Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Razjah" data-source="post: 6590081" data-attributes="member: 98806">In a game with a transparent mechanic, it is part of the game. Marvel's doom pool for instance is a known quality and the GM must use a resource to accomplish this. In FATE a GM almost always need to compel a PC which gives the player a fate point to use later. These mechanics allow some level of GM fiat while minimizing the abuse as players are still able to exercise narrative control. Throwing more monsters into a fight... can be either a sound tactic (enemies attack in waves, called for help, etc) or the GM purposefully trying to drain PC resources (requires additional spells, HP, or other resources). 4e minimizes the impact of this through the fast recovery that the system allows. But if enemies simply come in with no narrative reason why, I think this is cheating. In many systems (D&D is a great example) it is massively improbable to withdraw from combat- enemies can chase down the PCs and continue the fight or the PCs chase down an enemy and resume the fight. This means throwing in hidden reserves changes the players understanding of the risk involved. Again, with narrative explanation- it is a tactic. Without narrative explanation, I would find it cheating and belaboring a fight.As an aside how many people complain of how long fights take in 3.5/PFRPG/4e? Adding more monsters may drive the PCs off, but is more likely to chew up another 30 minutes of the session with the same end result- PC victory. I would rather make the battles more interesting using something like glowing crystals jutting from the floor at random in a large chamber while the enemies have small medallions that glow when they are within 10 feet of crystal. The crystals provide healing- destroying, neutralizing, or avoiding the crystals become a part of the fight. It isn't just fudging more HP to monsters, it was apparent from the first blow to an enemy close to a crystal that it recovered partially from the exchange. The PCs can quickly figure this out (rolls would be called for when it happens if the players don't pick it up off the description) and change their strategy to combat this. Randomly determining a fight should last longer because the GM says so is cheating from my view.</blockquote>

Verification