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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8736707" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah, this is baloney. There's nothing in the design of SCs that talks about being 'designed for a specific input'. The GM frames the situation, there's a known PC goal, which represents the win condition, and definable consequential failure conditions, but the 'path' through the thing is whatever it is that happens! Now, I agree that the possibility could exist that a player can come up with some sort of solution that is 'situation busting', its not impossible. Usually though those are your pretty simple and mainly linear sorts of SCs where the goal is VERY specific (IE the 'mine is collapsing'). So, sure, maybe the PCs come up with a power or something that gets them out, but chances are you can still provide some checks to see if it is feasible (IE can they perform the ritual 'Dimension Door' while blocks of stone crash down around them). But I disagree as to what you are 'better off' doing. Think of it this way, if you specify a bunch of specific obstacles, jump the cravasse, dig out the collapse, find the air shaft, etc.) now what if the PCs decide to sit and do a teleport ritual instead? Your prepared 'stuff' is no good, you can obviously come up with other dangers, as I mentioned above, but so can I in an SC!!!! I don't see how that structure, in a mechanical sense, constrained me. We both want obstacles to overcome. It is really no different, I just have a measured number of them that I will deploy according to a rule.No, that's just not true! I had a 'goblin mine collapse' scenario once. The PCs unleashed an old 'mining golem' to help them beat the goblins, so this kicked off an SC, can they beat the goblins using the mining golem! Well, the dwarf rolled badly and the golem started smashing support beams, part of the roof clearly became unstable! The PCs retreated with their basic objective already achieved (they got a gem or something, I forget exactly) so they ran off. The ranger rolled well, you find a MINE CART! Off they went in the cart, careening down the rails! But they haven't escaped yet, there's still more checks to pass! The goblins leap into the next cart and give pursuit! The cleric sees a switch in the line and manages to throw it as they race past, soon the goblins are on a parallel track! One leaps across onto the PC's cart and grabs hold of the gem! The fighter and the thief wrestle with him, barely avoiding low ceilings and the goblin's blade! Finally the goblin grabs the brake and stops their cart, but the rogue knocks him out, he falls off the cliff at the end of the line, which the brake fortuitously kept the cart from going over, and as the PCs watch, the cart full of goblins on the other track pitches off into the void and is gone. They go back a few dozen yards and find an old air shaft that is still open, and climb to safety as the mine slowly collapses below them. None of it was scripted at all, really. I mean, there was a scenario, the PCs in a mine trying to lose goblin pursuit and get away with the treasure, that was basically it. All of the rest was just imagining an action packed Spielberg-esque scenario with plenty of possibilities for checks to be made, where each such followed from the others, but the whole was cohesive in terms of a goal and consequential fail conditions. I'm sure BitD can easily handle the same scenario, you could set an opposed clock, or a 'collapse clock' and an 'escape clock', or I guess a few possibilities. I haven't really RUN BitD, just played a bit, so I allow that [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER], or yourself perhaps, are more practiced with the clock approach, but I've done 100's of 4e SCs, including some pretty 'out there' ones. They work reasonably well. I do think that 'framing' the SC in 4e is a bit trickier than most BItD situations, but a lot of that is just how extremely episodic BitD is. I mean, its a heist a week game, it lends itself very well to these closed scenes, as well as extended clocks mapped onto the factional conflict motif of the overall campaign.Yeah, I think you've psyched yourself into a specific idea about this. YOU may find it hard to run once you have made up your mind, but lots of other people have had pretty decent luck. I'm open to improvements, but its remarkably hard to do.</blockquote>

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