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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6176537" data-attributes="member: 42582">The bit that I'm not following is the ostensible contrast between "adventure" and "encounter". Speaking to goblins to intimidate or recruit them looks like an encounter to me (much as Gygax and 4e both classify it).And I don't see the relationship between "encounters" and "script" - the pioneering RPGs for situation-driven play (eg Burning Wheel) are in radical opposition to scripted play, which in fact I mostly assoicate with 90s-style AD&D or White Wolf adventures.Nor is there any connection that I can see between scripted play and combat encounters. For instance, there are Planescape adventures that are total railroads that depend on railroading the players through social encounters.Also - would a "complex goal to be achieved" be a quest? Or even a series of overlapping, or conficting, quests? Set by the GM or the players? I haven't seen the quest guidelines for D&Dnext yet, but they could do worse than follow the 4e ones - which emphasise encounters as elements in player-determined complex and possibly conflicting goals to be achieved.This I agree isn't about encounters - it's another element of exploration. I don't think this is all, or even primarily, what a bard brings to the game.Or the history of goblinoids. Or the relatioship between spiders, Lolth and fate. Or the nature of stars and their hatred of the mortal world. The Monster Manuals - which are full of lore at indicated DCs - are the main repository of setting information, and have no inherent connection to things being fought.You're seriously saying that there's no interesting difference between rolling reaction checks in Gygaxian D&D, and the scene-based non-combat resolution of a skill challenge?It's no skin of my nose that you don't care for that form of resolution, but I'm pretty surprised that you'd deny that it's a significant difference from other editions. Another way of putting it - a GM of Moldvay D&D has basically nothing to learn from the advice for GMing Burning Wheel, HeroWars/Quest, or MHRP, whereas this is spot on for a 4e GM wanting to run a skill challenge (to the extent that Robin Laws cut-and-pasted big chunks from the HeroQuest revised rulebook into the 4e DMG2).</blockquote>

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