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Message: <blockquote data-quote="darkbard" data-source="post: 7408599" data-attributes="member: 1282">In my Story Now 4E gaming, all DCs (including opponent defenses, HPs, etc.) and die rolls are above board. Players know the stakes before they make the roll, so there is no GM manipulation to shape outcomes unbeknownst to the players. Player agency is maintained through the transparency of the process. Players can also choose to spend PC resources (Action Points, racial, class, or other powers, etc.) to meet more difficult challenges (particularly butnot exclusively in the context of skill challenges). Your example of choosing a hard DC because Bob's character sucks at Stealth is not principled GMing! And it's certainly not "being a fan of the PCs," another maxim of Story Now gaming (see the recent discussion about this somewhere in one of these threads).As to your question about the red dragon: I still think you don't understand how Story Now gaming works. The GM frames scenes in response to player cues (stated goals, character builds and backstory, etc.) and/or as the response to failed outcomes of declared actions. There is no "choosing to stick a red dragon the characters only have a slim chance to beat at 1st level into an adventure" because there is no adventure; there is only the story ... now. If the players have indicated their desire to meet such a dragon in some fashion, then that does not circumscribe their agency. If the GM frames the PCs into a meeting with such a dragon as the outcome of some failed check, (1) the GM is obliged to build off player cues, so they must have indicated a desire to encounter such a dragon for it to be salient, (2) the stakes would have been set prior to resolution, so if they fail the roll, they get what they bargain for, (3) red dragons can be made to be level appropriate foes even for first level characters in 4E, and (4) why would you presume such an encounter would be combat, and fight-to-the-death combat at that? More likely, such an outcome of some failed action would be the initiation of a skill challenge, perhaps to escape a threatening red dragon.</blockquote>

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