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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5871028" data-attributes="member: 42582">I could turn that around, though, and say that your response suggests to me that there's a lot of RPGs that you're not familiar with.Marking is a species of debuff. It penalises attacks against targets other than the one who marked you. There are multiple mechanical ways, in an RPG, for deploying a debuff. It can happen ingame (eg the wizard casts Ray of Enfeeblement on an enemy, causing a -2 to hit). It can happen via the metagame (eg the player of the wizard plays a Fate point, giving an enemy a -2 to hit). Which is marking? Either - it depends on context, class, table norms, etc.At my table we play paladin marking as an ingame effect - the paladin has called down the sanction of his god upon his enemies. And the enemies know they're debuffed (and that they will take radiant damage if they don't attack the paladin).At my table we treat the fighter's mark sometimes as ingame, sometimes as metagame. Sometimes, when playing my creatures, I have regard to it and focus my attacks on the fighter. Other times I ignore it or forget about it, and have the NPC/monster attack someone else, therefore (when the player of the fighter points it out!) suffering a -2 to hit.How do I decide who a monster/NPC attacks? All sorts of things factor in - marks, available targets, who is established by prior story as a particular enemy of that monster/NPC, what would be more exciting, etc. I also follow this advice from <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=1361" target="_blank">Paul Czege</a>: I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.The fighter's mark, and how to respond to it, is just one part of these decisions - of which I'm making something like 20 or more per combat.If you're trying to tell me that this isn't roleplaying, but "players moving tokens against each other", then go to town! But I think that any reference to the many many actual play threads I've posted on these boards, describing episodes from my 4e game and how I and my players used the mechanics to bring them about, will refute that claim.I still don't see a problem.I understand that you are insisting that things must be thus and so. But you are not providing a reason which strike me as salient outside one approach to play (namely, one which (i) strongly emphasises process simulation of the fiction over the results in the fiction, and (ii) strongly disapproves of any overt metagame agenda being brought to bear upon play. Whereas I don't especially value (i) - I can enjoy RPGs that make a point of it (like RM or RQ), but have no special commitment to them. And I don't value (ii) at all.You are making all sorts of assumptions here about RPGing which not all of us share.For example, I don't want or expect my players not to use OOC knowledge in game. I want them to use that knowledge in game - for example, to make choices because everyone at the table knows it will be exciting, even if the PCs don't (or would prefer to live peaceful rather than exciting lives).When it comes to GMing, most of my decision-making is metagame-driven. My whole goal as GM is to set up enaging situations in the fiction which the players will enjoy engaging, and which will produce a fiction that is aesthetically satisfying for them and for me.So, as [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] said above, it doesn't especially matter to me whether it is the monster, or just me as GM, who knows that attacks against targets other than the fighter are penalised. The point is that, knowing they are so penalised, I as GM will (at least from time to time) make decisions that take that into account. Which produces a result that the fighter is attacked perhaps more than otherwise he would be. Which produces a fiction in which the heroic fighter stands at the centre of the martial action. Which seems, to me at least, the right sort of fiction for a game of heroic fantasy to produce.I already answered this in my previous post, I think - I will configure the NPC/monster at the right level to provide the sort of challenge that fits with the fiction, the pace, the thematic impact I'm going for, etc. How that is then realised in mechanical terms depends on the game being played. In 4e, for example, your question doesn't even really make sense because villains don't have any such mechanical options as "buffs" or "slots". In RM or AD&D, as I stated above, I would work out the desired effect first, and then build an NPC around that - including deciding whether its a low level NPC with full slots, a high level NPC who's used most of his/her spell points/slots doing something else today, or whatever.The fact that this is harder work in RM or AD&D (or 3E, from what I understand of it) is one reason that I prefer to GM 4e.Are you saying that, in designing scenarios and encounters, and (or?) in adjudicating them, a GM should never have regard to whether they're interesting, boring, exciting, dramatic, thematically challenging, or any other comparable metagame situation?If the players in my game didn't have anything better to do with their PCs, and their fate points, then walk up to random kings and smack them *just because*, then I would be seriously revisiting my approach to scenario design, framing interesting scenes, etc.But to date, at least, the issue you describe hasn't come up for me.</blockquote>

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