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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6200229" data-attributes="member: 42582">I would say that not spelling out how your game is to be played, and furthermore implying that it can be played in ways that it can't (especially implying, via "back to the dungeon", that it will support classic D&D wargame-y play), is a fairly serious issue.My gut feel is that it was unintentional. For instance, with the druid they didn't even do serious playtesting of mid-level animal companions until after the PHB had gone to press - and they then stuck in a half-baked rule in the DMG about "adventuring druids", without actually explaining that this was an errata to the PHB due to balance issues!  [MENTION=6695799]ImperatorK[/MENTION] is not trying to play indie-style, I don't think.I think most people who encounter balance problems in 3E are trying to play either sandbox-style, or wargame style, or some mix of the two - in other words, some approach that doesn't, by default, issue in the requisite degree of GM force. In my game the GM has more authority over backstory than do the players; has authority over scene-framing; and is a participant in action resolution.The players also contribute to backstory, but generally only in aspects of the gameworld closely connected to their PCs. They don't set their own opposition. They can try to modify anything they want, but via action resolution, not rewriting backstory or reframing a framed scene - so this will be constrained via credibility considerations (ie "possible" means "possible within genre constraints") and mechanics.Their are some nuances - for instance, the deva PC can call upon his Memory of 1000 Lifetimes do get a+1d8 bonus to any d20 roll, 1x/enc. I will often narrate the effect of this in terms of authoring some new bit of backstory that explains why his memories from past incarnations help him. This is backstory revealed in the interests of dealing with opposition, but tightly constrained within the action resolution mechanics.I have talked consistently about player resources, which may or may not also be character resources - contrast, say, an equipment list (both player and character resources) with action points (player resources only) or hit points (which I would regard primarily as a player resource).Having made that clarificationI would put the broader principle of scene-framing this way - a situation which the players cannot change via deployment of their resources is primarily colour, perhaps with a bit of backstory download also. But it is not a core instance of play - precisely because it provides the players with no opportunity to change the fiction via use of their resources. That doesn't change the fundamental principle, but it does change the fictional positioning of the PCs in relation to the Chamberlain, which may open up new possibilities for deploying resources.These examples are different, but not radically so.With the dragon, what is the understanding between players and GM as to the basic genre and orientation of play? If players have built 1st level PCs looking for a dragon hunting game there seems to be a basic issue of miscommunication. Probably new PCs need to be built, perhaps at 11th level rather than 1st.With the Chamberlain, there are at least two issues. First, there is the disparity across the PCs between "no mechanical possibility" and "mechanical certainty". 3E has more of this, I think, than any other version of D&D. 4e has flatter maths, though not as flat as D&Dnext is ostensibly aiming for. The less flat the maths, and the more disparate the capabilities, the more the GM is going to have to frame encounters with reference to the mechanical details of the PCs. Many of those who do not experience balance issues in 3E seem to emphasise this. In my 4e game, I tend not to worry as much about the mechanical details of the PCs; I focus more on the thematic aspects in thinking about scene-framing. But I still pay more attention to mechanical details of the PCs than if I were designing "status-quo" encounters for a sandbox game.The second issue follows on from this: given that I want to frame a scene that fits the parameters described above, what do I do when the PCs return with the bard in tow, or vice versa? One possibility is to change the fiction to sustain the challenge (eg the Chamberlain is drunk and hence easily swayed; or the Chamberlain is furious about something, and hence only the bard has a robust chance of persuading him). Another is to frame a different challenge into the scene - the bard easily persuades the Chamberlain to admit them (perhaps this is even "saying yes") and the real action is with the king; or, if its the bard who is missing, then just as the PCs approach the Chabmerlain sans bard a band of assassins breaks through the palace windows, and the PCs get to save the Chamberlain by a display of martial prowess.The broader point is that in my playstyle backstory and scene-framing are servants of play, where "play" is understood as I described it above - the players having the chance to impose their will on the fiction by engaging it via their PCs.I think you are misunderstanding. The players do not have any such power. Rather, the GM has such a responsibility - a GM who frames a scene that the players can't impact via their PCs is doing a bad job, in my preferred style.We have different preferences here. I'm not 100% sure I understand your continuum, but I want the fiction to feed into the mechanics, and the mechanics to then output changes in the fiction.What you say makes me think that you may be someone who contrasts combat with roleplaying and developing the story (I often read posts on these boards in which people say they want quicker combat so they can fit in more story and roleplay). Whether or not I am right in that hypothesis, I am not someone who feels the force of any such contrast. Combat, like any other episode of action resolution, should be taking the prior fiction as input and generating new fiction as output. And if that fiction is not interesting, then the GM has framed a poor scene. (Hence my huge dislike for so-called "filler" encounters.) I am not interested in AP play, I think the players should be "hooking" the GM, and I want the story - driven by the players - in the foreground. (Hence my huge dislike for so-called "sidequests", which implies that the players' concerns for their PCs are secondary to the GM's conception of what the campaign is about.)This could well be dramatic, if it's the culmination of (i) a series of earlier decisions and manouevres to build up such a good bonus, and/or (ii) is the upshot of interesting exploitation of fictional positioning by the players ("free roleplaying") so as to get the chance to make the roll. (By analogy - an assassination attempt in 1st ed AD&D is a single roll, but that roll could be quite dramatic; so can a climactic to-hit and damage roll.)More significantly, have I mentioned that I thin 3E has poor social conflict resolution mechanics? And as far as I can tell you agree, or at least you don't think they are genreally capable of resolving dramatic encounters in satisfying ways.In your example of the players having no chance, via their PCs, of persuading the Chamberlain I'm not sure that I see how the playes are leveraging prior events.But in a game in which the GM has a significant degree of authority over backstory, you are correct that when the players leverage prior events that will include leveraging GM-introduced backstory. But it can include other things as well, such as - in the duergar example - leveraging prior friendship with the duergar resulting from choices made by the players in past interactions with the duergar.As to me (as GM) deciding what would result from the PC's prayer, you are correct that that is the GM introducing an opportunity in response to a success. That is fairly typical in "indie" play: the player will have set an intention as part of framing their check (in this case, "I pray for help!") and if the check succeeds then that intention is realised. Some GMs may allow the player to narrate all the details of their success; and some systems can stipulate that this is the case; and that increases the degree of authority of the players over backstory - because of course narrating any success brings with it an implicit or explicit backstory that explains how that particular success came about (in the case of the duergar, for instance, quite a complex backstory).This approach to resoution, however exactly the narrative authority is distributed, is cooperative as between participants in the way that  [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] said upthread.In my experience, one common explanation for GM's framing the PCs into scenes that the PCs can't really impact is because they are following the dictates of a module author.Sure, but by the time the players have decided to have their PCs go to the Chamberlain this particular bit of background-extracting action resolution has already taken place. We're now in a new scene - the Chamberlain scene - that (as stipulated) the players can't shape. That the GM has that sort of authority over backstory in the typical D&D game is not in dispute. The issue is, why has the GM framed the PCs into a confrontation with this immovable object? I can think of two answers: (1) because the GM wants to take the opportunity to provide some colour and some backstory; (2) because the players really wanted their PCs to meet the Chamberlain anyway.If (1) is the case that is something I'm personally not interested in. I don't care for mere colour encounters. (If as GM I want to download backstory, I just download it.) If (2) is the case, then this is a bit like the 1st level PCs vs the dragon - why is there such a mismatch between what the players want to do in the game, and what the GM is serving up to them? For me it's a sign that something has gone wrong in basic communication.I don't understand the comparison. The point I was trying to convey in the bomb example is that, in my style of game, the bomb (assuming that it has been built up as a challenge with which the players are trying to deal via their PCs) will not explode offscreen - rather, whether or not it explodes will depend upon the results of the player's action resolution checks.If the PCs are trying to meet the king, then the analogy to the bomb exploding, or not, is the PCs being refused an audience, r being granted one. Just as the bomb outcome would turn on action resolution, likewise the king outcome. I don't see how pre-scripting that is comparable - that is like the GM deciding that the bomb explodes by fiat. I am having trouble following your train of thought.If the players want the next scene to be their meeting with the Chamberlain, and instead the GM frames a mere filler encounter with a courtesan, that is bad GMing in my view. If the courtesan encounter is some element of the Chamberlain encounter (for instance, she will introduce the PCs to the Chamberlain and put in a good word for them) that is a different matter - and the players might be expected to use the action resolution mechanics to help them make progress inthis respect (if they don't befriend the courtesan than fail forward might have them meeting the Chamberlain after the courtesan has slagged them off to him).If for whatever reason the GM is adamant that the PCs shall not meet the king, then why frame the encounter with the Chamberlain at all?I have no idea why you would say this about action resolution mechanics that bridge time and/or distance. (And that's putting to one side the fact that a shared storytelling activity based on resource management would seem to be the very paradigm of a game.)Marvel Heroic RP, for instance, has a mechanic whereby a hero fighting a villain in NY can, via successful action resolution using a strength power, inflict on a the villain as a complication "Punched all the way to Newark and stuck in rush hour traffic". The resulting geographic separation of the villain from the hero is not a mechanical constraint on action resolution in that system, but simply a matter of fictional positioning. So MHRP has no trouble with geographically liberal action resolution (quite a marked contrast with D&D).This gives rise to the same issues about time and geography. 4e canvasses running extended skill challenges of this sort, but the fairly clear intention is that they are for resolving the players' peripheral concerns rather than their central concerns. (In the HeroWars rulebook, the example given of this is a courtship of an NPC by a PC.)But there is also the matter of what determines how the scene unfolds. Why does the Chamberlain avenue not work? If that is simply via GM fiat, rather than a complication narrated in response to a failure in the course of the overall resolution, that is not very satisfying for me.You can't strip out the colour and preserve the resolution. For instance, the only reason the wizard's player was able to spend an AP to boost the skill check of the failure was because of leveraging fictional positioning: "Have you fixed the tear in your robe, Golthar?" You can't explain the skill check, and hence its consequences, stripped of this information.And, as for the role of the mechanics, it is in virtue of the mechanics that the player has the chance to impose his will on the fiction via having his PC speak those words.At the time they knew what was going on. As I said in the post, the precise details of the resolution escaped me.The relevant rules (from my skill challenge summary document, that compiles the PHB, the DMG, the DMG2 and Essentials) are:A secondary skill check may assist another PC’s check … by granting a +2 bonus to a subsequent check … If another PC fails a skill check, you may spend an action point to make a secondary skill check as an immediate interrupt, in order to assist the failed checkThe player spent an action point and made the secondary skill check. What I couldn't (and still can't remember) is whether I called for a roll, or whether I decided to "say yes" (because I couldn't think of any non-deflating way of narrating a failure).I don't really see how this is the GM deciding the outcome or being the final arbiter. It is the participants jointly determining the outcome via action resolution. If I was saying yes, that is a concession of authority to the player to impose his will on the fiction.Well, then, I don't understand your hypothetical game system. Why in your hypothetical system do NPCs get moodier as the PCs gain levels? Do you think that's a good mechanic?I got the impression that you actually think this would be a bad mechanic, and were suggesting that 4e is saddled with it because of its DC-by-level table.I don't see how, from my comment that "fail forward means, roughly, that you succed at your task but fail at your intent" that "the players may never fail with their stated intent". Your paraphrase is literally the opposite of what I said.I'm not sure what you have in mind - but superficially, what you escribe here sounds like standard RPGing to me (though you are only looking at the path that leads to success: the players engage the scene, the outcome of that takes them into a new situation, they engage that too, the GM reframes, and in continues until the campaign is resolved.Where is the Calvinball? Where is the dysfunction? And why is it adversarial?</blockquote>

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