NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6014922" data-attributes="member: 27160">I didn't mean to "scoff" at anything; colour is an important element in the game, and in 4e it certainly isn't limited to the italicised bits in the power descriptions. Even the colour surrounding the powers themselves is not limited to that.I just find "color" more useful as a term because it's more precise - it carries a specific meaning rather than something as broad and ill-defined as "whatever isn't mechanics". This definition is, in itself, problematic at some points. Take the social contract, for example - is that mechanics, or "fluff"? I would argue it's a lot closer to "mechanics" (since it comprises "rules"), but I can certainly see the point of someone who balks at calling it part of the mechanics.The weight of your argument, given this definition, seems to be that "designers need to think about some other stuff before deciding on the mechanics". Well, sure - that seems like a no-brainer. An interesting question, though, is 'what exactly do they need to decide before selecting mechanics?' If we are going to consider that at all, we need more precise terminology than "mechanics" and "not mechanics".That's what a lock is in the real world. In the game it's an obstacle that needs a specific roll to bypass so as to move on to whatever tasks are possible having bypassed it.In the players' minds eyes, it may well be a finely polished construction of Myrrish steel, crafted to hold fast this sturdy, iron-bound wooden door that blocks the portal to the Archon's study... but in the mechanics it's an obstacle that requires 2 successes to overcome.If you insist on seeing game mechanics as some sort of purple prose, rather than a resolution process that (hopefully) produces results that do not compromise the imagined fiction being explored, you will, as far as I'm concerned, never achieve a system that I think of as adequate for a good roleplaying experience.Well, I certainly didn't mean that the chance of success was too high!! Call out a professional locksmith sometime. An average professional, with tools and with no outstanding talent, can defeat an average, hardware store lock near 100% of the time, in my experience. And that's legally, without damaging the lock.Better locks get harder, obviously - but then we're stretching the "off the shelf" description.Yeah - that was another thing. With a penalty, such that only 10's succeed, the professional actually has a higher chance of a critical failure than the klutz with no training. What's up with that?And a professional with no tools has nearly no chance? Even with a 1 success lock? Rubbish. The only 'tool' you need for the really bad locks is a credit card.I think it's easy to adjudicate because you really have no clear idea what effects your adjudications are having. On the upside, if an "adjudication" shifts the chance of success from one mystery number to another mystery number, who can say it's wrong, I suppose?Well, it doesn't seem that way to me. I spent several months running the system and all I learned was that it's obscurantic and convoluted if you want to actually understand what it really is doing. And you don't seem to understand the system, either, judging by your responses above.Oh, and the reason WoD sold so well? It was a great world background. Mage, especially - it literally blew me away. The concepts and game-world structures were a marvel to behold, really. It's such a tragedy that the system sucked rocks the size of Svalbard.</blockquote>

Verification