NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6511870" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Lots ofandI hope you don't mind, but can we do this piecemeal?  I don't have time to post something lengthy and that never seems to do the trick anyway.  Let us start by focusing on one specific component part, its differences, and the first order impact of those differences.Subjective difficulty versus objective difficulty in action resolutionD&D 4e, 13th Age, Dungeon World are all systems built around subjective difficulty.  This means that the numerical opposition that the player characters' face scales directly with them and/or is not premised upon an effort to model fantasy world physics.  It is not concerned with process simulation or internal consistency of world physics.  That is the job of the GM and players to appropriately "skin" the fiction around the outcome-based chassis (and the maths that underpin it).   Coupled with other system components and GMing techniques, what it is meant to do is facilitate the consistent generation of dramatic consequences when the action resolution mechanics are consulted to "find out what happens."  This is its primary concern; genre fidelity and consistent drama/climax.  Not internal consistency of fantasy world physics.So in Dungeon World, the Basic Resolution Mechanic is always going to be the same and in 13th Age/4e, you're going to have DCs that scale with PC progression. Alternatively, 5e (and lots of other swell systems) is a system built around objective difficulty.  This means that the numerical opposition that the player characters' face is premised upon an effort to model fantasy world physics.  The math of the system is mostly, or wholly, indifferent to the concern of consistent dramatic outcomes when the resolution mechanics are consulted.  What the system is interested in, first and foremost, is accurately portraying an internally consistent fantasy world and the "natural/organic" outcomes that are derived from interacting with such a place.  Stepping back further, the impetus for that design ethos is actually to (a) serve "verisimilitude" for a segment of the D&D/TTRPG fanbase and (b) serve the mental framework for a segment of the D&D/TTRPG fanbase who feels better equipped to make action declarations for their PCs when process simulation underwrites the outcomes of the system.So in 5e, your job is not to consider dramatic outcomes/momentum.  Your job as GM is to consider the actual difficulty of a specific task within the gameworld (the effort to model fantasy world physics - process-sim), and derive an objective difficulty class number (which henceforth becomes an established, unchanging fact about the gameworld) for the PC to attempt to best when resolving their action.[HR][/HR]Maybe we could talk about that (agree, disagree, clarify, etc) and then delve deeper?  Thanks in advance.</blockquote>

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