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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6202906" data-attributes="member: 42582">It's an interesting case.Upthread I talked about the idea of fictional positioning established via "secret" backstory, which means that the players are deploying their resources with a less than thorough understanding of how resources + fictional positioning are likely to lead to an outcome.The duke who can't be intimidated is an example of that phenomenon.But it has two interesting features that are worth noticing. First, the GM's notes for that scene also indicate that successful use of Insight reveal's that the duke cannot be intimidated. So the secrecy of the backstory is only provisional - it can come to light, and the players gain full knowledge of the ficitonal positioning (ie that this is a man who won't be intimidated by them). Second, the failure is only 1 of 4 needed to fail the challenge (the example was written using the old 8/4 rule rather than the errata-ed 8/3 rule). So the GM is not determining the overall outcome of the scene.I don't think this is the best design ever, and like much of the 4e GMing advice it suffers from barely enough "show" and nowhere near enough "tell". For instance, the fictional positioning of the duke as someone unable to be intimidated by the PCs might make sense if they are low-to-mid Heroic tier, but would (I think) be obviously silly if they were Paragon, let alone Epic. But the example doesn't talk about this sort of consideration, and rather leaves working out the connection between mechanics and fiction as an exercise for the reader.Another thing that is missing is that the example doesn't canvass ways that the PCs might get leverage over the dke to intimidate him. It seems obvious, to me at least, that the designer is envisaging use of Intimidate to bully or threaten the duke directly, and is saying that the duke is not the sort of person who can be treated in this way (and this is reinforced by the example of play on p 77 of the DMG).  But it is fairly easy to envisage other ways that the PCs might be able to threaten the duke (say, via blackmail or indirect threats against his friends or family), and in those cases it might make more sense to allow the check to be made, but also note that the duke will, in the future, attempt to exact vengeance against the person who acted against him in such a way.Anyway, those are my thoughts on that example.</blockquote>

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