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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Truename" data-source="post: 5109228" data-attributes="member: 78255">You've gotten a lot of responses, but I want to provide more specific examples. I DM'd the entire Scales of War heroic tier with my group. At the end, I was completely sick of it and switched to ENWorld's War of the Burning Sky. (Now I'm considering letting my DDI subscription lapse because I'm not getting enough from it.) We've played about half of the first WotBS adventure, The Scouring of Gate Pass, so that's what I'll use in my examples. SoGP has its flaws, but it's good enough that I can fill in the gaps myself.Too much combat, not enough everything elseA lot of people have mentioned this, but I wanted to reinforce it. With the exception of The Temple Between, every adventure in SoW was just one combat encounter after another. There's minimal exploration, minimal dungeon dressing (except SoW 1, but even that was fairly meaningless), and minimal NPC interaction. Every night, like clockwork, my group fought through two combat encounters.In contrast, with SoGP, our typical night is about half roleplay and half combat. There's just more to do. In our first session, we started with a fight, then spent the rest of the session with 4 non-combat mini-encounters that really kept the players' interest and evoked the atmosphere of a town under siege.In SoW, my group leveled up about once a month. In SoGP, we're achieving about the same rate because of non-combat related experience. I'd like to see less combat in WoTC adventures, but keep the same leveling rate.Lack of meaningful choicesSoW adventures lack meaningful consequences. The worst example of this was in The Temple Between. It uses a victory point system, and by the end of the adventure, [spoiler]the town[/spoiler] can be completely destroyed, badly damaged, or unscathed. But in the next adventure, there's no mention of this at all! Although there was the illusion of consequences, there were no actual consequences. And The Temple Between is actually better than most. A lot of SoW adventures don't even provide an option. They're utterly linear. In contrast, SoGP has been filled with meaningful choices. The players can choose to help or not help in the mini-quests in Scene 1-3; the MacGuffin in the adventure can be recovered or not--and later adventures account for that fact; the MacGuffin can be opened and its contents revealed; the middle of the adventure can be played in any number of ways; Scene 3-4 allows the party to make an ally or an enemy, and that has consequences in a later adventure; there are a full 8 options mentioned for escaping the city; Scene 4-1 allows the players to circumvent the entire encounter by [spoiler]arriving early[/spoiler]. Option after option after option. It's why I love War of the Burning Sky.The next adventure, Fire Forest of Innenotdar, is even better. The party [spoiler]faces a major moral dilemma[/spoiler]--and both choices are fully fleshed out!Dearth of NPCsThere are hardly any NPCs in Scales of War, and the ones that there are are one-dimensional. They're exposition, lacking personality or reason for existence beyond their pre-scripted lines. Take The Shadow Rift of Umbraforge, for example. There are perhaps six NPCs in that adventure, but there's never any reason for the PCs to interact with them, other than to hear their lines. There's no provision for the PCs to change their minds or actually interact. And there's no information about their personalities or why they're doing what they're doing and what they hope to accomplish.In contrast, SoGP has 12 significant NPCs and several dozen more minor NPCs. I was able to take one of those minor NPCs and flesh him out into a major sub-plot, based on what the adventure provided me. Most of them are interesting characters with complex motivations. [spoiler]Kathor Denava[/spoiler] is a good example, he's a "bad guy," but conflicted and someone that PCs could turn to their side. [spoiler]Erdan Manash[/spoiler] is colorful and interesting, and fun to play. [spoiler]Haddin Ja-Laffa[/spoiler] and [spoiler]Crystin Ja-Nafeel[/spoiler] share a complex, dysfunctional relationship that gives the players reason to put up with someone they would normally kill in a moment.Boring skill challengesThis is really a problem with skill challenges in general. They're generally written as a list of skills with the results of each skill described. This turns them into a game of "guess the skill and roll the dice." I want to describe a scenario for my players that they can respond to. I want them to focus on their actions, not which skills they're using. And I want the skill challenge to tell me how the scenario changes with each success or failure.For example, in Siege of Bordrin's Watch, there's a skill challenge when the players are [spoiler]traversing the vents[/spoiler]. I found that very difficult to narrate--it was clear that my exposition was meaningless, and all that mattered was the rolls. Instead, I want something like this, but dressed up and expanded: "the characters can choose a route that emphasizes narrow ledges (acrobatics DC 10, group check) or steep cliffs (athletics DC 10, group check). A passive dungeoneering DC 15 roll reveals a narrow crevice that opens up into an easier path (automatic success). If they fail, they fall and lose one healing surge for every five points that they fail a DC 20 Endurance check. Later, they hear strange chittering noises. Nature DC 15 allows them to identify the creatures as bats and avoid spooking them. Dungeoneering DC 15 discovers animal droppings and highlights a safe route. Failure leads to bats swarming ahead of the PCs and alerting the orcs in Encounter X that the PCs are coming..."A further problem is that the overall penalty for failure in a skill challenge is generally, "you succeed, but lose a healing surge." or "You succeed, but have another combat." That's hardly a penalty. Let's see some real consequences!Unfortunately, I can't point to a skill challenge that I've liked. The skill challenges in SoGP are just as bad. Kevin Kulp had some interesting stuff in Haven of the Bitter Glass, but my group never made it that far, and even those suffered from the "lack of consequences" problem. You can influence the political make-up of [spoiler]the council[/spoiler], but absolutely nothing changes as a result.Too balancedEvery single combat in Scales of War ranges from character level (N) + 0 to N+3. Sometimes slightly higher. Each one is designed to be defeated. Each level has 10 treasure parcels, and the PCs are expected to find every one. Each adventure follows a fairly predictable pacing model, starting with N+0 and N+1 encounters and gradually ramping up to the big N+3 fight.It made my players complacent. They just hacked their way through everything. In SoGP, things aren't as safe. There are combats that the PCs aren't supposed to be able to win. They have to pay attention to what's going on. For example, Scene 2-7 features an elite opponent who is N+8! In fairness, this would have been a boring combat and I'm glad my players didn't get into that fight, but the principle is still there.A related problem is that every combat encounter is designed to be a fight. There's no provision for diplomacy or clever solutions in SoW. In contrast, take a look at Scene 3-3 of SoGP. My players defeated that encounter without raising a finger or rolling initiative, just by being verbally aggressive and figuring out that the enemies [spoiler]wouldn't attack as long as the PCs stayed out in the crowd[/spoiler].Good thingsSoW's big strength is its set-piece battles. The conclusion of Siege of Bordrin's Watch was excellent. I loved the maps in The Temple Between, even though I hated drawing them. I've heard that Beyond the Mottled Tower is excellent. I hope you'll keep this.Also, I'm a big fan of the delve format. More connecting tissue would be nice, but I like being able to run an entire combat with the two-page spread open in front of me. There just needs to be more non-combat stuff ahead of it.</blockquote>

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