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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8013779" data-attributes="member: 6696971">This post made me think on situations in past gaming where a PC vs PC agenda manifested aggressively during play and how it intersected with the conversation of agency, fictional positioning, and adjudication.In my 2nd full 1-30 4e game, there was a Shapeshifter Druid, a Duelist Rogue, and a F/M (Bladesinger).One of the key Paragon Tier conflicts was against the Winter Fey of the Feywild.   A cadre of warrior diplomats met the 3 PCs with a series of demands.   This was framed as a level +2, Complexity 2 Skill Challenge for the PCs to get what they wanted (the Winter Fey to compromise by acquiescing on the key part of their demands that the PCs weren't going to give up while accepting something else in return).  The PCs failed the social conflict and it turned violent.However, in the course of the social conflict, the Eladrin Bladesinger PC had established a potential relationship with a young Winter Fey Knight that reminded him of himself (a Ronin-like youth with potential who needed a proper master).  So in the course of the ensuing combat, the Eladrin PC wanted to (a) protect the young Fey Knight from his own allies, while (b) dispatching the rest of the Winter Fey and (c) convincing the young Eladrin to join them and accept his offer to train him and give him a way out.So what ended up transpiring after the player declared this intent was that I had to devise a coinciding Social Skill Challenge with the life and pupil:teacher relationship of the PC Bladesinger and the NPC Winter Fey Knight at stake.  In the course of doing this in 4e, a GM (as you know), has to very carefully consider (a) action economy (Standard and appropriate Immediate Actions - defending the Fey Knight against the Rogue PC's attacks) along with (b) the Level and Complexity of the SC (level+1 and Complexity 1).Then the player has to consider all of the following:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Their own action economy (he has to slay the rest of his enemies, protect his allies, all while interacting with and protecting this prospective pupil from his own allies).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The relevant fictional positioning to do all of the above.  More specifically, he needed to stay adjacent to the young Fey Knight so he could spend his 2 Encounter Powers to protect adjacent allies as an Immediate Action when they face attack.  He spent both of these in doing so (against the Rogue PC who was his antagonist in this situation) and each earned him a Success in his Skill Challenge.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ultimately, he ended up winning (the 2 Immediate Action Protection moves along with a successful Suggestion move and an Athletics move accompanied by an Action Point that ended up devastating the leader of the Winter Fey in single combat) the social Skill Challenge (which was nested in the greater Combat) while simultaneously helping his allies dispatch the rest of the Winter Fey.</li> </ul>I didn't think of this before, but its a very interesting contrast to the what happened in the lead post.  And the fact that the Rogue player was happy with this interesting arrangement (while his character was the primary antagonist and very begrudgingly accepted this turn of events) and gladly respected the mechanically cemented, thematic victory of the Bladesinger (which won the player, and by proxy the group, a Companion Character) speaks to [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] 's recent posts about acceptance of play (specifically mechanically cemented results) that challenges a player's conception of their character, thus lending toward a proposal of altering the shared fiction (in this case, the Rogue and his conception of "nothing but death" for enemies that threaten the lives of himself and his charges/companions; born of his time as a Naval Captain, his love of his crew, and the ruthlessness at sea of the pirates he constantly faced).</blockquote>

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