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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nnms" data-source="post: 5498112" data-attributes="member: 83293">This.I played a lot of BECMI and AD&D2E but 3.x left me utterly cold (though I still played and ran it some as I had some friends who liked it).  During that time I played a ton of modern/indie RPGs.  Sorcerer, My Life with Master, Dogs in the Vineyard, etc.,.  I never really posted on The Forge because of the pedantry there, but I lurked nigh endlessly.My reaction to 4E was "Yes!  A D&D that does what it says on the box!".  But I soon discovered something very, very interesting.  4E worked seemlessly with techniques like kickers and bangs, best interests, hard scene framing, aspects, and others.  I had tried my hardest to get those techniques to work with 3.x but I always found the universal framework to simulate a fantasy world would often get in the way.  4E just doesn't have that particular trapping.  It may have others, but not that one.One of the reasons that 4E works well as a non-scripted game compared to 3E is how explicitly the system beats are defined.  It's like notes on a musical score. You have the beats for the starting and ending of combat, the beats of how many encounters until you level, the beats of leveling being a pacing mechanic rather than a power mechanic.  Even within some encounters there are beats.  Like a beat on each success or failure in a skill challenge.Each of these beats are ideal moments for scene framing.  Previous editions might have similar moments, but not as part of the overall reward cycle of the game.To get back to the issue of "just in time DMing" and railroading, I think the best technique to illustrate this would be bangs.  What's a bang? "Introducing events into the game which make a thematically-significant or at least evocative choice necessary for a player." - Ron EdwardsIt's a choice as a player that you can't ignore and that will make a thematic statement.  You may think "I have those all the time in my game already" but might I suggest there's a difference between recognizing them after the fact and specifically framing a scene to create a situation that would qualify as a bang?  Similarly, a bang is a situation where no one at the table knows what the result would be.  For if a DM decided it in advance, then the player in question no longer has the ability to make that decision and say something about the theme of the game.So if I frame a scene where you have to deal with something in a way that is going to produce thematically relevant content, how can I already have the next scene planned?  If I do, then the choice made in the previous scene is actually irrelevant.  The character's actions might make the thematic statement "if you don't know what the right thing to do is, always choose self sacrifice and you'll make it there."  But then if my next planned scene is where their sacrifice is undone and whatever they chose to sacrifice to protect is destroyed anyway, then I have taken away the player's ability to make thematic statements because my plot authority makes my thematic statements override their own.  For bangs, I must DM in a "just in time" fashion where the next scene is informed by the previous or I gut the player's thematic authority.Now where 4E shines in this regard is that it assumes that the PCs and all NPCs and monsters do not follow the same rules framework.  So if I need to suddenly throw in a combat with a powerful spell caster, I can do that with 4E without violating the precepts of the system.  With 3.x, I'd either have had to prep that spell caster using the same framework as a PC or I have to chuck the system out and fake it.  4E's design for effect is much, much more improv friendly than 3.x's universal simulation framework.To get back to Pemerton's quote, I've found that the greatest impediment in communicating about this stuff is when the other person only sees RPG rules and procedures as the means to determine whether or not a character succeeds at a task and by how much.</blockquote>

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