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Failure stakes for a travel Skill Challenge
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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7559952" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>I don’t have the time to commit to reading through each of the PCs right now, but I will afterwhile and give you some PC-centric stuff to consider.</p><p></p><p>My time is short, but I’m going to take a brief moment to disagree with @<em><strong><u><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a></u></strong></em> on a few things as this is probably the only TTRPG issue we discuss where there is daylight between our views.</p><p></p><p>1) A game like Dogs features significant wilderness trekking, but the premise of the game is exclusively about what happens in the Towns. Consequently, travel in between is fast forwarded and treated as a collective time for reflection upon what just transpired in the prior Town.</p><p></p><p>Although you can certainly play D&D in a similar vein (site based adventure and social conflict), and plenty do, I definitely feel that something can be lost with the perilous journey being fast forwarded. I feel like this is particularly true in a PoL setting (like 4e, BtW, DW, etc).</p><p></p><p>a) A lot of the themes and tone connect to and come from the wild.</p><p></p><p>b) Without firsthand experience of the encroanching, suffocating “darkness” of the wild, the encircled, unique “light” of civilization will invariably be muted. Perilous journey through that darkness is a strong (when done right) way to enhance the juxtaposition.</p><p></p><p>c) When done well, there is a diversity of obstacles and conflicts that can’t be reproduced elsewhere (which will tie into PC archetypes).</p><p></p><p>2) On gating excitement and more XPs behind failures, I have a few thoughts.</p><p></p><p>- I don’t look at Failure in 4e as a penalty for the players. It’s a penalty for the PCs in that it brings about some adverse condition that they would rather not have to deal with. So failure should definitely produce as much excitement as possible! In fact, I would go so far as to say that Failure in 4e is more exciting than Success because the situation changes more dynamically...meanwhile it isn’t so punitive so as to engender “turtling.”</p><p></p><p>- With XP in 4e being merely a pacing mechanism for content escalation (via PC growth), however the XP rolls in, it rolls in! C’est la vie!</p><p></p><p>3) While Heroic Tier PCs are certainly less robust to perturbations of the Action Economy and maths when compared to their Epic counterparts (where 4e maths starts to shutter toward 24 or so...but it doesn’t matter as PC scaling is occurring on different axes to make up for it), they’re still quite robust to smaller perturbations (especially with Themes and Backgrounds). So yes, you have to be cognizant of the prospect of death spirals when using things like the Disease/Condition Track and/or gating Rests behind gamestate/fiction conditions, a skilled 4e GM and players (especially skilled ones) should do just fine.</p><p></p><p>4) I’m confident that pemerton could easily develop his repertoire of wilderness obstacle/conflict handling if he chose to (even if he hasn’t been an outdoorsman in his life). Social conflict, wilderness conflict, urban conflict, physical conflict is all about pressure points and relevant tropes. Once you know those and become practiced, they’re all the same in terms of GM-side creativity!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 7559952, member: 6696971"] I don’t have the time to commit to reading through each of the PCs right now, but I will afterwhile and give you some PC-centric stuff to consider. My time is short, but I’m going to take a brief moment to disagree with @[I][B][U][URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582"]pemerton[/URL][/U][/B][/I] on a few things as this is probably the only TTRPG issue we discuss where there is daylight between our views. 1) A game like Dogs features significant wilderness trekking, but the premise of the game is exclusively about what happens in the Towns. Consequently, travel in between is fast forwarded and treated as a collective time for reflection upon what just transpired in the prior Town. Although you can certainly play D&D in a similar vein (site based adventure and social conflict), and plenty do, I definitely feel that something can be lost with the perilous journey being fast forwarded. I feel like this is particularly true in a PoL setting (like 4e, BtW, DW, etc). a) A lot of the themes and tone connect to and come from the wild. b) Without firsthand experience of the encroanching, suffocating “darkness” of the wild, the encircled, unique “light” of civilization will invariably be muted. Perilous journey through that darkness is a strong (when done right) way to enhance the juxtaposition. c) When done well, there is a diversity of obstacles and conflicts that can’t be reproduced elsewhere (which will tie into PC archetypes). 2) On gating excitement and more XPs behind failures, I have a few thoughts. - I don’t look at Failure in 4e as a penalty for the players. It’s a penalty for the PCs in that it brings about some adverse condition that they would rather not have to deal with. So failure should definitely produce as much excitement as possible! In fact, I would go so far as to say that Failure in 4e is more exciting than Success because the situation changes more dynamically...meanwhile it isn’t so punitive so as to engender “turtling.” - With XP in 4e being merely a pacing mechanism for content escalation (via PC growth), however the XP rolls in, it rolls in! C’est la vie! 3) While Heroic Tier PCs are certainly less robust to perturbations of the Action Economy and maths when compared to their Epic counterparts (where 4e maths starts to shutter toward 24 or so...but it doesn’t matter as PC scaling is occurring on different axes to make up for it), they’re still quite robust to smaller perturbations (especially with Themes and Backgrounds). So yes, you have to be cognizant of the prospect of death spirals when using things like the Disease/Condition Track and/or gating Rests behind gamestate/fiction conditions, a skilled 4e GM and players (especially skilled ones) should do just fine. 4) I’m confident that pemerton could easily develop his repertoire of wilderness obstacle/conflict handling if he chose to (even if he hasn’t been an outdoorsman in his life). Social conflict, wilderness conflict, urban conflict, physical conflict is all about pressure points and relevant tropes. Once you know those and become practiced, they’re all the same in terms of GM-side creativity! [/QUOTE]
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