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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6156945" data-attributes="member: 42582">To me the first of these issues reflects more on action resolution mechanics than any default bloodthirstiness among players. If the game has effective non-combat action resolution whereby players can achieve outcomes for their PCs with a degree of finality, then in my experience players will choose those options where they make sense within the fiction.The second issue reflects something different that [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] mentioned upthread - why are the players playing the game, and how is the GM responding to that? Presumably the players want to experience a fiction in which their PCs face (and typically overcome) dramatic challenges. Defending friends and family is part of that. Part of good GMing is incorporating those sorts of stakes into the game in a way that makes the players pleased that they came up with such dramatically interesting backstories for their PCs. (For instance, don't kill off friends and family offscreen.)My own experience here fits with what Umbran says. A system that makes information, and similar strategic considerations, the key to success in action resolution, can very easily lead to a playstyle in which play bogs down into divination, and then using the right suite of buffs to make the actual encounter a cakewalk. I have encountered this particularly in high level (ie level 10+) Rolemaster.A feature of 4e that I very much enjoy is that it shifts much of the locus of choice out of the "exploration" phase of play and into the "action resolution" phase of play. Toning down SoD is part of that, I think.I think that's a very big ask for a given set of RPG rules, unless you are going to deal with the issue via supplementing a basically gritty ruleset with GM fudging, or player "fudging" using Fate Points etc.I don't know whether or not you count 4e as a "derivative of 3E" in this respect. It has encounter level rules, and as a GM I find them quite helpful. I'm pretty sure that my players expect me to have regard to them in building encounters. (Of course they are not the only thing relevant to building encounters in 4e; the various GM advice books discuss other relevant "mechanical" considerations, like terrain, NPC/monster roles, and obviously story considerations are very important too.)I have experience with systems that do not have encounter building guidelines, and that make it hard to assess monster/NPC challenge level (Rolemaster is an instance of such a game). One feature of 4e that I very much enjoy is that it is superior in this respect - it makes encounter buidling, levelling monsters/NPCs up and down, etc much easier, with far more predicatable results.A very wide range of RPGs use the idea of "balanced" encounters (ie mathematical predictability in encounter building): not just 3E and 4e D&D, but also much more free-formy games like HeroWars/Quest, and also The Dying Earth (both by Robin Laws - hardly a toxic RPG designer!). Don Turnbull tried to introduce the idea into classic D&D via his MonsterMark, but had to contend with the swinginess of pre-4e D&D monsters resulting from factors like SoD, immunity to normal weapons, etc.I also don't really see how you think that a GM is going to "pick a level of challenge that is appropriate" while eschewing the notion of "balanced" encounters. Once we have the notion of a spectrum of degrees of challenge, on which the GM is to find the appropriate point for his/her game, we also have the notion of a "balanced" encounter, namely one whose degree of challenges fits with some designated "balance point".</blockquote>

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