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Seeking advice for new 4E game inspired by Pemerton
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6984119" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>In my post I was thinking more of "yes, and . . ." /improv-type stuff in the context of resolving situations in play rather than setting up the scene for play.</p><p></p><p>For the latter, my group tends to use genre, a bit of pre-packaged setting, and player choices in PC building. On that last point: rather than doing setting first then PCs, my players tend to come up with PC ideas first that involve some sort of backstory (a clan, an organisation, a home town, etc) and they work out the backstory that supports their PC.</p><p></p><p>For instance, in my main 4e game the player of the dwarf PC got to write the backstory for dwarves in the course of settling on a loyalty for his PC, and a reason to be ready to fight golbins (his story: every young dwarf has to serve in the army, and is not considered a true adult until s/he kills his/her first goblin. But the PC, Derrik, was always somewhere else - running a message, on latrine duty, or whatever - when the goblins attacked, and so had not yet come of age, although all his contemporaries and even those younter than him had. So he had left the hold to strike out on his own, looking for a goblin to kill).</p><p></p><p>The players who built Raven Queen worshippers have had a big influence on her tone in our game (much less nice than her presentation in the core 4e modules); the player who built a Corellon-worshipping drow got to decide the details of the secret cults of Corellon; the player whose PC hated goblins because they sacked and destroyed the character's home town got to make up that bit of history and geography; etc.</p><p></p><p>We also often use setting maps - so in my BW game, the player of the wizard came up with the idea that, some time before play actually started, the PC had lived in a tower in arid hills (the player found a cool photo of an old Indian fort on the web). I wanted to use the GH maps, and we put the tower in the Abor-Alz.</p><p></p><p>I think one thing the "traditional" D&D referee has to be careful of, here, is not regarding PC links/connections (families, cults, formre towers, etc) as either overpowered or a threat to the GM's control over backstory. I think it's pretty essential for creating the sort of player buy-in you describe.</p><p></p><p>I think 4e can support it, within limits. Out of combat, it can be treated as a check in a skill challenge, and assigned a DC in the usual way (this is a situation where it helps that DCs are "subjective" rather than "objective") - so succeeding on the check counts as a success as normal, and the success incorporates the desired player narration. Failure counts against the challenge in the normal way, and the flavour can be something like the "enmity clause" in BW - the element the player wanted is introduced into the situation, but in an adverse, mirror-image way from what the PC (and player) were hoping for.</p><p></p><p>In combat, I think it works though p 42. So, is there a rope to swing on? If it makes sense that there might be (genre/background coherence test), then make your check against the appropriate DC - if you succeed, you get what you want; if not, some appropriate minor penalty. In my game these sorts of things are mostly magical rather than mundane, and so I often use the generic psychic/magical feedback as the penalty - but I'm sure more imaginative stuff is possible.</p><p></p><p>In other words, rather than trying to create a new Fate-style economy, I'd suggest integrating it into the existing 4e economies, taking advantage of the fact that it uses "subjective" DCs and fairly abstract resolution.</p><p></p><p>(That's not to disagree with you that other systems might do this sort of thing better than 4e.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6984119, member: 42582"] In my post I was thinking more of "yes, and . . ." /improv-type stuff in the context of resolving situations in play rather than setting up the scene for play. For the latter, my group tends to use genre, a bit of pre-packaged setting, and player choices in PC building. On that last point: rather than doing setting first then PCs, my players tend to come up with PC ideas first that involve some sort of backstory (a clan, an organisation, a home town, etc) and they work out the backstory that supports their PC. For instance, in my main 4e game the player of the dwarf PC got to write the backstory for dwarves in the course of settling on a loyalty for his PC, and a reason to be ready to fight golbins (his story: every young dwarf has to serve in the army, and is not considered a true adult until s/he kills his/her first goblin. But the PC, Derrik, was always somewhere else - running a message, on latrine duty, or whatever - when the goblins attacked, and so had not yet come of age, although all his contemporaries and even those younter than him had. So he had left the hold to strike out on his own, looking for a goblin to kill). The players who built Raven Queen worshippers have had a big influence on her tone in our game (much less nice than her presentation in the core 4e modules); the player who built a Corellon-worshipping drow got to decide the details of the secret cults of Corellon; the player whose PC hated goblins because they sacked and destroyed the character's home town got to make up that bit of history and geography; etc. We also often use setting maps - so in my BW game, the player of the wizard came up with the idea that, some time before play actually started, the PC had lived in a tower in arid hills (the player found a cool photo of an old Indian fort on the web). I wanted to use the GH maps, and we put the tower in the Abor-Alz. I think one thing the "traditional" D&D referee has to be careful of, here, is not regarding PC links/connections (families, cults, formre towers, etc) as either overpowered or a threat to the GM's control over backstory. I think it's pretty essential for creating the sort of player buy-in you describe. I think 4e can support it, within limits. Out of combat, it can be treated as a check in a skill challenge, and assigned a DC in the usual way (this is a situation where it helps that DCs are "subjective" rather than "objective") - so succeeding on the check counts as a success as normal, and the success incorporates the desired player narration. Failure counts against the challenge in the normal way, and the flavour can be something like the "enmity clause" in BW - the element the player wanted is introduced into the situation, but in an adverse, mirror-image way from what the PC (and player) were hoping for. In combat, I think it works though p 42. So, is there a rope to swing on? If it makes sense that there might be (genre/background coherence test), then make your check against the appropriate DC - if you succeed, you get what you want; if not, some appropriate minor penalty. In my game these sorts of things are mostly magical rather than mundane, and so I often use the generic psychic/magical feedback as the penalty - but I'm sure more imaginative stuff is possible. In other words, rather than trying to create a new Fate-style economy, I'd suggest integrating it into the existing 4e economies, taking advantage of the fact that it uses "subjective" DCs and fairly abstract resolution. (That's not to disagree with you that other systems might do this sort of thing better than 4e.) [/QUOTE]
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