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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StarFyre" data-source="post: 3983133" data-attributes="member: 26055">actuallyAny rpg is somewhat of a world/life simulator.The difference is, the world/life takes place on a different planet than earth and could be in a different style of setting (fantasy, gothic, sci-fi, etc).THe thing is, you can do anything.   You can go anywhere (as long as the DM is good enough at making up stuff on the fly if needed), do anything (eat, sleep, go to the washroom behind a tree, kill, rape, maim, shop, work, go fishing, climb, hunt, you can break objects and make new things if you have the tools, etc).  All of these, whether there are strict rules are not, CAN be done in a pnp rpg.  That essentially along with 100s of more stuff, makes it like a life simulator.  Technically, many groups even track age very strictly and then characters die due to old age in some cases, if the DM doesn't give them adventures with fountains of youth or wishes that can make you younger (yes, a wish technically can IF the DM allows and it's worded properly). As for the characters, their personality really, at least for hardcore groups, it goes down to acting.The players truly act like their characters.  I've had my friend's sister start crying cause another player, roleplayed his character so well, (a smart allick rogue), being jack sparrow basically but meaner, she couldn't take it....now she is a much better 'actress' so to speak and she isn't angry.  She wasn't ready to enter a campaign that is more 'hardcore' in that respect.4E though, isn't made for players like that (my group), it's made for the "kick down door, kill monster, get treasure, wash hands, repeat" style of play IMHO.  Not that it's bad.  Many of it's changes I think are spectacular.  THe ones that I am not a fan of or players are not a fan of, I will houserule/re-write.In another thread, talking of how shadowfell is just negative energy plane + plane of shadow BUT taking away what made those planes so difficult to adventure in; as another board member said some months ago....Hasbro knows some planes were hard to write an adventure for, and make a nice 20x20 dungeon room they could sell tiles for, so they wanted those 'more advanced' settings changed.  When my players went to pandemonium, they did research in sigil first (i do lots of custom work/house rules for cosmology, but most planes i like their uniqueness so i keep them as is...even shadowfell, feywild will find a way into my version of the D&D universe). in some 2e supplements it mentions places where such researchinto plnes could be done..so they spent about 2 hrs roleplaying, finding info on stuff (gametime was a couple days).  In the end, they had some info before they went there so they weren't totally ill prepared (but there were surprises still).But again, this style of play isn't what they are catering for....Hell, we don't even let people draw maps or takes notes UNLESS they have paper/ink on their character sheet UNLESS they can think of a cool way to take notes on their skin or clothes, etc. The # of times people have got lost in dungeons since they forgot to bring paper/ink, etc is priceless, however, and the reason I only DM hardcore styles like this, watching my friends think of some ingenious method around this gap...makes me smile; and that IMHO, expands their problem solving and thought processes around problems, even in some cases, real world issues (general problem solving, analytical skills, etc).  I've seen people who couldn't think their way through more complex problems, manage very difficult riddles, and mathematical/art based puzzles and learn from them over time.  They got better and learned.  THis is priceless. WIth regards to Cailte -- templates don't make monsters cookie cutters; they make it easier for you to customize anything to what you need.Granted, DM's have been doing this already; the issue with the 3.5 method which I think 4E does fix, is that 4E goes back to the 2E design model.  Creatures had whatever powers the designers thought they should have. 3.5 gave the impression that the system was balanced at every level (it is preetty good IMHO, but at higher levels it has some issues), but to maintain this, you should change creatures accordingly. If you want to give it some unique power, make it like a feat and advance it 3 HD, then give it the feat, then raise it's saves and increase CR accordingly.4E, is going with the model of this is a creature as we envision it.  We don't think we need the possibility of 1000 types of zombies, so here's 3...just change your description for them. THis is fine and works perfectly as well except in a few cases that DMs will prob just convert a 3.5 version anyways (ie. zombie dragon comes to mind).  The problem is the implied difference.  The prior cocnept was that, a zombie made from a different body type WAS different.  ie. a gnoll zombie is a bit larger than a human zombie, so some aspect of it is a bit different.  (ie. maybe does more damage, stronger, slower, whatever). 4E is saying it's easier to keep them all the sme since the differences aren't big enuff to warrant a totally unique creature.  That is fine, but THAT makes them more cookie cutter than having a list of a zombie of almost any creature type yourselves, with differences in each of them.Which model do I like better? Honestly, after all my ranting above, i like teh 4E model EXCEPT For special cases....ogres, giants, dragons, etc.  These 'rarer' type of creatures, should be different. A zombie dragon will be different than some humanoid zombie of course.  But that I can house rule and write up myself or convert a 3.5E version.  Anyways...rant off <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=":)" /> Sanjayps:  I am very interested in more info on The Far Realm...do they have new artwork, etc for teh Far Realm in Worlds & Monsters? If so, it may be worth me actually buying it....</blockquote>

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