Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7359180" data-attributes="member: 29398">Separated this bit out for its own discussion...In a DM-run system where the presence or absence of a secret door is already locked in, there's no problem.  But in a player-driven system the player has to have in the back of his mind the thought "Hey, maybe if I try searching for a secret door and roll well I can - in effect - out of nowhere author us an escape hatch."; and so she tries it, and it works.The player didn't author the conflict but did author the resolution, which is why I put it as skirting close to Czege rather than outright violating it.4e doesn't fold combat situations into skill challenges, does it?  And this is a combat situation.  And in other systems if my next action declaration following discovery of the door goes something like "I open it, yell to my companions that here's the way out, and book it outside!" then - depending on other factors such as initiative order and actions of the foes - I'm probably out.The answer here might be to fine-grain it all a bit.  1e with its 1-minute round length has all kinds of issues and headaches here; more recent editions with rounds measured in seconds solve many of these while introducing a bunch of others; I think there's a sweet spot somewhere in the middle (20 or 30-second rounds?) that mitigates many of the headaches without ever fully removing any of them, and that might be the best we can hope for.I wonder, is the difference due to D&D actually paying attention to action economy and unbalanced actions where other systems maybe don't so much?Re the reliquary example:You could narrate that.  Or you could describe what the PCs are going past during their journey to the reliquary: "As you travel with the angels you pass by several intersections and open doors.  Down one hallway you see (and hear!) a slave being beaten with a club by a hooded person.  Through one of the open doors you see a luxurious-looking bedchamber - and you're sure that was some pretty expensive jewelry just sitting out in the open on that dresser!  Down another hall you notice a strange shimmering light coming from a door or opening on the left."Or it could just be "As you travel with the angels you pass through a number of dusty passages; in a few places intersecting passages lead off into darkness."Things like this give the players (via their PCs) options.  They could decide to rescue the slave.  They could decide to steal the jewelry.  They could check out one of the passages leading into darkness*.  Or they could ignore it all and go straight to the reliquary.* - even if they ignore everything else they might still want to check out the other passages to see if one provides a different approach to where they're going.Backups and retcons are undesirable in the extreme.  Note the way I presented the descriptions above: I don't say or imply they've got to the reliquary yet, I just say what they see on the way and thus give them the chance to interact with it before ever getting to the reliquary or knowing what awaits them there (though in this particular case the angels might have already forewarned them what awaits; this is an unusual example in that the party have a guide, which isn't often the case).  Thus things happen in a sequential order both within the fiction and outside of it:1 they* talk with the angels2 they travel with the angels3 during this travel they learn more about the environment simply by what they see as they pass4 they get an opportunity to respond to what they've learned in 35a if they do nothing they reach the reliquary5b if they do something in response to what they've learned in 3 they don't reach the reliquary yet and things (temporarily or permanently) go in a different direction.* - they meaning both PCs within the fiction and players outside of it.But none of this even gets a chance to happen if you-as-DM jump straight from talking with the angels to framing the scene at the reliquary.  There's the add-to-the-fiction type of agency, but there's also the make-a-choice-within-the-fiction type of agency; and it's the second that's being denied.Lan-"I nip into the bedroom and steal the jewels"-efan</blockquote>

Verification