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<blockquote data-quote="Pseudopsyche" data-source="post: 6177746" data-attributes="member: 54600">I'm all for D&amp;D Next having a kingdom-building module, in much the same way we're getting mechanics for exploration and for interaction. I'm wary of any attempt to create a one-minigame-fits-all framework to handle all challenges of skill. That's not to say that such a framework is intrinsically bad; I'm just skeptical that someone will arrive at a practical design in the context of D&amp;D anytime soon.As a mechanical framework, 4E skill challenges suffer from reducing each player action to one of seventeen fixed skills, and reducing the &quot;game state&quot; to the number of successes and the number of failures. It would be the equivalent to formalizing all combat encounters as follows: The party collectively has 3 hp. The monsters collectively have 4-12 hp, depending on difficulty. The monsters have 17 defenses, each of which has one of three different values (easy/medium/hard). Each player has 17 different attack bonuses, one for each defense. Each player takes turns attacking a particular defense; if they hit, the monsters lose 1 hp and if they miss, the PCs lose 1 hp. I suspect that many players would find these mechanics unsatisfying, and if anything, 4E needs these mechanics to cover a wider range of encounters than the actual combat mechanics do.The actual 4E combat mechanics introduce much more state: the positions of each creature, the HP of each creature, and the current conditions afflicting each creature. It introduces unique actions for each creature, as well as some setting-specific terrain actions. I don't think you can define states and actions for the general case of non-combat challenges. I do believe you could do it for kingdom building, which is what makes that a fine module to provide.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pseudopsyche, post: 6177746, member: 54600"] I'm all for D&D Next having a kingdom-building module, in much the same way we're getting mechanics for exploration and for interaction. I'm wary of any attempt to create a one-minigame-fits-all framework to handle all challenges of skill. That's not to say that such a framework is intrinsically bad; I'm just skeptical that someone will arrive at a practical design in the context of D&D anytime soon. As a mechanical framework, 4E skill challenges suffer from reducing each player action to one of seventeen fixed skills, and reducing the "game state" to the number of successes and the number of failures. It would be the equivalent to formalizing all combat encounters as follows: The party collectively has 3 hp. The monsters collectively have 4-12 hp, depending on difficulty. The monsters have 17 defenses, each of which has one of three different values (easy/medium/hard). Each player has 17 different attack bonuses, one for each defense. Each player takes turns attacking a particular defense; if they hit, the monsters lose 1 hp and if they miss, the PCs lose 1 hp. I suspect that many players would find these mechanics unsatisfying, and if anything, 4E needs these mechanics to cover a wider range of encounters than the actual combat mechanics do. The actual 4E combat mechanics introduce much more state: the positions of each creature, the HP of each creature, and the current conditions afflicting each creature. It introduces unique actions for each creature, as well as some setting-specific terrain actions. I don't think you can define states and actions for the general case of non-combat challenges. I do believe you could do it for kingdom building, which is what makes that a fine module to provide. [/QUOTE]

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