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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 6564723" data-attributes="member: 6668292">Definitely don't. But I'm in no way denying that others do, so I don't see how I'm wrong yet. But moving on...Uh... as far as illusionism and manipulating the fiction goes, here's what I wrote about my brother in the post you quoted: "His techniques have changed over time (as have mine, and probably all GMs), and he's met somewhere in the middle. He rolls in the open (rather than behind a screen or his hand) and uses those results, but still fudges non-mechanical stuff to make things more interesting (in his mind... but to his credit, his games are still fun)."That is me pretty much explicitly stating that he changes the fiction (fudging the "non-mechanical stuff") in order to achieve certain results that he finds interesting (which, based on your GMing techniques, I'd probably argue you do as well). At any rate, I don't think I missed what you're saying I missed.I get that it's your take, but it's entirely on the GM to call for skill challenges or combats. The GM could immediately call for another skill challenge or throw more waves at you, just like before. You can argue quite coherently that it's bad GMing, but the same goes for doing that in any game (like the endless waves or skill check after skill check example you mentioned).Also, I think the math on skill checks and 4e's Easy/Moderate/Hard kinda goes outta whack pretty early on in terms of keeping checks feasible for everyone, but that's just my experience as well. But again, those subjective DCs are set by the GM; what you can achieve with those subjective DCs are set by the GM. This isn't player-empowerment, to be sure. The math is transparent (which is part of why I can somewhat confidently say I think it goes outta whack pretty early on), but so are set DCs, so I'm not sure what the big difference is there.I agree that page 42 is incredibly useful. And I think your take on transparency in 4e is a great one. I agree with a lot of what you've written (but I still think static DCs are more player-empowering than subjective DCs), and can see why you like it. I think your "transparency" take resonates a lot more with me than Manbearcat's, but that might be because it involves a lot less player-empowerment stuff in it. Anyways, good post, have XP <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I'm following you so far. This does sound frustrating to my style.This is also my experience from skill challenges in both 4e and my RPG (an extremely modified homebrew version of 3.X which also uses a different take on skill challenges [X successes before 3 failures]). In both systems, when I use skill challenges, I run them openly, and players know how many successes / failures they need and have. However, in my system, the DCs are static and explicitly called out in the book, and thus players can plan for them, making it seem more transparent than 4e from my experience in both.I missed something here. Is this still about transparency?I think much of 4e is ill-defined, and I've tried to use that as a strength to make the system fun for the players. And it's worked well. I just think that it sometimes makes it less transparent, and I certainly think it takes away from player-empowerment. But that's just my experience.Right, which helps. Anything that spells it out to the players and gives them concrete rules they can rely on is player-empowerment, and transparency for the players and GM. That's why I'm a proponent of that kind of thing happening a lot more often.Ah, I get why you might not get where I'm coming from then. Well, I'm coming at this from a mixed perspective of practical and theoretical. On a practical side, I'm not playing previous editions. I run basically one of three RPGs, and I've authored two of them (though one is only four pages long, and is used for one-shot superhero games once every few months). In both of my RPGs, stunts are mechanically accounted for. The rules are spelled out, ready for players to use.Don't get me wrong, I love page 42. I just wish it was open access for players to use without GM consultation. It's transparent, but it's not player-empowering. Which seemed strongly tied into Manbearcat's definition of illusionism and transparency, which is what I responded to.I feel exceptionally confident that I could play fast and loose with the mechanics in orderto rearrange the narrative to fit my whim with 4e. Easily. As GM, I get to set most skill DCs, choose when and what you're up against (and what level it is), choose when and how hard skill challenges are, choose who you meet and how they feel about you, and on and on it goes. It's easy to railroad in 4e. Just like any traditional RPG.But, I do think mechanical certainty combats this to some degree. In my RPG, you can mechanically use skills (with set DCs) to affect how NPCs feel about you, to convince them to do things (or not do things), trick them or lie to them, etc. While these set DCs take into context the situation (if they're enemies and your request is outrageously bad for them, the DC might be very high and you might have to Intimidate them to bring it down or convince them you're not an enemy with Bluff, for example), they give the players a lot more control over the narrative in those areas.No, this doesn't stop the GM from sending wave after wave of enemies, or calling for skill check after skill check (though getting the Consistent Skill feat means you can literally always take a 10 if you want to, so that one might not work either). But the more transparency and mechanical solutions you put in the hands of the players, I think the more the GMs hands are tied when he goes to railroad the PCs.Can you expand on why this wouldn't work well in 4e? My gut (after non-trivial experience running 4e, but only levels 1-11) tells me that it would be easy to run a game in that manner. I'm curious if you can expand on how you think the 4e mechanics in particular would combat a GM from stopping the players from affecting the flow of events in an appreciable way.</blockquote>

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