Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[Hussar]

Taking a fairly literal definition of both, I think metagaming is antithetical to roleplaying. Since this is a roleplaying game, I'd say that makes metagaming a bad thing, something I want to avoid. Is it possible to completely 100% eliminate a player's out of character knowledge? Perhaps not. But I think it's important to get as close as possible.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-(a-case-for-fighters-)/page140#ixzz2iPpE6YE1

Whereas I have no real problem with metagaming. Maybe it's because I almost always play with groups filled with DM's. I mean our current group has seven players, including myself, all with years of DMing experience. It's pretty much a given that we know what's what whenever mechanics are used.

 

[Hussar]

I get surprised pretty often.

How? When you have pre-defined the outcome of situations, how can you be surprised? When nothing in the game world can ever be created without your express approval, where is the surprise?

That demon possessed guy is possessed by a specific demon that you have created. Every single aspect, down to his reactions, are pre-determined by you, the DM. What surprise is there?

 

[Manbearcat]

An Obstinate Chamberlain, a Forlorn King, and 3 Dragon-slaying PCs walk onto a portico

Alright, I'll do my 3.x DMG analysis in the coming days. I'll also break down this conflict resolution in the coming days (with respect to mechanics/techniques at work here and the differences between this and the other creative agendas/playstyles discussed in this thread). I don't have time to do either analysis tonight so I'll just get the play-post of the chamberlain/king scene scribed.

Of note:

- Level 14, complexity 2 social skill challenge (6 success versus 3 failures - 5 moderate <25> and 1 hard <29>DC)
- Dragonborn Paladin Bahamut's Templar that leveraged (i) Bahamut's Voice (You channel the divine might of the Platinum Dragon's voice; + 5 Diplomacy and Intimidate until end of encounter, you speak Supernal and everyone understands you), (ii) and Platinum Wings (mostly for fictional positioning); divine platinum wings spring from your back and carry you aloft (think Archangel of the X-Men).
- Dwarven Ranger Wyrm-slayer (Thorin Oakenshield hat tip) who used a + 2 bonus to Dragon Knowledge to buff a Nature check and used the thematic content of his Encounter Attack power (Grounding Attack) along with Dragon Slayer's Action (reroll attack vs dragons) in the Nested Combat Skill Challenge.
- Halfing Scoundrel (Bilbo hat tip) who used Resourceful Action (Action point for + 5 bonus) and Problem-Solver (Immediate Interrupt for ally to reroll a skill roll with a + 2 bonus)
- The entirety of the Skill Challenge will be to get to and convince the king to act or sponsor/deputize them, or grant them resources/assets/hirelings in their effort to hunt and defeat the dragon that is either threatening to usurp his kingdom or already has it hostage. The obstinate chamberlain will be merely a complication as the stakes aren't high enough with a challenge itself being to "get past him to the king."


Ok, so we threw together a general thematic baseline to focus the scene. Pretty much everything was improv (including the Nested Complexity 1, Combat Skill Challenge mid-way through). I frame them directly into the scene, put down 2 dice for markers (one d6 at 6 for successes and another d6 at 3 for failures) and use flash-cards as visual props to convey scene distinctions/tags/aspects for the players to interact with/riff off of. They are just there as visceral reminders for the players. They included at the start:

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Huge, stone balcony portico
I can see the entire city from way up here!
Why so may guards? (wasn't sure what this was about but I wanted it there as a scene element)
Hanging, heavy tapestry with kingdom's sigil
Vast, wooden long-table
Nervous, pacing chamberlain


The players are escorted through large, open double doors into the chambelain's pacing presence. He immediately protests vociferously to the contingent of guards that let them in and begins berating everyone involved, including the PCs, shooing them away. We're Paladin, Ranger, Rogue for this (I let the players decide). The demonstrative chamberlain approaches and...

(1:0) Intimidate - The Dragonborn Paladin draws upon the power of his god, Bahamut (Daily Prayer of Bahamut's Voice and Initimdate): "Do we look the part of petulant nobles or squabbling landowners. We are here on a divine quest. The platinum dragon has an interest in this kingdom's liberation...and he will be heard."

The chamberlain, now looking the part of awed, afraid, and dreadfully anxious attempts a mumbling, incoherent response while looking over his shoulder out toward the open balcony and then back around the room. His nervous eyes meet the halfling Rogue momentarily. "I'm chilled. Lets speak inside..." he says.

Insight Support Action (secondary skill) - The Rogue wants to know why he is so nervous and the player voices that he believes that they may have interrupted something that they probably aren't meant to see (this is a player cue). He passes the Easy DC of Insight and passes a+ 2 to the Ranger. He wants to know who and where he looks as he moves toward them trying to usher them out of the room. I tell him that he subtley nods to a ranking guard and his eyes pass over something that is covered, which is slightly obscured by a pillar. The Rogue issues an overt nod to the Ranger who is nearest the object.

The chamberlain looks back at the stalling Ranger who is making his way over to the covered object. The chamberlain moves in hastily, beginning to protest, saying "No, no, don't touch that, no…guards…do something”...

(2:0) Athletics - A pair of guards move to intercept the Ranger but a successful Athletics (and the drop on them with the + 2 from the Rogue) yields another success. He gets there first and pulls the cover off. I ask the player "whats there?" (more on this later in my analysis as this is a common feature of my games and in many Indie games). The player tells me that a muffled cry greets him as a swaddled babe laying in a cage on a bed of riches is brought into view. I scrawl this on a flashcard and add it to the scene distinctions.

The chamberlain blanches in horror. Cue the lookout horn. The ranking member of the guard announces the coming of a 3 drake contingent as they land on the edge of the portico, gravelly voice of the fire drake greeting the chamberlain triumphantly. This wasn't expected, we didn't really have the combat stats or everything worked out for the characters and I didn't want to treat this as a combat anyway; not the tool for the job. The drakes should be a complete walk-over for the the PCs. All I wanted to do here was to set the stakes of the chamberlain now being in mortal danger. So I nest a mini-skill challenge here; a complexity 1 skill challenge (4:3 with 4 medium DCs) using DMG2's guidance for these sorts of combat skill challenges and using p42 off the cuff for the Ranger's encounter power attack. I could have run this quickly using of-level monster math; 2 minion (soldier’s MBAs and marks as riders) drakes and 1 standard controller with a fire aura 2 that can manifest on command, and fire breath. I might have if the characters were fully built. However, I felt the nested combat Skill Challenge, complexity 1, for 1 success or 1 failure to the greater skill challenge better served the effort (because there wouldn't have been any real threat to the PCs...its just greater skill challenge relevant stakes).

After a moment of outrage by the lead drake (a fire-breather), an ominous threat toward the chamberlain's belligerence, the beast snarls, snorts and unleashes a gout of flame at the chamberlain. Shocked guards look on but Captain America Paladin does not:

NESTED COMPLEXITY 1 SKILL CHALLENGE (this was a quick route, as below)

1:0 Endurance - Paladin manifests platinum wings and flys over in front of the chamberlain, lowering his shield and successfully bears the brunt of the flames, protecting the chamberlain from the fire-breathing drake. I also gave the Paladin a + 2 on its next social skill check.

2:0 Acrobatics - The Rogue swashbuckles the heavy hanging tapestry down, tearing it from its brass rings, causing it to entangle the drake minions, furled wings unable to save them from falling to their death on the rocky ground below.

3:0 p 42 attack vs AC - Basically used what would be standard math for an archer Ranger of this level versus an of-level AC (he wanted to, in effect, deploy grounding attack which prevents a dragon from flying) to immobilize the lead drake. This attack was actually missed but the player used Dragon-Slayer's Action for a reroll. In the fiction, he buried an arrow through each leathery wing into the columns behind the beast.

4:0 Religion- The Paly invokes the name of Bahamut, in defiance of Tiamat, and basically uses the thematic notes of the Wing Buffet Attack inherent to Platinum Wings. The bloodied, battered, beaten drake backs down with severe injuries. The Paladin, burning divine radiance into the beast, marks him with the sign of Bahamut and tells him to return to his master and deliver the message that his reign is at an end.

3:0 – Successful nested skill challenge combat. The heroes mettle is tested and on full display, trust is earned and the chamberlain is saved. As the drake begins to leave, the burning hatred in his eyes is palpable. He spits a curse and a promise that the whole city will burn in an ancient tongue that only the Rogue knows.

4:0 Bluff - As the drake is preparing to tests its torn wings for flight, the Rogue saunters over and picks up one of its dislodged scales from the floor. He pulls a (useless) scroll from his belt and in the same ancient tongue, he threatens the drake with a powerful geas ritual of nslavement should the drake play a part in any retribution against the people of the city. He spends an Action Point and uses Resourceful Action (+ 5 due to roll), ensuring success.

As a rattled drake flies off (poorly), an equally rattled chamberlain beseeches a guard contingent to bring the king. As they reach the door, a tired, forlorn, mentally beaten king (added to scene distinction flashcards) actually ambles in simultaneously, as several guards attempt to corral him or protect him from whatever caused the crazy racket that resonated through the castle walls. The king takes account of the still-present tribute, the bloody mess of the portico and the battered drake flying off toward a "Lonely Mountain" and says "What have you done? You've doomed us all."

5:0 Nature (with the dragon knowledge + 2) - The Ranger incredulously condescends (tactfully) to the king, assertively describing the ecology and behavior of the Red Dragon...that it dominates everything in its region until there is nothing left to dominate...at that point it will grow tired and malicious...torturing or devouring its prey once the tribute runs out. This was the Hard DC of the bunch and actually would have failed but the Rogue uses Problem Solver encounter Power to give the Ranger a reroll with another + 2. The Rogue piles on by comparing the Red Dragon in behavior to a demon, making a comparison to a demonic overlord who would just as soon pluck your legs from your body to savor the scream as it would put you to work.

The King picks up the baby, cradles it and says meekly "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one (Star Trek dorks galore at our table)."

6:0 Diplomacy – As the chamberlain thanks the Paladin for saving his life (+ 2 and + 5 from Bahamut’s Voice), “I understand the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… but this (pointing at the tribute) madness cannot be allowed to continue. The Platinum Dragon gave to me a dream of this place. It is manifest destiny that we have come. Join our cause and let us rid your people of this enslavement and you of this ignoble burden.”

And the king replied with "For the sake of all the people in my kingdom...I pray your god has not led us to ruin.”

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Flawless Victory of both the greater Skill Challenge and the Nested One. Not particularly common but it happens from time to time (and these guys had some heavy resources to bring to bear for this Skill Challenge). The players would have told me what they wanted and we would have sorted out some fitting resource/asset; possibly a 1-use thematic item that gave them an encounter power for the BBEG fight (perhaps priests or archers or something)...maybe a companion character...or maybe an actual item or an alternate advancement reward, boon or blessing.

Alright, I'm done for the night. We pondered running it again with different characters next time we meet up. Maybe, maybe not. If we do, it will turn out very different. I'll write up a mechanical and technique analysis at some point this week and break out what this would look with process/causal logic over genre logic, task resolution instead of conflict resolution (with finality of conflict determined by GM judgement rather than mechanics). I may try to look at this from a "Wargamer" perspective but to be honest with you, its going to be difficult. Mostly a "Wargamer" table is mostly concerned about cost/benefit analysis and defeating challenges utterly and efficiently...specifically without regard for the fictional positioning...most times leading to utterly incoherent genre emulation/thematics and silly (but terribly fun!) rompish escapades.

 

[Lanefan]

There's a contingent of roleplayers who don't feel talking in a funny voice does a whole lot to really define a character.

Perhaps, but what it *says* in that high funny voice should be enough to almost completely define it. Two characters who are game-mechanically identical should in theory be easy to differentiate at the table just by how they're role-played and what personalities they are given.

Or you can play a game where the backstory is created in play as a collaboration between the DM and the players. Very little is discovered, most things are created.

So how does that fit with worldbuilding? Do the DM and the players collaboratively build the world, its history, its peoples etc.^ before the campaign starts? I ask this because most of the backstory can come from a world's history and cultures, which not all characters might know much about.

^ - assuming you're not using a pre-fab world e.g. Greyhawk, Golarion, etc.

Whereas I have no real problem with metagaming. Maybe it's because I almost always play with groups filled with DM's. I mean our current group has seven players, including myself, all with years of DMing experience. It's pretty much a given that we know what's what whenever mechanics are used.

I've seen this in action as well, and don't like it much; I don't at all mind if a DM mixes up the mechanics a bit to throw us off just to avoid some metagaming - as long as she's consistent in what she does, of course. But yes, it becomes almost unaviodable eventually.

The bigger issue is non-mechanical metagaming, where player knowledge is greater than character knowledge - far too many players in my experience are simply incapable of sticking only to what their character knows...e.g. if the players know the chamberlain is a spy for the enemy realm - but the characters don't - any meeting with said chamberlain will inevitably go much differently (despite all protestations to the contrary) than if the players had been kept in the dark.

Lan-"when I do a high squeaky voice people run screaming for the hills"-efan

 

[Hussar]

So how does that fit with worldbuilding? Do the DM and the players collaboratively build the world, its history, its peoples etc.^ before the campaign starts? I ask this because most of the backstory can come from a world's history and cultures, which not all characters might know much about.

^ - assuming you're not using a pre-fab world e.g. Greyhawk, Golarion, etc.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-(a-case-for-fighters-)/page141#ixzz2iQmI4BgY

If nobody minds, I'll field this one. Worldbuilding is done during play. Other than a basic outline that is obviously needed before play starts, very few details are set in stone. Nothing that doesn't get nailed down during play is actually true. It might be true or it might not be. We won't actually know until after play begins. Those orcs that are raiding the town might be just bog standard orcs out to loot and pillage, or maybe they were pushed off their land by the greedy humans. Those details will be determined during play.

 

[Campbell]

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.

I create setting material. I draft NPCs. I do all the things most DMs do. Some of it gets used, but most of it ends up on the cutting room floor, and I'm more than okay with that. What I enjoy most about tabletop role playing from both a GM and player's perspective is the emergent nature of play. When a scene is framed I do not want to know how it is going to play out - it's the reason it's being played.

Personally, I'm not particularly immersion oriented. I don't do a particularly good job of entering someone else's head space. It's a non-priority for me. Even while playing a PC I have 100 other things on my mind - how can I help the other players shine, am I being entertaining, how can I riff off what's happening, if I don't take this optimal action can I succeed this other way, etc. Fidelity to established setting and character is important to me, but until it's stated in play it really doesn't exist.

I get this doesn't jive with everyone else's preferences. I get that no myth and doesn't match up well with setting exploration or traditional mystery play. My games are more like the Big Lebowski* than Tolkien. I'm okay with the lack of intricately plotted big reveals. I'd rather that the focus be on the action that is happening right now.

*A modern American movie classic.

Can someone rep manbearcat for me?

 

[pemerton]

With so many different RPGs out there there are players with a huge variety of playstyles and expectations. Even within D&D there's been decades of a myriad of different games with widely differing styles, in a variety of editions, that have produced players with wildly different expectations.

This is a big part of what I've been saying for the past several hundred posts. I think the notion of "default playstyles" for D&D doesn't work. Even in those cases where the rules texts promote a certain playstyle, there are many players - for all I know, a majority - who play differently.

I think we've just run hard aground here. "Thespianise their PCs"? That sounds like a put-down of what I'd call "role-playing", and the core activity of the whole flippin' game! Role-playing IS "playing the game" just as much as combat, exploration, and information-gathering are.

Playing your character is roleplaying. Voices, mannerisms etc I regard as highly optional - 1st person rather than 3rd person narration I also regard as optional (my players use a mix of both, both as a group and individually). Combat at least I regard as an important site for roleplaying - in a game like D&D which makes such a big deal, mechanically, of combat, I regard combat as an opportunity for the players to play their PCs and show what they're made of and what they stand for.

I have known GMs who would frame scenes not because there was any expectation that the players would actually affect the fiction via their PCs - the expectation, rather, was that the players would "emote" and "roleplay" - as in, talk out in first person - their PCs, basically contributing colour but nothing else to the GM's vignette. I have basically zero interest in this for D&D play, and for ongoing play of any sort, but don't mind it for Chaosium-system one-shots (CoC, RQ, Pendragon, Elric/Stormbringer).

the purpose of a rules system and a social contract associated with it is to facilitate resolving any action which the DM or players initiates in the game world. Sometimes, sure, that resolution will be "that's not possible". Fair enough. But, more often than not, it's, "Well, let's see what happens shall we?"

I guess it comes down to whether or not, as a DM, you want to play in a game where you can be surprised by the campaign itself. Do you, as the DM, want to know, 100%, everything in your game world, or are you willing to play in a campaign where you don't have that?

This works for me! I want to be surprised. "Let's see what happens!"

it's very difficult for a DM to run a game without predetermining anything. How many people are really running a 100% improv game? If not, you've predetermined something

Hussar can speak for himself (and others for themselves), but for my own part I think I've made it pretty clear upthread what is predetermined in my game - namely, backstory, at least at the loose level. As a concrete example, I attach to this post my notes coming out of the past nearly 5 years of my 4e campaign. The bit under "History of the Black Peaks Region" is what I started with, although it was sketchier at the start of the campaign. Quite a bit of the other stuff is digested from 4e books, as the references indicate. Notice that it is all about what has happened and about how different parties are related by connections or conflicts. This is the stuff that I then use to adjudicate details in the course of play. Some of that adjudication will add to the backstory; some will rewrite bits of it. (For instance, some of the stuff about Pazuzu is wrong - contradicted by the actual events of play (namely, Pazuzu took steps that would weaken Asmodeus) - but I haven't rewritten it yet because I'm not sure where exactly things with Pazuzu are going, other than that I will be using Pazuzu as a device to introduce more conflict and complication.)

But man, it's hard. I've tried that philosophy and I find it so much easier to DM when I plan some things and advance and then improvise around them, rather than trying to let everything run out of my control. It's very difficult to run a cohesive improvisation, and (unlike most people here, I would guess), I have actual training in improvisation.

I am not trained in improvisation. I just make stuff up, drawing on the conflicts and relationships already inherent in the setting and situation to make up stuff that seems interesting - and then seeing where it gets taken by the players.

When players start trying to put their own interpretations of rules into things, I call that rules lawyering, and it gets ugly quickly.

I think I've already mentioned upthread the player in my game who decides whether or not what his PC is doing is a ritual, and therefore whether or not he gets the +2 bonus to all skill checks with rituals. This doesn't strike me as "rules lawyering" in any interesting fashion - it strike me as playing the game.

*********************

Here is a quote from this essay from Ron Edwards, talking about what I have labelled "storyteller" play:

[O]ur gamer subcultural default expectation for role-playing is that plot is a prepped function . . .

Character activity during play is swiftly categorized into two kinds: “with” the story or “against” the story. The GM’s job is to make the former most common, whether by dictating or non-negotiably hinting at proper actions to take, or retrofitting actions taken into outcomes that fit after all. The players are therefore “good” if they cooperate with these methods or “bad” or “disruptive” if they don’t.​

I think his comment about the "subcultural default expectation" may be a little strong, given the growth in the number of "indie-style" players (especially beyond the literally indie games). But there seem to me to be plenty of posters on this thread who see plot as something that the GM prepares, and who would work pretty comfortably with a notion of players making choices for the characters that either "go along with the story" or are seen as disruptive to the story. And an example of those ideas colliding with issues of mechanical balance between casters and fighters was provided by [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s example not too far upthread of using Control Winds to disperse the gladiatorial fog and the GM just declaring that the fog rolls right back in.

MY 4E BACKGROUND NOTES (if my players are viewing this thread, please don't read!):
View attachment History (relations between gods, minotaurs, Nerath, Iron Hand, NPCs).doc

 

[pemerton]

Taking a fairly literal definition of both, I think metagaming is antithetical to roleplaying.

"Roleplaying" I take as meaning "playing your character". "Metagaming" I take as meaning referring to or drawing upon considerations that do not exist within the gameworld as experienced by the PC, but are mechanical or other devices that matter at the table, or story elements known to the player but not within the ambit of the PC's experience.

Understood in that way, I know from personal experience that metagaming is not antithetical to roleplaying and can in fact support it. The example is one I posted in a thread a bit like this one a couple of years ago now. The paladin had been turned into a frog by an NPC hexer. There were the usual jokes by the other player as they moved their token past the frog-token on the map during their turns of the combat - "Look out! Don't squash the frog", "Is it a frog or a toad", etc, etc". Then the effect ended as per the rules of the game. The paladin player's turn came up, and he had the PC advance on the hexer, saying something along the lines of "I'm going to defeat you in the name of the Raven Queen!" (This sort of stuff is the PC's default threat during combat.) The hexer (played by me, as GM) replied "I'm not scared of her or you - I already turned you into a frog!" And the player replied in character, without missing a beat "And she turned me back."

That is roleplaying - playing the character, and particularly the character's religious convictions. And the player was able to do that because the mechanics themselves did not tell us why the spell ended. They simply imposed a mechanical rule - the effect ends - and left it for the table to nominate the fiction, the ingame causal explanation. Which this player did. That is metagaming - drawing upon considerations that do not exist within the gameworld but are mechanical devices (ie that the effect must end, according to the rules), and upon story elements not within the ambit of the PC's experience (namely, the workings of the Raven Queen in relation to her followers and the hexers they might findt themselves fighting).

Furthermore, a system that limits the player to considering only the subjective experiences of the PC actually makes this impossible, because (except in very rare cases where the GM plays a god as a divinely intervening NPC) the PC never has direct experience of the workings of the divine, unless mediated via clerical magic. Having played religious PCs in the past, I am actually very aware of how process-simulation mechanics in conjunction wtih an instance upon this sort of non-metagamed RP actually make it very hard to maintain sincere religious belief on the part of the PC, because you are never able to confidently affirm that you have had experience of the divine directly in the world (except for clerical magic). This can be fine for a Conan-esque game in which the attitude towards the gods is fundamentally cynical, and priests and their magic are the only point of contact between gods and world. I don't think that it contributes to roleplaying devoutly religious PCs with a non-cynical outlook, however.

Two characters who are game-mechanically identical should in theory be easy to differentiate at the table just by how they're role-played and what personalities they are given.

This isn't true for my group. If the two PCs have different personalities, then this should be reflected in their PC build - and a game that doesn't have that degree of "heft" in its build rules is therefore not a good fit for my group.

When I played Rolemaster it was very effective for this. For instance, you look down the PC sheet of a demon-summoning wizard and see a high Lie Perception (=Insight) skill, a high Duping (=Bluff) skill, but other social skills all pretty mediocre - and you can tell that this guy is a manipulative bastard with a heart of stone. (As indeed he was.)

Compared to his wizard friend whose Lie Perception and Duping are find, but so is his Seduction, his Bargaining, his Pleading, his Public Speaking, his Interrogation, his Intimidation. This is someone with a huge personality, gregarious, able to dominate any social situation he finds himself in.

Or compare these two two-weapon-fighting samurai. One whose skills are all in fighting with incredible finesse and speed, whose styles have names like Jade Harvest (for he cuts down even the young stalks still green as jade) and Jasuga Slice (named after the town where he perfect the style) - both crit-boosting styles, one for multi-target and one for single-target fighting - and whose only impressive social skill is Leadership. Another whose combat is not quite as effective, but who can fight in any terrain, whose styles have names like Port in a Storm and Keystone Arch (and which give him bonuses to fight defensively while keeping his footing in challenging terrain), who is a master smith, who is learned in literature, history and languages, and whose social skills are not superlative - he doesn't dominate social situations - but who has nice bonuses in Haggling, Etiquette and Amiability, plus just a hint of Seduction. Is anyone surprised that, in the end, it's the second of these two who successfully woos the sorcereress he rescued and, with her, starts a new family line whose members's integrity will be the ward against voidal incursions into the mortal realm for generations to come?

In other words, I like a game in which the mechanical play of the game means that the personality of the PC comes through.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not particularly immersion oriented.

I like the immersion of mechanics. I think I posted about this upthread. If my PC is meant to be manipulative, I want to feel this in mechanical resolution. If my PC is meant to be steadfast, I want to feel this in mechanical resolution. (In 4e, dwarves are hard to push and to knock over. In combat, they play as steadfast. It's nice design that supports my immersion within the fiction.)

If the colour is telling me one thing but the mechanics are telling me another, that is no good for me. (Which is an issue, for me, with fighter saves in 3E. They tell a story of fighter's weakness of will which is at odds with the assertion, in the fiction, that these are tough and resolute fighting men and women.

I'm okay with the lack of intricately plotted big reveals. I'd rather that the focus be on the action that is happening right now.

I like big reveals, but I don't think they have to be intricately plotted. If you jam enough overlapping conflict into NPCs and situations, you can more-or-less pull out the reveal you want that will drive things forward. That way, some conflicts become foregrounded and others fade into the background - or may once have been more prominent but then get left behind as the campaign heads in a different direction.

EDIT: XP given to Manbearcat.

 

[pemerton]

Level 14, complexity 2 social skill challenge

Nice writeup.

The players would have told me what they wanted and we would have sorted out some fitting resource/asset; possibly a 1-use thematic item that gave them an encounter power for the BBEG fight (perhaps priests or archers or something)

When the PCs in my game recruited the soldiers in Phaevorul (P2 Demon Queen's Enclave) as allies, they got a minor action "boon" that let them call in an AoE from their archers, with a level-appropriate attack for a few d6 damage. It's a nice way to handle this sort of thing.