconnect between his character conception and the actual outcome, in play, of his mechanical build.</blockquote>

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