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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5498976" data-attributes="member: 42582">That is the explanation. The combat dynamic of 4e unfolds as it does by creating the need for the players to deploy the deeper resources to which they have access, if the PCs are to succeed. And the choices made by players in the course of that deployment are expressive of thematic content/commitments. Unlike (for example) planning for a telepot-ambush in mid-to-high level 3E or RM, they are decisions that are made in the course of resolving a dramatic conflict, under constraints of adversity and antagonism established by that situation. This is what makes them well-suited to expressing those thematic concerns. (As I noted upthread, the contrast here between 3E and 4e reminds me of the similar contrast between RQ and RM.)I agree about the predetermined flow, but not the predetermined theme. The flow forces the players to choose action - but the variety of action chosen is not prescripted. Even in a party with one of each role, there are different choices to be made that are in part determined by character build (which, as I've post upthread, is one factor in the way players use the 4e game elements to address theme) and in part determined actually in the course of play.Even as simple a choice as to whether a leader or paladin heals  him/herself or heals another PC can be expressive of theme. And because of the robustness of the 4e mechanics over a wide range of PC builds and player choices, it is rare (at least in my experience) for the situation in a combat to foreclose the range of these sorts of choices such that there is only one rational choice if the combat is to be won.To me, this is a difference from some other mainstream fantasy games, which make it hard to play in a narrativist fashion because they force a trade-off between expressing theme and fighting effecively. At least in my experience to date, 4e doesn't force these trade-offs.Mechanically enforced pacing is on some occasions at least orthogonal to scene framing. In the example of 4e combat, for example, the scene framing consists in establishing the terrain and the NPCs/monsters. The pacing then unfolds in the way described above, forcing the players to make the theme-addressing choices.As I said upthread, unlike Czege (and Edwards) I mostly play in a traditional party fashion, so cut aways don't come up. But there is no reason why a skill challenge (for example) couldn't be resolved with the PCs at different locations, with the resolution of one skill check by PC A at place X then affecting (whether via ingame causal mediatio or at the metagame level) the next skill check by PC B at place Y. In this situation, the mechanical resolution would shape the framing of these scenes - as the first (sub-)situation comes to its climax and is resolved (by making the skill check and determining its consequences), the next (sub-)situation would open up.Some of the examples of skill challenges in DMG2 are suggestive of this sort of possibility (I'm thinking of the one where the PCs take different sides in negotiation over strategy).</blockquote>

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