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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6579225" data-attributes="member: 27160">1) The 'three failures' is actually not the only (or even the best) way to run skill challenges, but it is probably the simplest for a GM inexperienced in skill challenges to run "safely". With experience you can make things much more varied.2) This idea of a "brilliant plan"; hmm, I think we need to be clear just what it really means.I have seldom, if ever come accross a situation where a sudden inspiration led to a complete bypass of a real problem. The world really doesn't work like that. Brilliant insights tend to happen in their own sweet time and take years or decades to mature.More immediately, though, the claim is that the player is being "clever". Really? What have they actually achieved? Have they solved some objectively difficult puzzle? Have they grappled with a genuine mathematical or scientific problem the solution to which has eluded great minds for years? Or have they struck on some particular fant'sy that one individual (the GM) finds entertaining, convincing or cool?In every case I know of it was far more the latter than any of the former. They tickled the GM's "plausibility/coolness/amusement bone". If you find that a fun pursuit, fine - I would be the last to stop you enjoying yourself. But (a) I don't find repeats of this over and over again to be satisfying any more and (b) I would be obliged if you didn't pretend that it's something other than a GM-judged beauty contest.Conflict is also inevitable, interesting and implicit/essential in all forms of entertainment. And it does not need to be violent.No story exists - no human interest exists - without conflict. Economics is a fertile field for conflict. So are politics, academic pursuits, sports and games, most hobbies and pastimes and raising a family. All involve conflict with adversity or competition of some form that must be overcome to achieve success. A roleplaying game without any conflict - just like any story without any conflict - would be a nonentity. The reason we only tell stories that involve conflict is that conflict is what engages our minds; it is, psychologically, what makes us tick.I actually agree in that I think 4E at first launch was rushed, over-hyped and under-tested. Given that I am amazed that a system with such huge potential came out of it. I expected a slight clean-up on 3.5E - which I was OK with at the time. It is a testament to 4E that, while I might play 5E or even AD&D/2e, I would not go back to 3.X now even for payment. The effort to return ratio is just so far out of scale that I couldn't face it.</blockquote>

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