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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 5183306" data-attributes="member: 85870">Okay, I just ran across this quote from Ydars in the &quot;How to make 4e Modules Better&quot; thread: Now here's the thing: how does this sentiment--largely echoed in critiques of WotC's 4e adventure modules in numerous circles--square with the following quote by WotC designer David Noonan? (You can find the quote <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20070803a" target="_blank">here</a>.)And I'm wondering what to make of these two seemingly diametrically opposed ideas. On the one hand, you have a player basically telling his GM, &quot;I want context. Encounters have meaning by creating context.&quot; And on the other hand, you have one of the designers of 4e who seems to be saying, &quot;Context is meaningless until the moment a PC walks into the room and an encounter starts. There's no reason to try and 'build up' fancy monsters and abilities, and spend precious GM time creating all of these fantastic traits for something that spends a grand total of 20 minutes (or less) in use at the game table.&quot; When it comes down to it, the core issue is the value of GM prep time. The player wants more prep time to contextualize encounters; the GM wants to spend as little time as possible while still providing active, satisfying encounters. It seems very similar to something I heard in a marketing class once, when the professor quipped, &quot;You can manufacture something cheaply, you manufacture something quickly, and you can manufacture something of high quality--but the catch is, you can ever only do two of the three.&quot; In other words, the two earlier quotes seem to be saying, &quot;You can have high context, character-driven satisfying encounters, you can have truly engaging combat encounters, and you can have very little GM prep time--but you can only ever have two of the three.&quot;Thoughts?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 5183306, member: 85870"] Okay, I just ran across this quote from Ydars in the "How to make 4e Modules Better" thread: Now here's the thing: how does this sentiment--largely echoed in critiques of WotC's 4e adventure modules in numerous circles--square with the following quote by WotC designer David Noonan? (You can find the quote [URL="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20070803a"]here[/URL].) And I'm wondering what to make of these two seemingly diametrically opposed ideas. On the one hand, you have a player basically telling his GM, "I want context. Encounters have meaning by creating context." And on the other hand, you have one of the designers of 4e who seems to be saying, "Context is meaningless until the moment a PC walks into the room and an encounter starts. There's no reason to try and 'build up' fancy monsters and abilities, and spend precious GM time creating all of these fantastic traits for something that spends a grand total of 20 minutes (or less) in use at the game table." When it comes down to it, the core issue is the value of GM prep time. The player wants more prep time to contextualize encounters; the GM wants to spend as little time as possible while still providing active, satisfying encounters. It seems very similar to something I heard in a marketing class once, when the professor quipped, "You can manufacture something cheaply, you manufacture something quickly, and you can manufacture something of high quality--but the catch is, you can ever only do two of the three." In other words, the two earlier quotes seem to be saying, "You can have high context, character-driven satisfying encounters, you can have truly engaging combat encounters, and you can have very little GM prep time--but you can only ever have two of the three." Thoughts? [/QUOTE]

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