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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6988278" data-attributes="member: 42582">I might have mis-communicated. A scene-framed game is neither sandbox nor AP/"linear"/railroad. Nor intermediate beteen them. It's its own thing, relying on different techniques from both sandbox and AP.To be honest, that sounds like a cut-scene. As you describe it, it's not intended to have the players engage it via their PCs. There's no need for the PCs to even be there - you could do it as a narrated vignette just as well, if you were into that style of play, and (it seems) nothing would change.I don't think of encounters as offering solutions - that implies they are puzzle to be solved. Encounters confront players (and their PCs) with the need to choose what they do, and how they respond. Parameters in play include practical/prudential considerations (eg managing resources), likelihood of success (which might vary between options, with different characters, etc), loyalties and obligations, and other values (eg "I feel really good about not having killed that bear", said by one player after the PCs succeed in taming an attacking bear). Ideally there should be some sort of tension between these considerations, so that the choice is not automatic (eg "We want to beat them up rather than compromise, but we're low on healing surges"; "If I fight these devils, my Sceptre of Law will get angry at me, because even devils are servants of the gods;" "We can't fight these slaver duergar, because we need to rest, so I guess we'll contract with them instead to redeem the slaves for 300 gp at an exchange to take place a month from today").The option-set is to be conceived of by the players, not by me - my job is to frame them in, not steer them out. So there is not even such a thing as "a guard to be got passed" until the players have already decided that that's how they want to engage the situation. At which point they've already reviewed the option-set for engaging the situation and narrowed it down.As to whether I would have a literally un-bribable guard? Typically not. (Assuming we're talking here about a mundane human guard.) That would be contrary to "say yes or roll the dice". (It's a bit complicated in D&D which (i) uses a non-abstract wealth system, meaning the GM has to come up with a "price" for the guard, and (ii) uses resolution where auto-success and auto-fail are possible circumstances, as opposed to say a dice-pool system which sets a target for successful dice and so always permits failure no matter how big the pool if, by chance, all the dice come up negative. If the PCs offer a "duty bound" guard 10 gp to look the other way, I might happily say "no way", although - depending on the mood of play and the back-and-forth at the table - I might, as GM, observe as they are preparing their action declaration that 10 gp is a pretty pox bribe! If the bribe amount doesn't look pitifully small, though, then I'll set a DC and run with it.)</blockquote>

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