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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 2515987" data-attributes="member: 26473">IMX GMs need to make more use of non-combat action encounters - getting up a crumbling cliff or tower wall, fording a raging river, running a boat through high surf over a dangerous reef, finding and defusing a ticking bomb, rigging a rope bridge across a deep chasm, and so on. Too often these types of situations (if they appear at all) are handled with a single skill check roll, rather than breaking it down into a series of steps to complete, each with its own potentially hazardous outcome.Another problem with these encounters is the lack of meaningful choices to involve player decision-making: do I climb the cliff along the chimney, which is safer but longer, or do I chance the riskier but shorter face route? do we take the gap in the reef that may be visible from the guard post, or do we chance running the reef break and maybe swamping or capsizing? A complex environment with which the players are encouraged to interact is every bit as interesting, and often as perilous, as a combat encounter.As far as intrigue, well, it's not everyone's cup of tea. More often than not I am a kill-things-and-take-their-stuff gamer, unless the GM is really good at setting a scene, rewards investigation with meaningful clues, and not a hopeless rail-baron (the other RBDM... :\ ). I think it's too easy to make intrigues either too simple (which is dull) or too complex (which is also dull) - hitting that "sweet spot" can be tough to do.Finally, the conventional wisdom says that adventures and campaigns should build to a dramatic conclusion, such as the final confrontation with the BBEG - usually this involves a combat encounter as good vanquishes evil (or at least something gets killed and its stuff taken...mmmm....taking stuff...). Right now I'm running an encounter that stands that on its head a bit - we started off with a sharp combat encounter that's setting up a complex social encounter as the payoff for the opening. If GMs never experiment with the adventure format, it doesn't seem reasonable to bemoan the consistent outcome.</blockquote>

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