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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8154332" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think the issue of setting difficulties (or not, in systems that don't use them) is very interesting. And also how this interacts with building NPCs (where that is a part of the game).In 4e D&D it's pretty transparent in virtue of the DC-by-level chart, and the design of PC-build-elements is fairly baroque in parts precisely to maintain a solid mathematical interaction with those DCs. (There are a few areas of breakage - I will nominate Sage of Ages epic destiny as one - but not that many that I have encountered.) There are also very solid rules to govern NPC/monster building.In Prince Valiant setting DCs is easy because they generally range from 1 (easy) to 4 (pretty hard) but opposed checks are a bigger deal because those depend on NPC stats, and that requires GM good faith and fidelity to genre, prior NPCs encountered, etc. Some of the episodes in the Episodes Book (not Greg Stafford's original rulebook) in my view suffer from some overdone/gerrymandered NPC builds. I've had to correct some of these for my own play.Classic Traveller has transparent NPC build - just follow the lifepath rules like the players had to - but setting other DCs can be quite opaque. I do my best to explain my reasoning to my players but I don't know if they always follow it. What does help a bit here is the relative transparency of a PC "stat block" which means that, basically, PCs are good at what you would expect them to be given what it says on their tin! So you don't get weirdnesses that can happen in more convoluted PC build frameworks (like one time in a 2nd ed AD&D game where my 1st level cleric was a better combatant than the 1st level fighter - the player of the fighter got a bit of a shock).Burning Wheel uses both set difficulties and opposed checks, like Prince Valiant. It needs NPC stats to make some of this work, like Prince Valiant and also Traveller. And like Traveller, the setting of difficulties by the GM is meant to be one way that the GM makes the world "come alive" to the players. The Classic Traveller rulebook advises the referee to keep notes to help ensure consistency in this respect. BW doesn't give such specific advice, but the rulebooks list many more particular difficulties than are found in Traveller, so maybe those lists are in part a substitute for GM notes.Anyway, I think this range of approaches and the various principles that should govern them are a bit under-discussed.</blockquote>

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