NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6206629" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't understand what you mean by "the same does not extend to a combat challenge". I've stated on multiple occasions that I wouldn't frame default 1st level 4e PCs into a conflict with a default 4e Ancient Red Dragon precisely because the players of those PCs would have no chance of meaningfully affecting the fiction within the scene.The same is true of the chamberlain. If you think that it is absurd that a chamberlain might be influenced by 1st level PCs, then they are not going to be framed into such an encounter. I personally don't take this view, however. As I've also stated upthread, multiple times, 4e does not by default assign a level to chamberlains. And I think there is nothing at all absurd about 1st level PCs dealing with the chamberlain if the fictional positioning otherwise makes sense; not every king is so exalted as to not be able to meet with commoners.I don't see any reference to "good and noble king" in post 1403 in which  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] describes the framing and resolution of the scene - the goal is described as "to get to and convince the king to act or sponsor/deputize them, or grant them resources/assets/hirelings". That is pretty standard, I think - the goal is to achieve a certain ingame outcome, not to achieve a metagame-level rewriting of the king's backstory.That success at the goal turns out to bring its own complications with it is pretty fundamental to indie GMing - as per my quote upthread of <a href="http://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">Eero Tuovinen</a>:The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.What is distinctive about the "indie" technique is that the complications and secret backstory - such as that the king has been trafficking with dragons - becomes relevant as a consequence of play, rather than serves as an input into action resolution via affecting fictional positioning in ways that the players aren't aware of.So yes, it would be unreasonable - in this playstyle - to frame a scene which the players cannot impact, and hence they do know in advance that they can impact it; but it is not unreasonable for new backstory, even pretty wild backstory, to emerge from play. That's a good part of the point of play in this approach.And I don't see why you say that the scene sets up challenges different from the dragon-slaying quest. It seems to me to have intensified the stakes of that quest - if the dragon isn't slain, the whole town might be destroyed in revenge for the sacrifices not being provided!I missed all this stuff. Where did Manbearcat indicated that this had happened? I don't read it that way at all. Manbearcat doesn't tell us exactly what the player framed as his goal, but it looks to me like the goal was to drive the drake off by making it think it had been cursed. And that succeeded - the drake flew off, and didn't return within the context of the scene. But I would be gobsmacked if anyone involved in resolving that skill check thought that by succeeding at it the city had been saved from retribution.*********************************Your response seems to come from a very strong "mechanics as process simulation" perspective - so that if the character does something which is, within the fiction, tactically suboptimal, then you as a player have foregone your chance to have an impact on the fiction.Part of what I mean when I say that I want mechanics that will mean that using my resources to maximise impact on the scene will also express personality, is that the mechanics will include what ever metagame, non-simulation component they require to achieve this.This is quite orthogonal to PCs having weaknesses. The PC whose sheet I posted has weaknesses - for instance, he is not very perceptive of the emotions and attitudes of others. But if the GM frames me into a situation in which, in order to impact the fiction, I must know what some other person is thinking or feeling, then I will make my Insight check, even though I have a good chance of failing.What I won't do is voluntarily deprotagonise my PC. Given that the point of playing the game, for me, is to impact upon the fiction via my PC, it would be self-defeating to deprive myself of the capacity to do that.I must not have been clear. If the mechanical build of a paladin, in conjunction with the action resolution mechanics, mean that the mechanically most effective way for the player of the paladin to impact the fiction is in the way you describe, then I think there is something wrong with the mechanics.As I said just above, this is up to the framing. If my PC is present in a scene then I would expect the GM to frame it so as to engage my PC. How I would respond would depend upon that framing. An obvious default would be to politely ask my comrade not to touch me, and to persuade the NPC in question of what is needed or expected.Part of what may be causing some communication issues here, by the way, is the idea that, in the situation, there is a "better tactic". I'm not100% sure what you have in mind there, but to me it has at least hints of preconceived ideas, on the part of the GM, as to how the scene will unfold.That depends pretty heavily on the PCs in question.The PCs in my current game have saved a couple of major towns and their hinterland from goblin invasions, stopped gnolls running rampant through that same hinterland, helped some elves recover stolen idols from a black dragon, redeemed a fallen paladin, reestablished an abandoned temple, rescued a drow outpost from Orcus, and stopped Miska the Wolf-Spider's attempt at escaping from Carceri (which admittedly they also inadvertantly abetted somewhat), all for very little reward.Their agenda is pretty much "save the world from the impending Dusk War", although they have different views about what saving the world actually involves.The PCs in another campaign I mentioned upthread, who helped invaders conquer their hometown, were quite different. The more admirable of them still agreed to betry his hometown in return for a promise of (moderately) high office and a (reasonably nice) house.****************************I don't really understand why you frame the discussion in those terms. Manbearcat is not trying to persuade anyone to play like him. He's just trying to show how certain techniques are used.I frankly doubt that  [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] would find a game involving Manbearcat's techniques awesome. And I know I would not find the game with the obstinate chamberlain on whom I can have no impact via my PC awesome. In fact I would quite dislike it. That's the nature of different styles - we don't all find the same things awesome.</blockquote>

Verification