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<blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 6073775" data-attributes="member: 463">One difference between Pemertonian subjective scene-framing I use in 4e and the kind of objective content generation I used in eg my Pathfinder Beginner Box game is that in the scene-framing approach the encounters are subjectively tailored - when my 4e Forgotten Realms Loudwater group met an Ettin, it was because I thought an Ettin would be a good encounter for them (there was foreshadowing of its presence and they could have avoided it, mind you) in all the circumstances. It was a tailored encounter.Whereas when my PBB group met a Gray Ooze, it was because that was what the system &amp; environment generated - it was a status quo encounter.IME, the two are often not very different in-play, but over time tailored encounters lead to a much lower lethality level and less of a revolving door of PCs. I still kill PCs in Loudwater - first session TPK, another 2 temporary &amp; 3 perma-deaths in the 32 sessions since - and scenes can be framed as &quot;today is a good day to die&quot;, as at the climax of my Southlands campaign where the PCs had repeatedly screwed up and were left making a hopeless last stand at the bridge against a thousand Horde Ghouls and their Necromancer overlord (note that they chose to make the last stand, to give their allies time to evacuate the doomed town). But the general level of random PC death with scene-framing is much lower than with status-quo Simulation, tends to come at moments of dramatic climax*, and so often feels dramatically appropriate when it does occur.*There was that one time both GM (me) and player screwed up what should have been a low-lethality encounter- I levelled up an encounter with wolves by stupidly making them all Elites; the Wizard player won Init, stepped forward in front of her allies and cast Burning Hands on the whole pack in round 1... *ouch*.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="S'mon, post: 6073775, member: 463"] One difference between Pemertonian subjective scene-framing I use in 4e and the kind of objective content generation I used in eg my Pathfinder Beginner Box game is that in the scene-framing approach the encounters are subjectively tailored - when my 4e Forgotten Realms Loudwater group met an Ettin, it was because I thought an Ettin would be a good encounter for them (there was foreshadowing of its presence and they could have avoided it, mind you) in all the circumstances. It was a tailored encounter. Whereas when my PBB group met a Gray Ooze, it was because that was what the system & environment generated - it was a status quo encounter. IME, the two are often not very different in-play, but over time tailored encounters lead to a much lower lethality level and less of a revolving door of PCs. I still kill PCs in Loudwater - first session TPK, another 2 temporary & 3 perma-deaths in the 32 sessions since - and scenes [I]can[/I] be framed as "today is a good day to die", as at the climax of my Southlands campaign where the PCs had repeatedly screwed up and were left making a hopeless last stand at the bridge against a thousand Horde Ghouls and their Necromancer overlord (note that they [I]chose [/I]to make the last stand, to give their allies time to evacuate the doomed town). But the general level of random PC death with scene-framing is much lower than with status-quo Simulation, tends to come at moments of dramatic climax*, and so often feels dramatically appropriate when it does occur. *There was that one time both GM (me) and player screwed up what should have been a low-lethality encounter- I levelled up an encounter with wolves by stupidly making them all Elites; the Wizard player won Init, stepped forward in front of her allies and cast Burning Hands on the whole pack in round 1... *ouch*. [/QUOTE]

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