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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6590038" data-attributes="member: 42582">My general motto is "more plot rather than less plot". Inevitably lots of stuff that happens over the course of six years of play will be forgotten between sessions - so pile it on to make sure that what does get remembered is enough to keep things moving!Relating to the "Best thing of 4e" thread, I think the default 4e lore is well-designed for this. There are enough connections between the various beings that players can orient themselves (Raven Queen vs Orcus and Vecna; duergar worship devils; etc), but it's loose enough in the details that there's no need to keep track of incredible intricacies in order for it to make sense (eg Raven Queen vs Orcus is about death and undeath, a key thematic element of D&D fantasy; it's not about some intricate detail of personal interaction between the two of them).This relates back to the "Best of" thread too!4e makes this easy, because of the maths and overarching mechanical framework.There are some rough edges: for instance, a Sage of Ages basically cannot fail a knowledge skill check, which means that framing challenges for that PC requires some nuance from me as GM (eg in the episode with the Aspect of Vecna, opening up the Insight check.)And, as is well known, the high level solos need a bit of work to deal with action purging.Nevertheless, the mechanics remain very tight. I think it was a huge break through for D&D to move resolution away from the "free text" approach of spells like Transmute Rock to Mud, Create Demiplane, etc - which put all this pressure on the GM to fairly adjudicate these causal processes in this imaginary, high fantasy fiction - and instead to put the mechanical weight on the maths, meaning that the fiction can be as free-wheeling as you like but the players still have to make hard choices, run the risk of failure etc.Another thing about Epic: you have to be prepared to treat the gameworld as an object for play, rather than a precious thing in itself! Epic isn't consistent with GM-forced metaplot or any sort of status-quo world. (If you don't want the world to change in major ways, you have to stop at Paragon.)</blockquote>

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