DM'ing is a skill, not an art.

[Varis]

I agree that the area/world shouldn't change because a player goes there, but if the players came up with a creative way to get past the plug that should be fine (maybe heat boreing a smallish hole to drain the water and relieve the pressure before opening it).

It might be a deadend but it's the DMs job to accept the fact that players can come up with ways to get around/negate them.

I Agree. It would of been fine if they had been able to get in (which they could of if a magic item was used). I have no issue with that.

One thing I thought was odd was that I though "taking 10" was gone with 4e.

Heh, I thought the same thing originally.

If it's still there surely it's not allowed in risky situations (like climbing a slick, slimy drain pipe).

Correct, you can't 'take 10' in a skill challenge. I wasnt aware of this at the time and allowed it - definately 100% my fault.

 

[Varis]

Actually, having been on Yaris' side all through this thread I have a question: How did you describe the area under the drain pipe?

The road under the 5 pipes was eroded smooth, by, what the PC's correctly deduced, the water flowing over the road.

If the runoff from the mountain is collected and used to flush the waste out of the citadel daily at midnight there would tons of detritus and the beginnings of a river bed under the drain pipe.

Correct. To be specific, there is a river that forms from 4 artierials at the base of the mountain, one of wish, does have
tons of waste.

Has this thing been here for centuries?

Yes

A deep hole or precipice should have been carved into the mountain side by this daily flush. Did you describe this to the PCs as well?

No. The description was limited to the road rock surface being smoothed because of the water flow over the mountain. The road was also described as having no raised side/edge built into it (unlike the reast of the road). No PC's looked over the cliff to examine if the side of the mountain had evidence of water erosion from the pipe.

Good questions.

 

[billd91]

You're lucky if you don't have any players taking shameless advantage of this, by having their characters hang back and let others take the risks knowing the ExP at the end will all divide the same.

If the DM of any game I was playing in decided to allocate ExP this way, I'd be gone; probably after a long argument.

I completely fail to see why it's a headache for anyone if characters advance at different rates.

Lanefan

What kind of advantage is there to take? Staying home while everybody else goes adventuring?

The PC group either fails or succeeds as a group. I'm not interested in tracking XP separately in the cases when a player can't make a session or whose PC happens to be away scouting and misses the fight back at the camp with the wandering predator who ambled by. It's not worth the hassle.

 

[CharlesRyan]

I'd like CharlesRyan, Cadfan, and others who believe in the entertain-first camp to comment specifically, but of course anyone can contribute...

In this 3.5 scenario, my PCs were exploring a partly sunken ship and encountered a giant living mass of seaweed. I described the creature as vaguely anthropomorphic including a gaping maw where a person's mouth would be.

The halfling wizard player glomped onto the idea of the gaping maw and on his initiative said, "I throw myself into the gaping maw!"

(I knew he was going to do the "activate a Swan Boat inside a monster" and instantly kill it cheese...)

Now, I knew the creature didn't really have a mouth. It was a detail to create an image of horror. Since it's a plant, it simply absorbs, not chews.

Now, I fully understand how Chekhov's Gun worked here. The player heard a detail, thought it significant, then acted on that knowledge.

Here's what I'd do in this situation.

Principally, I'd address the character's perception of the situation. You're right, the maw might be a Chekhov's Gun, so I want to make sure the scene he perceives matches what I think I'm describing. Have I imagined the "maw" as a sort of dimple that suggests a horrific face? Or have I imagined something that actually looks like an opening?

If the former, I'd probably just clarify: "OK, you're considering that plan, looking for an opportunity to get closer, but the more you look the more you realize it isn't really a mouth."

If the latter, I'd ask myself why I pictured it that way, and does it really matter? If not, I'd amend my vision*, and clarify like above. If it does matter, I'd give the player a shot at a Spot check to realize the plan won't work. (Frankly, since I'm not out to instantly kill the character, I'd probably set the DC pretty low.) Even if there's a strong reason why the maw looked like a real mouth, I'd still call for some sort of check (perhaps with a higher DC) to realize the plan wouldn't work**--"It's a plant creature, and it probably absorbs its food, rather than chews. Based on your experience, you suspect that it might not actually swallow you if you jumped in."

If those checks were failed or the player pressed on anyway, I'd play things out. If there was another opportunity along the way to use a check or something to give him a more accurate view of his chances, I'd take it. But otherwise, let him play. Yeah, the character might go down--but he did just throw himself at a dangerous monster, so that was a risk.

In short, whenever I suspect a player is going to do something stupid because he doesn't perceive the situation the way I think I'm describing it, I look to sync up his perception with mine.


--

* When I suggested I prefer a less rigid play style than Varis's, this is exactly the sort of flexibility I had in mind. Not to redraw the map or change monster stats, but to examine the details I've set up in my mind and see if they're actually serving the game. If a superficial detail--like the shape of a nonfunctioning maw--is going to create an effect I wasn't going for, I have no problem changing it.

** One "strong reason" why the maw might look like a mouth is because I might want to teach the player a lesson for relying on insufferably cheesy tactics. If that's the case, the DCs to notice otherwise might be a bit higher . . . .

 

[Darkthorne]

billd91,
It sounds like you have a group that stays more focused on furthering the end goal which is awesome. Also I think it's decent that you give people xp for when real life interrupts gaming. I think myself & a couple others have had instances where the player is not involved in the game itself, just showing up for attendance as it were and do nothing to futher the plot until it lands right in front of them. I'm currently in a Warhammer game that at the end of the night we get the same xp, however we get minor xp rewards to coming up with a clever idea/ stumping the ref/ doing something the saves the whole party's bacon etc or keeping the initiative chart and other tracking duties to help the ref. It's not anything that makes any one player far more powerful than another, it just keeps us on our mental toes

Varis,
As for the drain xp, maybe do 75% of what the skill challenge would have offered due to the oversight (these things happen) followed by further Xp if they are able to then use that specific knowledge to their advantage.

 

[billd91]

billd91,
It sounds like you have a group that stays more focused on furthering the end goal which is awesome. Also I think it's decent that you give people xp for when real life interrupts gaming. I think myself & a couple others have had instances where the player is not involved in the game itself, just showing up for attendance as it were and do nothing to futher the plot until it lands right in front of them. I'm currently in a Warhammer game that at the end of the night we get the same xp, however we get minor xp rewards to coming up with a clever idea/ stumping the ref/ doing something the saves the whole party's bacon etc or keeping the initiative chart and other tracking duties to help the ref. It's not anything that makes any one player far more powerful than another, it just keeps us on our mental toes

It's also worth noting that I have a couple groups of players, none of whom will begrudge a PC getting XPs because their player wasn't there, was distracted with work or child care concerns and didn't always have their head in the game, etc. We all pretty much recognize that some people are just better at these sorts of games, from a build perspective, from understanding the genre conventions, from being able to get inside the DM's head, and so on and we're OK with letting the difference between more skilled and less skilled players slide.

It's also worth noting that these are games among groups of friends and not just people we meet to game with.

But I will also say that sometimes a game with individual rewards can be fun. I've had a DM who had us justify the XP we got at the end of a session by pointing out what achievements we had reached... and nobody could use the exact same achievement to justify the 100 XP/achievement we were getting. That was, however, also in 1e/2e where the difference in individual XP awards was less likely to make the difference in a level and would tend to become increasingly irrelevant in level differences as time went on.

 

[Darkthorne]

Bill,
I understand your POV and see no prob with it with people that are trying to the best of their ability, something unforeseen occurs etc. I just have a different POV and a more dramatic one in comparison when a player isn't making any attempts to contribute (be it successful or not)

 

[Ariosto]

I greatly appreciate a DM letting the environment be "as it is" rather than changing it arbitrarily. To me, the game is in my choices as a player. Real choices are essential. The viability of bad options is what gives the good ones meaning.

 

[Lanefan]

What kind of advantage is there to take? Staying home while everybody else goes adventuring?

The PC group either fails or succeeds as a group. I'm not interested in tracking XP separately in the cases when a player can't make a session or whose PC happens to be away scouting and misses the fight back at the camp with the wandering predator who ambled by. It's not worth the hassle.

There's about 6 different issues contained in those few sentences; I'll try to hit 'em one by one:

1. The "kind of advantage" there is to take is this: always making sure my character is facing the weakest opponent, or no opponent at all, or always just happening to be elsewhere (exploring pipes? ) when trouble comes, or backing out of the fight and letting the others get hammered, or never going first in the marching order, or...

2. I'm not staying home while everybody else goes adventuring; I'm going adventuring too, only as mostly a passenger - yet I'll still scoop my share of ExP and treasure.

3. A hockey team fails or succeeds as a team, yet some players get way more ice time than others (c.f. experience) while some get paid way more than others (c.f. treasure).

4. Just because a player is absent from the table for a session does *not* mean her character is absent from the party! Everyone else looks after it as best they can, using instructions from the usual player if any were given. A long-term absence usually means retirement of character, though.

5. Tracking separate ExP very much *is* worth the hassle. It's important that the reward at least in some tangible way reflect the risk taken and-or conrtibution made. If I'm off on a meaningless scouting trip while the rest of the party gets into a big battle, well, ::shrug:: guess it sucks to be me this time. However, for all I know the next time I go scouting I'll find trouble of my own and get ExP for that.

6. There is no number 6. (though there probably should be)

Lanefan

 

[Ariosto]

The thing about judging afterward that a course of action was "not fun" is that we considered it fun enough at the time to stay the course. The DM's not forcing us (in this kind of game) to do this or that. Sometimes conceptually sound plans don't (or even can't) have the expected results.

However, my desire to go climbing, or talk with an NPC, or whatever, is not a desire to get into a 4E skill challenge; I loathe skill challenges.

I'm not too keen on the notion of XP for risk, which seems to reward poor judgment. That's not a knock against dividing combat awards among the participants; I just don't see why it ought to be "better" to make a climb more dangerous by not taking precautions. XP for accomplishing an objective is good. The old standard of securing treasure is easy to grasp even in-character, but others can work.

I certainly don't see anything "fair" about getting XP for a fight in which I in no way participated!

It was interesting to read of this. All my 4E experience has been in scenarios that pretty heavy-handedly "railroaded" us from one fight to the next.