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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chzbro" data-source="post: 5081554" data-attributes="member: 83964">Does anyone feel that the 4E "adventuring day" has changed the way you tell stories as a DM?It seems to me that older editions left a lot more opportunities for the players to go "off script" between combats since there wasn't necessarily a need to string several combats into a single adventuring day. A party might dip their toes into a dungeon, head back to town for a night's rest, get distracted by some city intrigue, follow that to a different town, then amble back to the original dungeon a couple game months later.Now while that same scenario can play itself out just as easily in 4E, I find myself designing a series of encounters/skill challenges for my players now which also incorporate a strong incentive to go on to the next "fight" instead of taking an extended rest. That's not to say they can't rest, just that there's a relatively strong story reason not to.Now this doesn't strike me as "railroading," but I wouldn't be surprised if some others disagreed. After all, in order to make it work I have to have a pretty good idea of what they'll do next (although I do prep a couple "random" encounters just in case). In essence, I tend to organize adventuring sessions and play it by ear on where the next session will go rather than playing it fast and loose within the session.Just to clarify, that doesn't mean the session is rigid and inflexible, just that I tend to figure, "Okay, they're going after objective X; they'll need to get through these 4 encounters to get it and then I'll see what they want to do next."Again, that's not to say this wasn't possible or even often done in earlier editions, just that earlier editions made it easier to map out a dungeon with encounters and let the characters get there in their own time. If you do that in 4E you have a party at full power every fight, which is a lot less desirable (in my opinion).So I wonder if part of the "sit forward" approach is simply one of semi-necessity based on the system. I'm confident it's changed the way I approach encounter design, but I'm curious what others think.</blockquote>

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