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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6335463" data-attributes="member: 37579">That's true to some extent, but you don't want to throw the party against skill checks they can't make, knowledges they don't have, and the like.The more codified the system, the more they cannot even attempt some actions untrained because X is folded into a skill or a utility power or a class feature. My ability to frame the resolution is occasionally I tend to rely on lore, either game or mythology. I find I monster (for when the villains are monsters) that will fit based on their role in the world or what they're known for and add that to the story. And then I pray they're close to the right level/challenge.Other times I'll have the base idea for the villain but no stats and I'll just skim monster books for an appropriate challenge threat that's the right type.I never sit down with the monster book, find a threat, and then build the story or encounter around that. The only times I've build encounters around the monsters abilities  was during my time DMing 4e, where terrain and maps were essential, so I spent extra time doing that (and less time working on the rest of the story). Let's look at White Plume Mountain for a second. There's a big room full of boiling mud, a room that's a spinning cylinder, a room that's under hot spring, and a frictionless room. And so many others. Rooms were interesting because monsters were boring.Let's look at <a href="https://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/h1.pdf" target="_blank">Keep on the Shadowfell</a>. Kobolds on page 6-7 in a bland road. And again on 14-15. In fact, it's the same damn map. But the types of kobold change so the fight is suddenly different. In 1e-3e that would have been running the same fight twice.P16-17, more fights in the wilderness, only now there's a magic circle… for reasons. More fights follow, each in a mundane location.Skipping ahead to the Keep there is room after room after room where the actual place you're having the encounter does not matter. There are twenty five separate encounters, most taking place in several clusters of rooms, and not a single chamber or area is remotely interesting. There's not a single location that is memorable. That's the catch. The rooms don't need to be interesting or memorable because the fights are. The gameplay is fun. So that becomes a crutch and all the fun rests on the gameplay and not the imagination.What's the most memorable thing in the Keep on the Shadowfell unrelated to rolling dice? I'd argue that it's Splug. He's mentioned nine times in the entire adventure and has three paragraphs relating to him (1/8[SUP]th[/SUP] of a page) dedicated to him. And he's the standout element of the module. Everything else is "meh".People don't tell stories about the time they defeated Kalarel through textbook teamwork or how they synergized their powers with the wizard's to combo the ghouls. They tell stories about their interactions with the comic relief goblin. Encounters are only memorable when things are outside the norm: lucky crits, dramatic reversals, improbably strings of luck, etc. I.e. when the rules are not behaving as normal. The catch is, as much as the rules hinder my ability as a GM to make up outcomes, they also hamper the players'. The rules are equally restrictive on what we can or cannot do.So often I've been GMing and the players have wanted to do something creative and I've shot it down because The Rules wouldn't allow it: they didn't have enough movement, it would provoke an Opportunity Attack, what they were doing required a feat, they couldn't get past the hardness of the object or hit its break DC, etc. Once players learn The Rules they begin to self-censor, to restrict and hamper their creativity to the boundaries established by The Rules.When I, as a GM, cannot make up the outcome then both I and the players have lost some surprise because the realm of possibilities has been narrowed to the finite range of options established by The Rules.I'm doing a lot of Organized Play at the moment. Pathfinder Society with a lot of new players. And it really emphasises to me how stuck in their ways by homebrew group is. My group are a bunch of mad creative geniuses who can do some fantastic crap within the rules, but they really stay nestled into the mechanics. Can I ignore the rules to enable the players to be creative? Sure. But that gets into the Oberoni Fallacy, with the "flaw" of the rules being their existence rather than their quality. Equivalent? No. Comparable? Yes. Equally rules dependant. Pretty close. Especially compared with 1e and 2e, let alone Basic.When you're just comparing just 3e and 4e they look very, very different. When you're comparing the entire range of D&D then 3e and 4e are pretty darn similar in a lot of ways. You know what, yes I suppose I am.I am exactly that.If you're only playing The Mechanics, if there's no narrative overlay apart from perhaps talking in story, there is less substance. There are fewer layers. By definition there is less going on.Can you still have fun? Yes, of course you can. Is it wrong? Nope. But there's less going on. If you don't see it nothing I say will help. I'm seeing a vase and you're seeing two faces and no explanation or amount of talking will change someone's perspective.I wish you good gaming and may all your 20s be natural. And people rely on the spice and come to depend on it. They let other flavours slide because they can just dump spice into the game. That's not what I meant. I mean I narrate the fights. I describe the action. And if a player just moves their piece on the board, declares they do 15 damage and the target is stunned I have no way at all to describe that. What just happened in the world? I have to get the player to read the card or pass it to me which slows down play, so I'm incentivized to just ignore the description and just play without the narrative like a game of Warmachine.</blockquote>

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