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With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
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<blockquote data-quote="Argyle King" data-source="post: 5978145" data-attributes="member: 58416"><p>I think maybe one of the reasons I haven't had the same problem with GURPS that you had with RQ could be because GURPS does have 'contests' which allow for something similar to a skill challenge to be possible. (Note: I have no familiarity at all with RQ or Rolemaster; I'm only going off of other posts of yours I have read.)</p><p></p><p>The basic idea is that success is not as binary as it is in D&D; it's not simply a yes/no thing. In your angel example, let's say I try some sort of mind control spell which is resisted by the will of the angel. In D&D I would roll against the angel's will defense and I would either succeed or fail. In GURPS I would compare how well I rolled versus how well the angel rolled and different degrees of success (or failure) might mean different things. </p><p></p><p>In the last few 4E games I DMed, I ported that idea into D&D and had what I feel were very good results. So good in fact that skill challenges became something very different for me than what they were said to be by the book. I very rarely run a skill challenge as X successes before Y failure; instead, I might set a number of rolls as being the limit to how many rolls are allowed during a skill challenge. For a quick arbitrary example, let's say I set the limit at 10 rolls. 10 successes out of 10 would lead to the best result possible; 0 out of 10 would be the worst result and then there would be a very different levels of success/failure in between. Alternatively I've also had the listed number of failures be how many failures are possible before no more rolling is allowed. </p><p></p><p>4E was not without lessons to teach me though. There are quite a few things which I learned from D&D 4E which I feel have made me a better DM. In particular, I think I have a better idea of how to organize my prep time. If I can stick with the topic of skill challenges, I'll also point out that I tried to bring part of them back into my GURPS games as well. I highly value the 'contest' idea which GURPS uses, but there have been a few instances in which I've started to use something somewhat inspired by skill challenges. Explaining it is something probably best reserved for PMs or a different thread though -simply because it would require explaining in more detail how some GURPS mechanics work and this doesn't seem to be the place for that.</p><p></p><p>In general, I think D&D 4th edition has a lot of really good ideas. I am just not always a fan of the implementation of the ideas. That makes me somewhat wary of how 5th Edition will turn out because I am afraid that the designers will take my dislike of parts of 4th edition as meaning I preferred an older edition's mentality and not understand that it was the implementation (and often mechanics) involved in bringing the idea to life which bugged. That being said, I would also say that one of my biggest hurdles with 4th edition was feeling as though the system was built around gaming & storytelling ideals which directly conflicted with my own ideals. In time, I learned to adjust my style, and I had fun after doing so (a lot of fun in many cases,) but -at the end of the day- I felt as though I never really got to run the kind of game I wanted to run.</p><p></p><p></p><p>edit: This is unrelated, but it's a thought which has been nagging at me lately as I've been considering my experiences with 4E more and trying to put a finger on what exactly about it bothered me at times. From the player side of the table I think I had a hard time buying into the game sometimes because I feel as though 4E is structured in a way (and has a playstyle) that rewards what I feel are bad tactics. There was something about playing a fighter and realizing that doing a suicide charge into a room and sucking all the enemies to me in a position which meant I was surrounded was a good thing which was somewhat jarring to me. I never really gave the idea much conscious thought until a few days ago, but I think it's been something that was rattling around in my subconscious. I do not expect hardcore realism from battlefield tactics when playing a game -especially a fantasy game in which magic and weapons which are not available in real life are available, but I think what I just said is a pretty good example of what I mean when I say that 4E was built around some ideals which conflict with my own ideals. This is something which translated over to the DM side of the table in such a way that it took me a really long time to get the hang of how a 4E fight would go by looking at the elements and pieces involved in the encounter.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Argyle King, post: 5978145, member: 58416"] I think maybe one of the reasons I haven't had the same problem with GURPS that you had with RQ could be because GURPS does have 'contests' which allow for something similar to a skill challenge to be possible. (Note: I have no familiarity at all with RQ or Rolemaster; I'm only going off of other posts of yours I have read.) The basic idea is that success is not as binary as it is in D&D; it's not simply a yes/no thing. In your angel example, let's say I try some sort of mind control spell which is resisted by the will of the angel. In D&D I would roll against the angel's will defense and I would either succeed or fail. In GURPS I would compare how well I rolled versus how well the angel rolled and different degrees of success (or failure) might mean different things. In the last few 4E games I DMed, I ported that idea into D&D and had what I feel were very good results. So good in fact that skill challenges became something very different for me than what they were said to be by the book. I very rarely run a skill challenge as X successes before Y failure; instead, I might set a number of rolls as being the limit to how many rolls are allowed during a skill challenge. For a quick arbitrary example, let's say I set the limit at 10 rolls. 10 successes out of 10 would lead to the best result possible; 0 out of 10 would be the worst result and then there would be a very different levels of success/failure in between. Alternatively I've also had the listed number of failures be how many failures are possible before no more rolling is allowed. 4E was not without lessons to teach me though. There are quite a few things which I learned from D&D 4E which I feel have made me a better DM. In particular, I think I have a better idea of how to organize my prep time. If I can stick with the topic of skill challenges, I'll also point out that I tried to bring part of them back into my GURPS games as well. I highly value the 'contest' idea which GURPS uses, but there have been a few instances in which I've started to use something somewhat inspired by skill challenges. Explaining it is something probably best reserved for PMs or a different thread though -simply because it would require explaining in more detail how some GURPS mechanics work and this doesn't seem to be the place for that. In general, I think D&D 4th edition has a lot of really good ideas. I am just not always a fan of the implementation of the ideas. That makes me somewhat wary of how 5th Edition will turn out because I am afraid that the designers will take my dislike of parts of 4th edition as meaning I preferred an older edition's mentality and not understand that it was the implementation (and often mechanics) involved in bringing the idea to life which bugged. That being said, I would also say that one of my biggest hurdles with 4th edition was feeling as though the system was built around gaming & storytelling ideals which directly conflicted with my own ideals. In time, I learned to adjust my style, and I had fun after doing so (a lot of fun in many cases,) but -at the end of the day- I felt as though I never really got to run the kind of game I wanted to run. edit: This is unrelated, but it's a thought which has been nagging at me lately as I've been considering my experiences with 4E more and trying to put a finger on what exactly about it bothered me at times. From the player side of the table I think I had a hard time buying into the game sometimes because I feel as though 4E is structured in a way (and has a playstyle) that rewards what I feel are bad tactics. There was something about playing a fighter and realizing that doing a suicide charge into a room and sucking all the enemies to me in a position which meant I was surrounded was a good thing which was somewhat jarring to me. I never really gave the idea much conscious thought until a few days ago, but I think it's been something that was rattling around in my subconscious. I do not expect hardcore realism from battlefield tactics when playing a game -especially a fantasy game in which magic and weapons which are not available in real life are available, but I think what I just said is a pretty good example of what I mean when I say that 4E was built around some ideals which conflict with my own ideals. This is something which translated over to the DM side of the table in such a way that it took me a really long time to get the hang of how a 4E fight would go by looking at the elements and pieces involved in the encounter. [/QUOTE]
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