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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Reconciling 4e's rough edges with Story Now play
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8996979" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Right, I think the majority of classic GM-centered game GMs are simply going to look at it as a substitute for a combat, roughly speaking. And then they run into this problem, because a combat takes some arbitrary amount of checks to adjudicate, there's no fixed number. In essence it is like a clock, and you take a bit off it every time you hit. So there's this 'problem' where they've built a story, an SC, but now it has to go exactly a certain way, because they have essentially exactly as much story as there are successes required. Its kinda OK if there's a fail, they just say "OK, try again!" but then what happens when instead all the PCs decide to head straight down to the gang's headquarters and rough them up? Its a different narrative! The classic GM has to either railroad, or now figure out exactly how many successes to mete out, because he's making it all up, but it has to fit inside a certain plot 'box' that was this one encounter. I'm not saying it can't work, I think its still a pretty fair system, and quite good at anything where you can spin out the action, such as a chase.</p><p></p><p>But it really only comes into its own in a more story now kind of setup like you're saying. There was one 4e campaign that had a lot of action in 'pirate town' and a lot of it was along these lines. The party would split up, rejoin, try something, get in trouble, get out of trouble, and finally get what they came for, or sometimes they got run out of town (the Dragonborn Sorcerer was pretty much persona non grata in Pirate Town, he had to do an SC just to get in the gate!).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8996979, member: 82106"] Right, I think the majority of classic GM-centered game GMs are simply going to look at it as a substitute for a combat, roughly speaking. And then they run into this problem, because a combat takes some arbitrary amount of checks to adjudicate, there's no fixed number. In essence it is like a clock, and you take a bit off it every time you hit. So there's this 'problem' where they've built a story, an SC, but now it has to go exactly a certain way, because they have essentially exactly as much story as there are successes required. Its kinda OK if there's a fail, they just say "OK, try again!" but then what happens when instead all the PCs decide to head straight down to the gang's headquarters and rough them up? Its a different narrative! The classic GM has to either railroad, or now figure out exactly how many successes to mete out, because he's making it all up, but it has to fit inside a certain plot 'box' that was this one encounter. I'm not saying it can't work, I think its still a pretty fair system, and quite good at anything where you can spin out the action, such as a chase. But it really only comes into its own in a more story now kind of setup like you're saying. There was one 4e campaign that had a lot of action in 'pirate town' and a lot of it was along these lines. The party would split up, rejoin, try something, get in trouble, get out of trouble, and finally get what they came for, or sometimes they got run out of town (the Dragonborn Sorcerer was pretty much persona non grata in Pirate Town, he had to do an SC just to get in the gate!). [/QUOTE]
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