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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8272518" data-attributes="member: 82106">I never read the module, so I am not sure of all the particulars of that SC. IMHO though, it isn't necessarily that bad. I mean, I would certainly make something like that into a Complexity 1 challenge if I was going to frame it the way you describe. Also, I'm not enamored by the "end up outside, try again" aspect. ANY good SC has to involve fictional situation changing, both during and as a result of, the challenge. I guess if the point was simply depletion of supplies, then OK, but if it was me I'd have the end result be you get to the center no matter what, and your supplies are depleted (creating later complications) on a failure. Something like that. Also I don't know what happens DURING the challenge, but it should definitely involve several obstacles and allow for various possible solutions (including ones unforeseen by the GM/Module author). Again, being Complexity 1, this doesn't have to be TOO elaborate.Obviously you were interested in playing up the storm and getting through it as a major activity. That's fine too, and if I was wanting to do that, then I wouldn't run it as an SC, or I would put a lot more into said SC and it would probably be a Complexity 5 with a number of pieces to it. 4e says "skip to the interesting parts", but it doesn't really say what they are, except that they are 'encounters' and thus USUALLY use either the combat and/or SC system (puzzles are an exception, and traps are technically combat, but could play more like free-form or etc.).Anyway, WotC, especially in early 4e, definitely wasn't too good at SC formulation. They are also hard to create in a module format, because they tie so much into the plot, and every group will mangle the imagined plot in various ways. So I found very few written SCs that were really reliably good. Most of those however WERE 'survival tests', but carefully written. Social situations can work, but they really need to generally be situated at the START of a module, or at the very penultimate point, otherwise its hard to end up with the situation being exactly what was imagined by the author.</blockquote>

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