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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6017611" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Its pretty bold of you to assume that there is a disconnect.  Its further bold for you to assume that we don't get it.  Its further bold still to tell us that we don't need "tools" to capture the emergent exploration fiction/scenes that we, and our tables, are looking to capture.  Its bold yet again to tell us that we don't need punitive measures or incentives/stakes in order to capture the mood and scenes that we're looking for.  Bolder still to tell us you "feel" that our table dynamics and fictional renderings (by way of mechanical resolution and creativity) yield a bunch of unnecessary gunk.  It sounds like you're just looking to pick a fight.But against my better judgement I'll indulge you anyway as politely as I can.If you look upthread what you are depicting is very much akin to S'mon's "you are here...what do you do" exploratory play.  That is the standard benchmark for typical sandbox, simulatory, task resolution of locale exploration.  Its loose, its fast, and its mostly mechanic-neutral roleplaying and a few task resolution skill rolls.  This is the predominant mode of operation for non-scene framed exploratory play.  Free-form, "getting to know you...getting to know all...about you" exploration of the immediate surroundings (and perhaps bringing to bear some background or a deployable resource or two).  For anyone who has played role-playing games, this is not avant garde or breaking news.  It is probably the baby steps that all DMs/gaming tables take in the genesis sessions of their gaming experience.  It is all but mandatory to one degree or another.  However, what it doesn't do is capture a specific genre relevant trope through a mechanical resolution ruleset that is contingent upon the co-authorship of the scene (DMs and PCs) by way of genre logic and fiction-first intent.  A well-rendered Skill Challenge should feel like a closed scene of a play or a movie married to a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.  There must be something at risk; stakes (pass or fail).  The DM must set the scene appropriately and the fiction must move forward from that initial starting point (where stakes are clearly laid out and the genre-inspiration clearly conveyed through implication) by way of the PCs initial reactive or proactive response (contingent upon the fiction) to the "set scene."  The fiction then emerges by way of the resolution rules and the "fiction-first", "genre-relevant" interpretation of the result of each roll.  Linear process-simulation of one task resolution (after another) has neither a "fiction-first" motive nor a "genre-relevant" motive...so it will ultimately fail in attempting to capture whatever it is that you're attempting to capture (and will then render its pointless).  Further, specifically in this scenario, what you would be trying to capture is whatever exploratory genre-convention you are aiming at (I title it Appalachian Trail Attrition play as its my own and my players most broad understanding of the genre).  It could be something like the climbing of Mount Everest, being lost in the frozen tundra like the first Arctic Explorers, the jungle scenarios from "The Heart of Darkness", being lost off the beaten path of the Appalachian Trial a la "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" or "A Walk in the Woods"...etc, etc.  There are tons of movies and real life stories for inspiration of this theme/genre.  There are very specific things that you need to induce within your players (an ominous dread...the eerie threat of a passive-aggressive, callous, ruthless, indifferent, non-sentient wilderness...that will just as soon eat you as feed you)...and you must do this through some tangible form of attrition.  In 3.5 years of gaming with the 4e ruleset, I have used this convention twice:1)  An Artic Explorer Skill Challenge to start off the game in Heroic Tier.  The PCs were captured by a tribe of nomadic orcs, starved, forced into indentured servitude in the great white north for a full season.  The PCs were chained together in a hovel every morning...barely enough to keep the cold and the chill wind at bay.  They were fed just enough to keep them alive.  Two of their numbers had died and they were forced by the orcs to consume their remains as food was scarce.  After one stormy evening, their orc handlers did not stir them.  That evening turned into three.  On the third day the game formally began by the PCs working their way out of their bondage and investigating the scene outside of their hovel.  The orcs were gone, possessions still in hovels, stewpot creaking in the wind as it hangs over the spit, now frozen over.  In the great white north, a few hours of winds and the constant snow will undermine all track investigations.  They were half-starved, struggling to hold onto their senses with nothing but the blinding white of a howling wintry tundra staring back at them.  However, they were able to scavenge scraps of food and crude weapons...and off they went attempting to find civilization...but first they must find suitable shelter and replenishing food while evading all of the non-sentient and sentient threats around them.  I used the story of the Elisha Kent Kane and Isaac Israel Hayes' Arctic Expedition as inspiration and genre-logic.  The Skill Challenge and Disease/Condition Track system captured it perfectly and we were all terrifically pleased at the table.  The Extended Skill Challenge went on for 4 sessions with 3 failures before the PCs (barely) made it to civilization alive (one PC was literally dragged in on a makeshift sled/gurney).  They were intensely connected with their PCs for the rest of the campaign (which was high fantasy regardless of its mundane beginnings) which ran through late Paragon tier.2)  A Paragon Tier "A Heart of Darkness" jungle excursion to find a remote Shaman that could perform a ritual to restore the PCs (two of which were suffering from an incurable Abyssal Plague while one other was in its final stages).  Not only were they suffering the attrition of the Condition Track that I rendered for the jungle but two of the PCs were suffering concurrent Disease Track implications from the Abyssal Plague.  This Skill Challenge was resolved with only one failure but again, a stunning success.Neither of those two situations (not the focused, co-authored, genre-relevant fiction nor the induced tension and sense of dread) came off as well in efforts in editions past as they did in 4e.  Now you may not enjoy "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.  You may not enjoy fiction-first, outcome-based simulation, genre relevant co-authorship of closed scenes at your gaming table.  You may not enjoy the convention of attrition-gaming (nor the 2 scenes that I outlined above).  That is perfectly fine.  But maybe you could rein it in a little and try not to tell me that I don't know my own tastes (or that of my players) and I don't know how best to run my own games, or that I cannot analyze the implication of mechanical resolution sets on our shared fiction, or that my games and resolution techniques yield "a hunk of unnecessary junk".  That would be great.</blockquote>

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