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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8994048" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, as [USER=6801845]@Oofta[/USER] pointed out, SCs are pretty rigid in their default format. So you can see this as a bad thing, or you can see it as a good thing. In Story Now play, it tends IMHO to be a good thing. This is because when the PCs in the above scenario are faced with a challenge, the MECHANICS of that are already handled by the rules. It isn't up to the GM how many checks are needed, the DCs, etc. I mean, the GM can choose a bigger or smaller encounter budget (complexity), but that's it! They can pick the primary and secondary skills, but they have to pick some and there's a tightly constrained number of them. Really all the GM is doing here is binding the SC framework to the specific fiction! So, basically, any judgment calls during play notwithstanding, the GAME set up the scenario and determined how tough it would be. The fiction is not ENTIRELY color, because it can do things like disallow some approaches entirely, or suggest alternative ones, but play is very principled by this structure. You can think of the entire level of play (1st level) the same way, there's an XP progression, XP budgets that establish rewards, treasure parcels are spelled out, etc. Nothing is really up to the GM in terms of how that structure works. [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] can parcel things up, so have different numbers of encounters and SCs and Quests of certain levels that add up to enough XP to advance a level, and can dole out short and long rests, and to some extent milestones. This is far from nothing, but the players are at least guaranteed a certain minimum standard of how things will go that is purely built into the game. This is all, again, a part of 4e as a Story Now game, the GM can only present things within the structure of the game rules, and the only real variables are the fiction and did the players succeed and what resources did they consume? This structure serves a lot of the same purpose as the agenda and principles spelled out in DW.</blockquote>

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