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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6017716" data-attributes="member: 42582">There's two reasons I prefer an approach more like the one [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] describes.First, by giving XP based on (at least roughly) the amount of time and effort the scene soaked up at the table, rather than on which PC did the guiding and which the talking, I get a better pacing and progression of PC advancement in my game. The story moves on (in orthodox D&D, I should add, the story is heavily level dependent, because you can't move on from kobolds to their dragon overlords, let alone Tiamat, without a few levels under your belt).Second, Manbearcat's sounds more interesting. Whereas yours sounds kind of dull, at least to me. Nothing really seems to have turned on the choice of which path to take. Nothing really seems to have been at stake in the cleric's conversation. We could do it all by email, or via GM fiat ("You make it down the mountainside, and on the way you talk to some people who tell you XYZ") and the outcome for the game would seem to be hardly any different.Maybe the GM's description of the mountainside, and RPing of the travellers spoken to, was more evocative than your example seemed to suggest. But what's with the bit about saving a few days on the trip. I mean, why did that even matter? And if it was predetermined by the ranger's Survival skill with no need to roll, what is the point of making the players choose which way to go? I mean, if the players choose to go the slower way they take longer (and maybe that costs them something?) and they don't get to meet the travellers (and so miss out on some info) and they get no benefit in return, because both the navigation down the short path and the talking to the travellers were auto-successes. It's just that the GM set up a "gotcha" for the players because s/he hasn't told the players that they're auto-successes.I don't see the point of that sort of play. It seems to me that it's the GM playing with him-/herself, using the players' choices as a sort of die-roll ("Haha, they chose to go the long way! So now I better work out what happens when they're running late and haven't caught up on the latests gossip!").</blockquote>

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