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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6284866" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I cut your post up to put these two together as they are married to the same answer.  I hope you don't mind.The reason why I stated that there is no "Pyrrhic Victory" is because I'm working off of three assumptions:1)  The investment of the PCs into the successful resolution of this conflict (the realization of their goals that they claimed at the outset) will never be outdone by whatever orthogonal setback/fallout that arises from micro-failure.  Success will never be tantamount to defeat. 2)  The PCs will telegraph their intentions (what victory they want earned) and/or the GM will perfectly understand it such that ultimate success or failure will assimilate those intentions into the overarching story in the form of realization or denial by way of narrative outcome.  3)  Any orthogonal setback/fallout earned due to micro-failure will bring about "peripheral (but relevant) exposure" and not outright denial of the assets earned by successful victory.  A GM subtly (or not subtly) later (perhaps sooner) denying the narrative fruits of the PCs' labored victory earned by successful conflict resolution is poor GMing.  It will also negatively feedback upon future PC investment into people, places, things, and causes.Moreover, fallout should provide immediate adversarial components that need to be dealt with (resource loss or obstacles to be overcome) or open up new conflicts that need to be resolved in the future.  It shouldn't deny the PCs' earned victory by proxy.  The captain of the guard dieing and the King despairing shouldn't deny the policy change but perhaps it could create the conflict where the king is now recklessly wanting vengeance, endangering himself and the stability of the kingdom.  Perhaps he is immediately going to go on a (physical) crusade against the perpetrators.  Perhaps it is one where he is sure to get himself killed and the PCs either have to talk him out of it (conflict) or see him through it to the end (conflict).Again, I moved stuff around.  I hope you don't mind.I agree with the above.  The mathematical framework and guidance on using the conflict resolution scheme needs to be robust.  I think the 4e Skill Challenge conflict resolution scheme has become more and more robust to the point that, by RC, it is as good, or better, than others I have played with.I agree that this is very important.  While DMG1 was solid in many ways, it wasn't anywhere near the tome of DMG2.  DMG2 very specifically, with precision, addressed the advice for micro-failures; both resource ablation and conflict/theme fallout.  A series of successive Dungeon Articles improved the product (from a GMing principle and guidance perspective) as well.Unfortunately, it has always struck me that the first run of books (PHB1 and DMG1 specifically) were either a bit concerned with being too strident (if you can believe that) in its advocating for certain GMing principles and techniques or there were too many editorial cooks in the kitchen.  DMG2, less than a year after release, was quintessential 4e GMing (technique and advice).  Although it provided some advice for things like perturbing the default pacing and genre conceits of the game (very good advice at that), it was definitely a more evolved, coherent product.  It didn't seem like it was trying to play to multiple audiences (again, if you can believe that the initial run of books weren't intentionally trying to burn bridges).</blockquote>

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