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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 3914544" data-attributes="member: 710">Well, if they don't follow the adventure, they will not gain the XP from that adventure. Because they might not encounter the monsters and traps I put in there. They might also not the cool +4 Holy Flaming Longsword that lures in one of the treasure chests.---Another important thing: No matter how many quests you invent on the fly. If you want to reward the players at succeeding at something, and this reward is not just linked to the challenge rating / level of a monster or NPC, there are now guidelines for how you award it. Imagine as part of the game, players (secretly, without quest cards, because that would give away too much), they manage to uncover a would-be assassin. "Traditionally", I would make the Assassin a high level NPC that the PCs have to kill / subdue to "beat". If he runs once he fears being uncovered, I might want to give them some XP (since they still foiled his plan), but how much? The Full CR? But the Assassin didn't threaten them at all, he didn't even stand in their way! (It's not like they were circumventing a Hobgoblin patrol looking for them) What's the guideline for this? I'd probably give half XP or something like that. On the other hand, if they beat him, they get just XP for beating an high level Assassin? Shouldn't the whole process of uncovering an Assassin at all be worth something? Again, half of his regular XP extra? Or just twice as much?With Quest rules, I can (hopefully) determine how much XP uncovering the Assassin was worth. And the Assassin doesn't even have to be high level - he could be a low-key scribe with access to the victim and a small dose of poison. I might miss out one cool fight, though. But it means I am also not forced to have all assassins and murderers be NPCs of appropriate level to the PCs. I can avoid using "XP for kills" and instead use "XP for quests". There is, obviously, alway a question about how much of story & style do you want to express mechanically, and how much you are fine with just guessing or hand-waving.Without feats or talents, there is little mechanical difference between a Longsword wielder and a Battleaxe wielder (if you're unlucky, one of them is plainly inferior), but that's it. With feats and talents, you can customize your character to enforce the different stereotypes.Without skills, you couldn't represent someone being trained in a specific task - climbing, sneaking, knowing things about religion. You might be able to persuade your DM that you should be good at something, but you might not.Without a quest system, we only had two types of challenges - traps and monsters/NPCs - that we could express mechanically. Without mechanical guidelines, the rest was just guesstimating. (What about puzzles, by the way? How can they be rewarded?)With social encounter rules, non-combat encounters with NPCs either relied on a single skill check, or on convincing the DM with sweet talk (or a combination of both). When do you have to little rules? When do you have too much? I don't think there are fixed borders - some people love rules-light, others prefer rules-heavy. If D&D really is such a great toolbox for all kinds of campaigns and settings, it needs one of the following two (or both)1) A hell of a lot of good and solid role playing advice. (how do you handle "mother may I?-situations", "100 ways of intoning your voice without hurting yourself", "how do I avoid favoritism towards certain players?", "How to describe a scene in an engaging fashion?"), 2)A rule system containing tools for all kinds of scenarios, campaigns, settings or play styles, presented in an engaging manner and describing them in a way that learning to use them is easy. ("How can I distinguish a character that is good at climbing to one that is just very strong?" "How can I build a monster to challenge the NPCs?" "How do I reward the PCs for beating monsters, surviving traps, solving puzzles?")I guess D&D has always been falling to the latter part, and I am afraid the former part is neglected in most game systems, anyway (aside from a little standard talk.)</blockquote>

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