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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7410494" data-attributes="member: 97077">I would say that I create situations that are often challenges (combat, exploration, social interaction), the difficulty of which is set to the group's preferences. When the players interact with those situations and challenges, a story is produced. I actually can't tailor a challenge to a specific PC in my group as I use a player pool in my campaign - 8 to 10 players for 5 seats per session, and most players have more than one character. I can't know who will be at a given session, leave alone which character they will choose, so it would be fruitless for me to tailor challenges in the manner you say.So you've made a lot of assumptions here. First, you don't know how I set up my game. I think my players would say that my adventures and settings are plenty "deep." Second, I'm not "focused on strategy over story" if you understand how I think about story as described above. You call story what I would call situation. Story is what emerges when the players interact with the situation. So, no, I don't focus on strategy over situation. I focus on both to help produce (along with the players) an exciting, memorable story during play. Third, I design challenges that involve all pillars and often uses non-lethal stakes. In fact, I've posted many of these challenges on the forums and have argued for inclusion for more stakes than just life-or-death in many threads.The exercise I would respectfully suggest for you is not to assume too much about how other people design and run their games. Ask instead. Like how I asked whether you'd view monsters not attacking the high-AC cleric as a validation of the player's choice or not. Because I didn't know and didn't want to assume and be completely wrong.I don't "allow" success. I set up situations that the players and characters can win or lose. Players earn success based on their choices and, in part, luck.I responded to this above. I'll add that setting up difficult challenges, even with particular PC strengths and weaknesses in mind, isn't necessarily playing against them. It's just setting the difficulty of the challenges, success in which is duly rewarded.I really don't know. My choices are my choices. The monsters do what I say. It would be troubling if they didn't.I go with RPG. Where there is a balance between the roleplaying and the game. These things don't have to be at odds. Roleplaying is playing a role. The players determine how their characters act, think, and what they say. The DM controls the NPCs and monsters, determining how they act, think, and what they say.And my monsters may choose to avoid the high-AC cleric and beat up the low-AC wizard because of reasons I'm free to imagine and establish. The players can then make choices to stop that monster from doing so, if they wish.</blockquote>

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