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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6984132" data-attributes="member: 42582">But in the context of ENworld discussions, who are these folks?I don't see many of them self-identifying. Rather, I see quite a few posters telling others that that's what they must be doing, because otherwise they wouldn't complain about monster stats.To borrow from your analogy: if I was looking at playing a Star Wars game, and the mechanics for starship combat didn't allow drawing any sort of distinction between the manoeuvrability of a fighter and a Star Destroyer, I might express some disappointment about that. And it wouldn't be a helpful response to tell me that I need to be a more imaginative GM, or that I'm using my TIE fighters wrong.This is an interesting analogy.Many posters on these boards - at least, based on my past experience - would describe a hard scene-frame of the Millenium Falcon getting pulled into the Death Star as a railroad. I don't think it is - I've generally got nothing against hard scene-framing as long as the scene is interesting and engages/escalates the ongoing action of the game - but I wouldn't pretend it's an encounter. The players aren't expected to take action to avoid being sucked into the Death Star.Another way to look at it is this: what does the GM actually say to the players, when the Death Star activates its tractor beam, or the red dragon turns up to talk to the 1st level PCs, or whatever? In my view: if the GM knows that the PCs have no hope of combat success, then s/he should just tell the players that. Why hide it? Presumaby no one is trying to trick the players into thinking that the dragon (of the Death Star) can be defeated - so why even make a show of leaving that option on the table? (@Sacrosanct talked about "smart play", but what's smart about guessing whether or not the GM thinks the fight is winnable?)In other words, if a GM is going to hard scene-frame then I think that it is better to be upfront about it then pretend that something else is going on.As far as non-combat options for action resolution are concerned, my view is that the best way to have players engage with non-combat options is to (i) have mechanics that make them a feasible choice, and (ii) have a game set-up where PCs (and their players) have a reason to care about something other than violence. I've personally always found that that's enough.</blockquote>

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