Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 6182203" data-attributes="member: 386">My guess is that skill challenges work better when they are resolving an abstract situation.If you have all the details of the situation nailed down, then it's difficult to change those details based on the result of a skill check.&nbsp; You can't introduce a secret door, a wandering monster, or a frayed rope if you know there are none of those things before you start the challenge.&nbsp; That means you can't introduce those elements if the PC succeeds or fails on their check.If the situation is abstract - and almost all social conflicts are abstract, since the DM can't possibly know all the details of an NPC's personality - then there's a lot of room for the DM to react to the skill checks of the PCs and prompt the players for more.The abstract situation allows the DM to directly address the player's reason for playing the game, as telegraphed through their PC's actions and build.&nbsp; If the situation is too detailed to allow the DM to do that, then it fails.4E is a strange game.&nbsp; It's almost a very powerful Story Now engine hidden under a mass of character build options.&nbsp; I think that, if the build options were more obviously thematic - representing the conflict inherent in the 4E world - and the reward system were a little different, it would be similar to Burning Wheel.&nbsp; As it is, I think it's missing the mark.Which gets me thinking: If someone were to hack 4E in such a way that all powers had an obvious thematic crunch to them, and the XP system was mostly Quest-based, what would that look like?&nbsp; It'd be tricky, as there are so many interactions between elements, but you could probably make it work.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="LostSoul, post: 6182203, member: 386"] My guess is that skill challenges work better when they are resolving an abstract situation. If you have all the details of the situation nailed down, then it's difficult to change those details based on the result of a skill check. You can't introduce a secret door, a wandering monster, or a frayed rope if you know there are none of those things before you start the challenge. That means you can't introduce those elements if the PC succeeds or fails on their check. If the situation is abstract - and almost all social conflicts are abstract, since the DM can't possibly know all the details of an NPC's personality - then there's a lot of room for the DM to react to the skill checks of the PCs and prompt the players for more. The abstract situation allows the DM to directly address the player's reason for playing the game, as telegraphed through their PC's actions and build. If the situation is too detailed to allow the DM to do that, then it fails. 4E is a strange game. It's almost a very powerful Story Now engine hidden under a mass of character build options. I think that, if the build options were more obviously thematic - representing the conflict inherent in the 4E world - and the reward system were a little different, it would be similar to Burning Wheel. As it is, I think it's missing the mark. Which gets me thinking: If someone were to hack 4E in such a way that all powers had an obvious thematic crunch to them, and the XP system was mostly Quest-based, what would that look like? It'd be tricky, as there are so many interactions between elements, but you could probably make it work. [/QUOTE]

Verification