But can you explain how this is the obvious intent of the words in question as you read them?
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I think your interpretation here is rather orthogonal to a simple reading of the words as stated.
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But setting aside game loyalty, these was just a really weak statement.
There is a well-known approach to RPG design and play that focuses on the situation as the focus of play, and that relies on (by traditional D&D standards) fairly robust scene framing as part of that.
There were pre-publication comments by WotC designers that 4e was influenced by those games. See
here, for example, where Rob Heinsoo said:
No other RPG’s are in this boat. There might not be anyone else out there who would publish this kind of game. They usually get entrenched in the simulation aspect.
Indie games are similar in that they emphasize the gameplay aspect, but they’re super-focused, like a narrow laser. D&D has to be more general to accommodate a wide range of play.
Here is the Wyatt comment from p 105 of the DMG:
Every encounter in an adventure should be fun. As much as possible, fast-forward through the parts of an adventure that aren’t fun. An encounter with two guards at the city gate isn’t fun. Tell the players they get through the gate without much trouble and move on to the fun. Niggling details of food supplies and encumbrance usually aren’t fun, so don’t sweat them, and let the players get to the adventure and on to the fun. Long treks through endless corridors in the ancient dwarven stronghold beneath the mountains aren’t fun. Move the PCs quickly from encounter to encounter, and on to the fun!
To me, the most natural reading of this - given that it is instructional text for GMing a fantasy RPG - is that it tells the GM to be fairly robust in framing scenes ("fast foward through the parts of an adventure that aren't fun" and "[m]ove the PCs quickly from encounter to encounter"). It also suggests that some scenes are likely to be less gripping than others - those that involve entering a city's gates and paying a toll to the guards, for example, or those that involve eating food and stowing gear.
It fits fairly well with the following passages from the PHB p 9:
Each adventure is made up of encounters - challenges of some sort that your characters face.
Encounters come in two types.
Combat encounters are battles against nefarious foes. . .
Noncombat encounters include deadly traps, difficult puzzles, and other obstacles to overcome. . . Noncombat encounters also include social interactions, such as attempts to persuade, bargain with, or obtain information from a nonplayer character (NPC) controlled by the DM. Whenever you decide that your character wants to talk to a person or monster, it’s a noncombat encounter. . .
Between encounters, your characters explore the world. . .
And also PHB pp 258-60:
Encounters are where the action of the D&D game takes place, whether the encounter is a life-or-death battle against monstrous foes, a high-stakes negotiation with a duke and his vizier, or a death-defying climb up the Cliffs of Desolation. . .
In an encounter, either you succeed in overcoming a challenge or you fail and have to face the consequences. . .
Two kinds of encounters occur in most D&D adventures: combat and noncombat encounters. . .
A significant part of D&D adventures is exploration, which takes place between encounters.
I don't think that this is, by any means, the best-written RPGing advice ever. The treatment of similar issues in the Burning Wheel Adventure Burner, for example, is in my view a lot better. But I think the general intent is fairly clear. I also think it's pretty obvious that if (for example) the conversation with the two guards at the city gate isn't just the GM making the players play out the scene for the sake of it, but in order (let's say) to discover whether the PCs' enemy already entered the town, then Wyatt (and the game rules) have no objection to playing out the scene - it would be a non-combat encounter of the sort described on page 9 of the PHB. (The game even has a suggested mechanic - skill challenges - although it doesn't give very much advice on how to use it, or when to rely instead on a simple skill check.)
For me, at least, given WotC's access to extensive market research compared to most other RPG publishers past and present, Wyatt's coments give rise to a question: did Wyatt (or WotC) have reason to think that potential players of D&D were being put off by GMs who insisted on resolving every single piece of exploration via a full application of the action resolution mechanics? (Adventure Paths also depend upon hard scene-framing - they just go about it in a slightly different way from that suggested by Wyatt.)
Of course, there's a further question of whether this "fast forwarding" advice is
good advice. Trying to change D&D from a "continuous exploration" style of game (as envisaged eg in the discussion of dungeon expeditions in Gygax's PHB and of measuring campaign time in his DMG) into a scene-framing style of game is a major change, and apparently unpopular in some quarters. But if you
do want to make that change, then cutting down on pointless encounters with guards, with campsites, with backpacks, etc is one fairly obvious path to take. The general contrast in playstyles is expressed by Ron Edwards
here, in a discussion of "step-on-up" attitudes towards situations:
Most Simulationist-oriented players won't Step Up - they get no gleam in their eye when the Challenge hits, and some are even happy just to piddle about and "be."
Wyatt is gesturing - however inadequately - at techniques to move away from "piddling about" and "being", to instead make the situation - the challenge - the focus of play. Regardless of how many people want to play that way, I was surprised that Wyatt's comment drew such ire back when it was first published, and I remain surprised. I think that there are many reasons - overwhelmingly mechanical - that 4e is not a very good game for those of simulationist tastes. But I put Wyatt's suggestion that "just piddling around and being" is not fun in the same camp as Gygax's discussions in the AD&D rulebooks of what makes for "skilled play": a designer's expression of preference for how their game is to be played. If I don't like the advice, I don't take it - but I don't get affronted by it. If I think that my preferences are different, I'll just consider it a possible reason to look for a different game engine.