NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9699924" data-attributes="member: 6790260">The best usage of SCs--which I have actually seen, from real GMs, including one who was running his very first 4e campaign with almost exclusively old-school experience prior, great campaign, still miss it--recognizes that a spectrum of possibilities, from the hardest of hard failure to the greatest of great success, is the best choice. By creating a structure in which things occur, rather than freewheeling it, you both build tension and set the parameters for why a success should be "only barely limping across the finish line" vs "with flying colors", or why a failure should be "you didn't get what you wanted, but second place ain't too bad" vs "you have nothing but an obscure clue and a prayer". Just like how a hit-point pool and damage numbers set out why it should be that a monster dies at a specific point, rather than being determined by the freewheeling "when the GM feels like the monster should be dead".Various ways to do this exist, some of them sticking almost exclusively to the SC rules as written, some extending well beyond it. Good (or bad) rolls on well-fitting skills might carry more weight. Blowing a roll out of the park (or flubbing a roll very badly) might matter. Taking an action that simply succeeds because it so obviously has to succeed it doesn't need a roll? That's a goldmine, love that stuff as both a player and a GM. (Once got a success without a roll on a skill challenge to (a) convince a sci-fantasy setting CEO to accompany us and then (b) escape without him getting injured/killed, because my Paladin character spoke with perfect honesty, both admitting ignorance about something that wasn't great for us and then stating without hesitation his commitment to protecting said CEO. The guy knew my character would not lie, that it quite literally wasn't in his nature, so no Diplomacy roll needed. Awesome moment, really sold how being a straight shooter that people know to be a straight shooter actually matters a lot.)You can also introduce collateral damage or secondary objectives which are sensitive to the degree of success, or play with the number formula a little (e.g. maybe the group needs to accomplish five tasks and has only a finite number of attempts to get those tasks done, rather than "succeed X times before 3 fails"). Further, every single time the characters act, regardless of whether they succeed or fail, it should change something significant about the current situation. Stabilizing a crashing space station, for example (another actual SC!), my character took an action which didn't contribute to success directly but massively helped our ability to coordinate: the Paladin utility power One Heart, One Mind, which grants 100' (20 square) range telepathy to all nearby allies when used, and makes one's own Aid Another provide a +4 bonus instead of +2. My character didn't know much that would be useful other than piloting skills, but his race was made to be commanders, builders, and warriors, so coordinating others toward a common goal was quite literally coded into his DNA. That action, despite involving no roll and not directly addressing or failing to address a problem, changed the state of play, as now everyone could telepathically interact, and would get a very sizable benefit from the advice or guidance my character could grant as a leader. And we did end up saving the station, but it was a bit of a close call and some residents didn't make it.</blockquote>

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