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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 5858881" data-attributes="member: 386">My thinking is that this sort of procedure can be harmful to improvisation.  Improvisation relies on fictional cues - the players identifying elements of the fiction, such as chandeliers, burning braziers, or the horns on a dinosaur - and using those cues as a springboard for PC action.  If you divorce the fictional element from the resolution, players never need to think about the fictional cues, so they don't spend as much time thinking about them, and therefore are less likely to use those cues as a springboard for PC action.*Let me try to think if there was any improvisation in recent games:[sblock] <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The PCs encountered hippogriffs.  They captured them through a mixture of physical (using ropes and a patch of grab grass) and social (offering meat, showing they were not dangerous) methods.  Is that improvisation?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The PCs encountered a worg leading a pack of wolves.  The PCs had previously dug a pit trap and led the worg into it; then one PC cast a spell and used it to topple an old ruined wall onto the worg.  Once the worg was dead and the wolves failed a morale check, the PCs attempted to subdue those who remained.  Again, is this improvisation?  Not sure.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The PCs encountered a small group of orcs.  The orcs were cut down.  No improvisation.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The PCs encountered a group of tieflings.  The tieflings were killed, but some retreated.  No improvisation.  In retrospect, the archer in the group could have attempted to hamstring one of the tieflings to slow him down; I think that would have counted as improvisation.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The PCs encountered a group of hyenas.  At one point one of the PCs went down and the hyenas threatened to rip his throat out.  Another PC led the hyenas away from the unconscious PC's body.  Is that improvisation?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The PCs encountered a group of tieflings.  (This is a couple of months back, it's hard to recall.)  At one point, the PC Cleric of Torog, god of jailers and torturers, used his divinely-granted strength to grapple a foe (putting her into an arm-lock, I believe), making it easy for another PC to kill him.  I guess that's improvisation as the Cleric had no special ability to grapple or apply locks.</li> </ul>[/sblock]</blockquote>

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