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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6335197" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree with these two comments. I think there is a further dimension to this.My experience may be atypical, but back in the days when I used to play with a wider range of groups and gamers (mid-to-late 80s and even moreso through the 90s), I frequently encountered a new player who had come into the hobby ready to really engage - to build and play a PC to the hilt, to push the game forward, to play out this guy's heroic destiny. But then the player was crushed. Sometimes by 1st level hit points. Sometimes by domineering GMing, whether exercising control over PC build, or action resolution, or via GM PCs, or any of the hundreds of other devices that seemed to be irrationally popular at least at that point in time. Sometimes by mechanics that left them unable to make their mark on the game, either because the PC they built wasn't the hero they had hoped to build, but instead semi-effectual at best, or because the action resolution mechanics weren't up to the job, or because the GM fudged to override the player's input in favour of his/her own conception of "what's good for the story".4e takes those approaches to RPGing and stops them dead in their tracks. Players' PCs are competent from the get go. The action resolution rules work, and they give the players a clear role in deciding what happens. The GM is told what his/her role is, and both the rules and the guidelines of the game reinforce that role. (Essentials backpedalled in some of its wording here - a retrograde step in my opinion.)It's not just that it makes transparent demands on players. It expressly sets out to establish circumstances of play in which the players can meet those demands. Which, at least in my experience, most are very eager to do.I agree with this. It's what I had in mind when, on another thread something like 6 months to a year ago, I posted that the Forge had largely succeeded as a cultural movement.</blockquote>

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