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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CuRoi" data-source="post: 5465400" data-attributes="member: 98032">First off - this is a great thread and I would game with any of you guys if given such an opportunity. Pemerton- I hope you don't feel you are getting to "raked over the coals". While I expressed incredulousness re. each players actions which ultimately led to "calming the bear down" for instance, I did so only to point out what would happen at my table.  I'm also getting a bit lost with the story versus narrative versus rules approaches (now being tossed aorund with the gameist, sandbox, hack n slash, etc. etc. tags). So I'm going to focus on fiction and mechanics from here on out...  If they have backed off that approach then I might enjoy 4e a bit more. It all boils down to a player feeling like they are contributing to the overall game I suppose - or how "Special" a player is. I get that. I guess with the way I run my games though, I never saw it as a problem that needed to be solved. Everyone gets their time in the spotlight either individually or acting as a team.  In 2e, everyone could be "special" by filling a role required by the party (which pigeon holed your PC). In 3e everyone could be "special" by cherry picking books and making a sometimes toxic cocktail of feats, classes and the like (which alienated other PCs and was counter to the idea of an adventuring group). In 4e everyone is special cause, well, thats just how it is so you better like it (which creates a fairly homgenous sort of feel...its like communist gaming or something). Again, not saying its a bad approach. As has been shown by the great examples here, it is an interesting way to directly involve every player in every situation. I just don't feel it's necessary to do that for my style. In fact, it can throw quite a few wrenches in the works for how I run things.  I once gamed with a group where one player wanted to roll for everything that happened, whether his PC was around or not or trained or not. Later I figured out he was cheating on his dice rolls, but his insistence to run around rolling untrained skill checks and consistently showing up PCs that had invested in those skills alienated everyone in the group. (True, the cheating was the bigger problem but thats in a different thread...) Pretty soon everyone started doing the same and it was like Night at the Roxbury anytime an NPC strolled into the scene. I don't need 5 players mobbing someone with their dice for me to advance the story; in fact if anything it slows the game to a crawl and can make for a very disjointed session.   Even with some sort of structure and allowing players to fill in the blanks as they see fit, it still seems to divorced from reality for my tastes. The bard going to have a pleasant talk with the local magistrate to get information while the barbarian threatens to rip his limbs off if he doesn't give said information and the mage shooting magic missiles dangerously close to his head, just doesn't add up in some sort of non-combat "math" IMO. I may already know that either threats or diplomacy will get absolutely nowhere with this magistrate base don the fiction. I also know based on the actions the players take, it WILL change the course of the story. So encouraging the Barbarian with zero or poor social skills to involve himself in every attempt at negotiation just because "he can", is probably going to create animosity with anyone the PCs run into. I'm not sure how a rigid "challenge" system accounts for that. All that said, I never -discourage say the uncharismatic Barbarian from interacting with people. It all becomes a matter of roleplay. The players have fun with it enjoy having to compensate for their fellow players flaws when he expresses his "opinion" to the magistrate. I've rarely had a player tell me my expression of fiction which I based on actions by the players and outcomes of their rolls was bogus. (I'm not coming up with anything at least...I'm sure its happened but not often.) In fact, most seem to really enjoy interacting with the game world as I present it. So, again, I really never had a problem to solve. The "skill challenge" solution seems to be solely implemented to satisfy the combat-centric crowd that 3e catered to (just stating an observation here, not looking to tunr on the flames) by offering a rules structure to follow where people can roll dice and read character sheets to solve every problem in the fiction.  In some sense though, I've always approached non-combat encounters in a slightly similar way to the 4e skills challenges, just without all the rigid framework. I need to remain fluid so I can react to whatever a player decides to do and I want that decision to include not only spells, attributes, feats and skills, but plain 'ol ingenuity that I can't quantify. The entire "roll X times for a success" mechanic seems to straight jacket that process a bit too much (as others have expressed).</blockquote>

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