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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8391325" data-attributes="member: 82106">It baffles me that people would somehow consider 5e 'more free form'. The structure in the case of 4e's SCs (which, remember are not mandatory and simply leverage a skill system which is otherwise nearly identical in general form to 5e's) is there to ENABLE the players. That is, without any structure, skills really don't do anything. They're just sort of random dice rolling. You can't say that a check will get you anything in particular, advance your cause in any way, etc. Particularly in 5e where the concept is much more "just let the GM decide" this can be really problematic, and IME is actually disempowering to players. You quickly learn to just assume that whatever is going to happen is whatever the GM wants to have happen. 4e seems much more dynamic when played the way I run it, where scenes are framed on the basis of what the player's engage with and where they can be pretty sure of what the impact of their actions will be. The process of doing these SC well also is a driving force in terms of moving the action forward. Honestly, 4e wasn't exactly quite put together in the best possible way either, it is just that it was a lot more forward-looking game with a lot more potentially interesting ways it can be developed and played compared to 5e. Again, my opinion, but since I've done a lot of hacking on it, I can at least say I've come up with some really interesting ways to use that basic structure.</blockquote>

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