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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7935423" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't feel the force of this at all.When playing a RPG it's always open to the table to do whatever they want. Game rules don't exercise any sort of coercive power.Being empowered, in the context of a RPG, means having the tools and techniques to produce the desired experience. I personally found 4e D&D quite empowering - it has some pretty good tools and accommodates some pretty good techniques (thought the techniques themselves I frequently picked up from elsewhere - qv my criticisms of the 4e DMG not far upthread).Personally, when I look at 5e I don't feel terribly empowered because, for me, it seems to offer no answer to the crucial question how to enforce the 6-8 encounter "adventuring day"? other than use GM force to maintain the correlation between the pacing of encounters, the passage of ingame time, and the taking by the PCs of rests. There are other features also that don't appeal to me - I have a default preference for situation-oriented rather than scenario-oriented RPGing - but the point I've just mentioned is the main one for me.And I happily frame it as a lack of empowerment - as in, the game doesn't provide a capacity that I regard as crucial for RPGing, namely, that the system itself operates to ensure it's own smooth functioning without the need for injections of GM force from outside. (Of course it's far from the only RPG to have this problem - but I don't play those ones either!)This is another one of your posts that caught my eye!There's no doubt that the 4e DC-by-level chart (whichever version - I use the Essentials one, which I think is the best across all the tiers of play) is more intricate and constraining than the 5e DC chart. So I'm not going to quibble with that. (I'll just say that, for a two-decades Rolemaster GM, it's nevertheless simplicity itself.)But your comments about how to adjudicate actions really surprise me. Here's the relevant rules text I'm familiar with from the 4e PHB (p 178, early in the Skills chapter ; player addressed in second person) and DMG (pp 72-76, in the chapter on skill challenges, and p 105 on "fun"; GM addressed in second person), slbocked for length:[spoiler]When you use a skill, you make a skill check. This check represents your training, your natural talent (your ability modifier), your overall experience (one-halfyour level), other applicable factors (relevant bonuses), and sheer luck (a die roll).The DM tells you if a skill check is appropriate in a given situation or directs you to make a check if circumstances call for one.It’s not a skill challenge every time you call for a skill check. When an obstacle takes only one roll to resolve, it’s not a challenge. One Diplomacy check to haggle with the merchant, one Athletics check to climb out of the pit trap, one Religion check to figure out whose sacred tome contains the parable - none of these constitutes a skill challenge. . . .When a player’s turn comes up in a skill challenge, let that player’s character use any skill the player wants. . . . Always keep in mind that players can and will come up with ways to use skills you do not expect. Stay on your toes, and let whatever improvised skill uses they come up with guide the rewards and penalties you apply afterward. Remember that not everything has to be directly tied to the challenge. Tangential or unrelated benefits, such as making unexpected allies from among the duke’s court or finding a small, forgotten treasure, can also be fun. . . .It’s also a good idea to think about other options the characters might exercise and how these might influence the course of the challenge. Characters might have access to utility powers or rituals that can help them. These might allow special uses of skills, perhaps with a bonus. Rituals in particular might grant an automatic success or remove failures from the running total. . . .In a skill challenge encounter, every player character must make skill checks to contribute to the success or failure of the encounter. . . .Sometimes, a player tells you, “I want to make a Diplomacy check to convince the duke that helping us is in his best interest.” That’s great—the player has told you what she’s doing and what skill she’s using to do it. Other times, a player will say, “I want to make a Diplomacy check.” In such a case, prompt the player to give more information about how the character is using that skill. Sometimes, characters do the opposite: “I want to scare the duke into helping us.” It’s up to you, then, to decide which skill the character is using and call for the appropriate check. . . .In skill challenges, players will come up with uses for skills that you didn’t expect to play a role. Try not to say no. . . . This encourages players to think about the challenge in more depth and engages more players by making more skills useful.However, it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation. If a player asks, “Can I use Diplomacy?” you should ask what exactly the character might be doing to help the party survive in the uninhabited sandy wastes by using that skill. Don’t say no too often, but don’t say yes if it doesn’t make sense in the context of the challenge. . . .Skill challenges require the players to make rolls at specific times. Call for these checks according to the pace of the narrative and the nature of the challenge. . . . Skill checks usually count as successes or failures for the challenge, but sometimes a specific use of a certain skill in a challenge just provides a minor benefit or penalty. . . .As much as possible, fast-forward through the parts of an adventure that aren’t fun. An encounter with two guards at the city gate isn’t fun. Tell the players they get through the gate without much trouble and move on to the fun. Niggling details of food supplies and encumbrance usually aren’t fun, so don’t sweat them, and let the players get to the adventure and on to the fun. Long treks through endless corridors in the ancient dwarven stronghold beneath the mountains aren’t fun. Move the PCs quickly from encounter to encounter, and on to the fun![/spoiler]I've presented the DMG text in the same sequence as its occurrence in the book. And I think that reveals some significant infelicities of presentation/editing - eg the remarks about the use of powers to augment checks, or rituals to obviate checks, are separate from, rather than integrated into, the discussion of the need for checks to make sense in the fiction. The DMG2 goes quite a way to remedying this, but it would have been better that it not need fixing!There's also this, on p 20 of the 4e DMG (under the heading Exploration), and on pp 28 & 98 (on improvisation):[spoiler]1. Describe the environment. Outline the options available to the characters by telling them where they are and what’s around them. When you detail the dungeon room the PCs are in, mention all the doors, chests, shafts, and other things the PCs might want to interact with. Don’t explicitly outline options. (Don’t say: “You can either go through the door, search the chest, or look down the shaft.”) That’s putting unnecessary limitations on the PCs’ actions. Your job is to describe the environment and to let the PCs decide what they want to do with it.2. Listen. Once you’re done describing the area, the players tell you what their characters want to do. Some groups might need prompting. Ask them, “What do you do?” Your job here is to listen to what the players want to do and identify how to resolve their actions. You can and should ask for more information if you need it.Sometimes the players give you a group answer: “We go through the door.” Other times, individual players want to do specific things, such as searching a chest. The players don’t need to take turns, but you need to make sure to listen to every player and resolve everyone’s actions.Some tasks involve a skill check or an ability check, such as a Thievery check to pick the lock on a chest, a Strength check to force open a door, or a Perception check to find hidden clues. Characters can perform other tasks without any check at all: move a lever, take up a position near the entrance to watch for danger, or walk down the left fork of a passage.3. Narrate the results of the characters’ actions. Describing the results often leads to another decision point immediately or after time passes. “Behind the door is a passage stretching off to the left and right” gives the characters an immediate decision point. “The sloping hall leads you hundreds of feet down into the earth before finally ending in a door” sets up a decision point after some time. Whenever you reach another decision point, you’re back to step 1.A character’s actions can also lead right into an encounter. . . .As often as possible, take what the players give you and build on it. If they do something unexpected, run with it. Take it and weave it back into your story without railroading them into a fixed plotline. . . .it’s better to say yes and go from there, rather than coming up with an arbitrary reason why their plan doesn’t work. Let the players feel clever, and reward their ingenuity.[/spoiler]This reveals more infelicities: there's a clear tension between the account of how exploration should work, and the advice on moving quickly from encounter to encounter. And nothing is said about how to reconcile this tension, though that can be done (see eg aspect of the GMing advice in Burning Wheel). There is also tension between the discussion of narration, which emphasises GM control over revelation of content, and the advocacy of incorporating player ideas into the shared fiction. Again, nothing is said about how to reconcile this - whereas, to use BW again as an example (I'm thinking of its Wises checks), it is possible to have both good advice and sound mechanics that manage this.All that said, I don't think anything here is very different from 5e in terms of how skill checks are to be approached, except that there is a stronger suggestion that it is table consensus, rather than just the GM, who decides whether a particular declared action fits under a particular skill, or whether a particular attempted action makes sense given the established fiction.So I'm surprised that you found it otherwise, and wonder where that came from. Not that you're alone in what you've said - I've seen others post it also - but I don't know where it originates, because I can't find it in the rules text.</blockquote>

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