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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6031192" data-attributes="member: 42582">We don't use backgrounds and themes (they post-dated our startup, and we haven't retrofitted them in) but I'm a huge fan of paragon paths. And am looking forward to epic destinies.This is central to me, because it means that the players can play hard, and the GM push back, rather than everyone having to conspire and jointly create the narrative in a literal sense of deliberate co-authorship.An example is the burning of the Ritual Candle to permit the shifting of the Arcane Gate that I mentioned above. I have a DC chart to turn to. I make the player role a check. If it succeeds, he gets what he wants. If it fails, I can move the end of the gate somewhere I want and it won't break the game or make the scene come to an end or fall flat. That very flexible yet robust and resilient action resolution system is really key.Exactly.I have five players, only two of whom are very efficient (the two strikers), and we typically have 2 to 6 young kids present at any given session (also known as &quot;D&amp;D creche&quot;), and I tend to prefer multi-opponent, over-levelled combats, so our combats are often a lot longer than that. But the combination of the pacing and dynamism inherent to the mechanics, plus the way that synergises with the story elements, means that long combats are (for me and my players, at least) not a problem. Meaningful stuff is happening every round. (I'll redirect here to my post on the 4e board setting out the current <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-discussion/330383-underdark-adventure-demons-beholders-elementals-hydra.html" target="_blank">underdark adventure</a> as a coherent whole.)That's my take too. I don't really understand why it seems so contentious.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6031192, member: 42582"] We don't use backgrounds and themes (they post-dated our startup, and we haven't retrofitted them in) but I'm a huge fan of paragon paths. And am looking forward to epic destinies. This is central to me, because it means that the players can play hard, and the GM push back, rather than everyone having to conspire and jointly create the narrative in a literal sense of deliberate co-authorship. An example is the burning of the Ritual Candle to permit the shifting of the Arcane Gate that I mentioned above. I have a DC chart to turn to. I make the player role a check. If it succeeds, he gets what he wants. If it fails, I can move the end of the gate somewhere [I]I[/I] want and it won't break the game or make the scene come to an end or fall flat. That very flexible yet robust and resilient action resolution system is really key. Exactly. I have five players, only two of whom are very efficient (the two strikers), and we typically have 2 to 6 young kids present at any given session (also known as "D&D creche"), [I]and[/I] I tend to prefer multi-opponent, over-levelled combats, so our combats are often a lot longer than that. But the combination of the pacing and dynamism inherent to the mechanics, plus the way that synergises with the story elements, means that long combats are (for me and my players, at least) not a problem. Meaningful stuff is happening every round. (I'll redirect here to my post on the 4e board setting out the current [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-discussion/330383-underdark-adventure-demons-beholders-elementals-hydra.html]underdark adventure[/url] as a coherent whole.) That's my take too. I don't really understand why it seems so contentious. [/QUOTE]

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