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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5944872" data-attributes="member: 42582">Thanks.Agreed, but for me it's a bit like saying that an alarm clock forces your hand. It's a type of discipline and reminder. And because the other parts of the game all point the same way (more-or-less, at least), I don't find it a hard discipline to respond to. I haven't had the burnout experience you're describing - actually, the opposite. I had been GMing Rolemaster in a more-or-less encounter-based fashion. RM has a similar gonzo-fantasy vibe to D&D (especially at higher levels), but doesn't have the same mechanical tools and features to strongly support encounter-based play. So I have found the move to 4e very liberating and supportive of the approach I was trying to take anyway.I haven't found this - I find that the mechanics themselves generate the right dynamic - but I'm probably using the mechanics in a particular way (especially a lot of "say yes" stuff to skip over thematically unimportant exploration).About 18 months ago I did a reverse experiment - used 4e to run an exploration-oriented scenario. The actual play report is <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/299440-exploration-scenarios-my-experiment-last-sunday.html" target="_blank">here</a>. I thought it went pretty well, but it was quite a bit different, I think, from how the same scenario would run in classic D&D.I don't have a strong view on what D&Dnext should be. I do know that if it is weaker in its support for encounter-based play than 4e, I probably won't be running it. But I may not be running it in any event, as once our 4e campaign comes to an end I'm hoping my players will be happy for me to run some Burning Wheel.I do have strong views on what D&Dnext should be if it is to satisfy its stated design goals, though! Which include making the 4e experience possible - so they will have to think about how spell durations, resource recovery rates, etc all factor into encounter based play - and which also include the "3 pillars" - so they will have to think about how you set meaningful stakes for non-combat interaction, and how to dynamically resolve those sorts of situations. The playtest tends to make me a little pessimistic about where they're heading in both the respects.</blockquote>

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