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Rule-of-Three: 06/19/2012
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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5950384" data-attributes="member: 27160"><p>Taking the example (a push in 4e), the DM gets to choose which squares - but the player, through their own choices and the positioning of their character, <strong>can effectively limit those choices</strong> so as to include or not include the pit. That's the issue, here - whether the player has a say in choosing the stakes, or is simply at the DM's mercy and whim.</p><p></p><p>Linked to this is what the DM is deciding based upon - which I'll comment on later.</p><p></p><p>And yet the fact that my experience (over ~35 years) and that of others is different suggests that, while valid, your view is not the complete picture.</p><p></p><p>Following on from something [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] said earlier, making story "improvement" decisions in the middle of conflict resolution is the very last thing I want to be doing while running any RPG. I see these occasions as ones where the players' decisions, the DM's decisions and the rules system interact to determine what happens next. I guess I view it a bit like a scientific experiment; I set up the experiment in pursuit of a particular theory/story idea, but when doing the experiment itself I just want to pursue the experiment for its own sake. If I were to start adjusting the experimental setup or the experimental procedures mid-experiment with some notion of "getting better results", that would be viewed as very bad indeed. I pursue the experiment in order to get as complete and valid a result as I can; <strong>after</strong> the experiment I look at the results and think "OK, so where does that leave the theory/story? Where do we go now?"</p><p></p><p>But, as per the examples <strong>pemerton</strong> and [MENTION=6690267]Dragoslav[/MENTION] have given, there are a myriad of very powerful and often thematic choices to be made in 4e combat. When I run 4e combat I am fully engaged with making choices for the "monsters" aimed at challenging the party as hard as I can. My aim is that the monsters pursue their goals as strongly as the PCs pursue theirs. Cool action and, sometimes, surprising and neat story twists come out of this.</p><p></p><p>If, instead of thinking (in the role of the monsters) "how can I achieve my goal?" I am thinking (as a DM) "how do I want this encounter to play out?", as far as I'm concerned I'm doing it wrong. How the encounter plays out is not up to me - it's what will come out of the collision of player decisions, monster decisions and the rules system. In my role as "storyteller", I will just have to deal with whatever that outcome turns out to be.</p><p></p><p>This might well be true. Until 4e I was, at best, a lukewarm D&D player. Most of my RPG time was with other systems.</p><p></p><p>In the light of which, it's somewhat ironic to me that GURPS actually supports a playstyle a good deal closer to the playtest rules than to the 4e play style! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 5950384, member: 27160"] Taking the example (a push in 4e), the DM gets to choose which squares - but the player, through their own choices and the positioning of their character, [B]can effectively limit those choices[/B] so as to include or not include the pit. That's the issue, here - whether the player has a say in choosing the stakes, or is simply at the DM's mercy and whim. Linked to this is what the DM is deciding based upon - which I'll comment on later. And yet the fact that my experience (over ~35 years) and that of others is different suggests that, while valid, your view is not the complete picture. Following on from something [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] said earlier, making story "improvement" decisions in the middle of conflict resolution is the very last thing I want to be doing while running any RPG. I see these occasions as ones where the players' decisions, the DM's decisions and the rules system interact to determine what happens next. I guess I view it a bit like a scientific experiment; I set up the experiment in pursuit of a particular theory/story idea, but when doing the experiment itself I just want to pursue the experiment for its own sake. If I were to start adjusting the experimental setup or the experimental procedures mid-experiment with some notion of "getting better results", that would be viewed as very bad indeed. I pursue the experiment in order to get as complete and valid a result as I can; [B]after[/B] the experiment I look at the results and think "OK, so where does that leave the theory/story? Where do we go now?" But, as per the examples [B]pemerton[/B] and [MENTION=6690267]Dragoslav[/MENTION] have given, there are a myriad of very powerful and often thematic choices to be made in 4e combat. When I run 4e combat I am fully engaged with making choices for the "monsters" aimed at challenging the party as hard as I can. My aim is that the monsters pursue their goals as strongly as the PCs pursue theirs. Cool action and, sometimes, surprising and neat story twists come out of this. If, instead of thinking (in the role of the monsters) "how can I achieve my goal?" I am thinking (as a DM) "how do I want this encounter to play out?", as far as I'm concerned I'm doing it wrong. How the encounter plays out is not up to me - it's what will come out of the collision of player decisions, monster decisions and the rules system. In my role as "storyteller", I will just have to deal with whatever that outcome turns out to be. This might well be true. Until 4e I was, at best, a lukewarm D&D player. Most of my RPG time was with other systems. In the light of which, it's somewhat ironic to me that GURPS actually supports a playstyle a good deal closer to the playtest rules than to the 4e play style! :) [/QUOTE]
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