D&D 4e is destroying my storytelling ability

First, I want to apologise to my regular D&D gaming friends. This is not an assault on your playing style. It’s just a dissatisfaction between me and Dungeons & Dragons.

True story: I saw an opening and wanted to position my character in a better place. As a storyteller, I thought that was a situation requiring a bit of haste.

“I run quickly over to this spot and then…” enthused I.
“Wait, you’ll incur a -5 penalty to your attacks,” explained the DM.
“Huh? Oh. I move to this square then.” the excitement swooshed out of me.

Technically, my character wasn’t running. He was still moving at his own speed (which is another term that irks me. Wait, let me finish talking about the running thing). The other players and the DM could see from the number of squares I moved wasn’t much. The “correct” phrase to use would probably be “I moved quickly to this spot”. But that doesn’t quite have the impact of “speediness”.

Which brings me to the term “speed”. In D&D, it means the number of squares your character can move in a turn. I know it as “rate of change of distance“.

Which brings me back to the term “running” again. In D&D, it means number of squares your character can move in a turn, plus 2. Plus 2 only? Let’s say your normal movement speed (oh man, not that word again!) is 6. In battle, let’s say you’re not really just sauntering, but not quite jogging speed either. Then your running speed is 6+2 = 8.

Come again? You’re running flat out, and you only increased your speed by 33%? I don’t know what it should be (200% of your normal walking speed?), but it’s definitely more than 33%. And you get a -5 penalty on top of that.

The other rule in D&D 4e that irks me is the pulling and pushing thing. For pulling, the creature being pulled must move closer to you for each square it moves. For pushing, the creature being pushed must move away from you for each square it moves.

But this definition means that perpendicular movement counts as a push. Ok, technically (and mathematically) speaking, that counts as “moving further away”. But the source of the push (usually a power such as Thunderwave) doesn’t match the direction of the push. I’m a mathematician. I’m confused by this.

So what it boils down to is, D&D 4e is taking away the normal terms I use for describing actions and happenings and stories, and sort of warped them so it’s definitively defined in the game. Like walking. And running. And shifting (do not say you’re shifting when you’re moving 2 squares. Try “sidling”.). And pushing (if you want to describe banging into an enemy after moving your full “speed”, try “bludgeoning”.).

In short, D&D 4e took my adjectives away from me. On a good note, I had to be really creative with describing my character’s actions. I had to avoid using terms that are defined in the canon.

For example, instead of saying you want to charge (already defined in the canon) up towards the enemy and push the enemy off (“Are you trying to bull rush? But you can’t do that with charging.”) the edge of the window. Your fellow players and DM will be trying to correct your sorry storytelling creativity into oblivion.

You should have just stuck to “I’m gonna defenestrate that #*!$% !!111!!1″