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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6319781" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I just reread that thread. It seems to have been cut short - the last post is yours, and you seem to promise that you'll be covering more materials.</p><p></p><p>You should necro it and do that stuff! (Plus your reading Moldvay Basic thread - as best I remember the scenario creation tools and advice haven't been discussed yet.)</p><p></p><p>Now this is good stuff!</p><p></p><p>And it is very apposite not only to old school play but to "modern" play as well. I'm sure you've encountered the recurring complaint about 4e skill challenges that (for instance) it "doesn't make sense" if a player comes up with a fool-proof plan, then succeeds on the skill roll, but that's only the 2nd of N required successes (where N > 2). Whereas the correct response - if you're interested in running skill challenges at all - is "OK, what happened to mean that the foolproof plan turned out not to work after all?"</p><p></p><p>It applies to DC setting as well. Level-appropriate DCs (or any other metagame based way of setting DCs) requires a willingness to make stuff up to make the result make sense within the fiction.</p><p></p><p>Skill challenges, metagamed DCs, etc are the tools of the "modern" GM that correspond, in functional terms, to the randmoness tools of the "classic" GM, helping to put a brake on GM power and stop railroading. And to work, they require this attitude of "Everything makes sense - it's my job to come up with an explanation".</p><p></p><p>I would be interest to hear you describe the results of randmoness as you use it - eg what sorts of aesthetic/emotional experiences does it lead to in play? Can you give any examples of how the technique has played out in your game?</p><p></p><p>In my own case, I feel that taking the approach of "everything makes sense, and it's my job as GM to help make that true" means that you get a lot more surprises. Which means that the game is fun: both these little vignettes, which don't necessarily lead to anything very profound but are just fun to play through, with no one at the table having expected or planned for them; and also ideas that send things off in new directions, and so help shape the subsequent direction of the game. Here are a couple of links to examples: this one I'm very proud of as probably still <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?309950-Actual-play-my-first-quot-social-only-quot-session" target="_blank">the best skill challenge I have run</a>, and it produced multiple vignettes of the sort I've tried to describe which just wouldn't have happened in a "follow the logic of common sense" approach; <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?355600-Session-report-(Apect-of)-Vecna-defeated-demon-bargained-with" target="_blank">this</a> is a much more recent one, where following the logic of the skill challenge rules and the dice roles led the PCs to binding a demon to their service to go and soften up the Frost Giants in advance of the party's assault. (I'm about to run G2, suitably mechanically adapted and set in the Feywild and the politics of the Winter Fey, for my 26th level 4e group.)</p><p></p><p>Besides its other problems, railroading is <em>boring</em>!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6319781, member: 42582"] I just reread that thread. It seems to have been cut short - the last post is yours, and you seem to promise that you'll be covering more materials. You should necro it and do that stuff! (Plus your reading Moldvay Basic thread - as best I remember the scenario creation tools and advice haven't been discussed yet.) Now this is good stuff! And it is very apposite not only to old school play but to "modern" play as well. I'm sure you've encountered the recurring complaint about 4e skill challenges that (for instance) it "doesn't make sense" if a player comes up with a fool-proof plan, then succeeds on the skill roll, but that's only the 2nd of N required successes (where N > 2). Whereas the correct response - if you're interested in running skill challenges at all - is "OK, what happened to mean that the foolproof plan turned out not to work after all?" It applies to DC setting as well. Level-appropriate DCs (or any other metagame based way of setting DCs) requires a willingness to make stuff up to make the result make sense within the fiction. Skill challenges, metagamed DCs, etc are the tools of the "modern" GM that correspond, in functional terms, to the randmoness tools of the "classic" GM, helping to put a brake on GM power and stop railroading. And to work, they require this attitude of "Everything makes sense - it's my job to come up with an explanation". I would be interest to hear you describe the results of randmoness as you use it - eg what sorts of aesthetic/emotional experiences does it lead to in play? Can you give any examples of how the technique has played out in your game? In my own case, I feel that taking the approach of "everything makes sense, and it's my job as GM to help make that true" means that you get a lot more surprises. Which means that the game is fun: both these little vignettes, which don't necessarily lead to anything very profound but are just fun to play through, with no one at the table having expected or planned for them; and also ideas that send things off in new directions, and so help shape the subsequent direction of the game. Here are a couple of links to examples: this one I'm very proud of as probably still [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?309950-Actual-play-my-first-quot-social-only-quot-session]the best skill challenge I have run[/url], and it produced multiple vignettes of the sort I've tried to describe which just wouldn't have happened in a "follow the logic of common sense" approach; [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?355600-Session-report-(Apect-of)-Vecna-defeated-demon-bargained-with]this[/url] is a much more recent one, where following the logic of the skill challenge rules and the dice roles led the PCs to binding a demon to their service to go and soften up the Frost Giants in advance of the party's assault. (I'm about to run G2, suitably mechanically adapted and set in the Feywild and the politics of the Winter Fey, for my 26th level 4e group.) Besides its other problems, railroading is [I]boring[/I]! [/QUOTE]
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