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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6243037" data-attributes="member: 87792">You still aren't getting it.  No one is acting in bad faith.  They just aren't communicating properly if the characters are Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Samwise. No one is trying to impede the fun of the others.  They are just set up for different games.  Four great tastes - three of them creamy and the other one acidic.  It's going to curdle the cream of the other three.  If you have all characters at least vaguely competent in all three pillars (as 4e does) you can guarantee you won't get such curdlings. This isn't even about strong preferences in terms of playstyle. It's about groups not even talking about such things because they don't realise that they can be issues.  Samwise is only turning up because this version of you hadn't talked to Hussar at all and instead just decided to run a Planescape game just because you like it.Indeed.  One way you cater to such clashing player agendas is to check that their character agendas don't curdle each other.  One way to check they don't curdle is make sure that everyone has at least some overlap and guide the characters.I'm getting quite serious flashbacks at this point.  Flashbacks to the railroady, metaplotty crap of the 90s in which the Storyteller (and the adventure) determined all the actions, and the main role of the PCs was to supply the dialogue and roll high enough (and often not even the latter).  You are specifically putting things inb for every single PC.  Writing the adventure so the players just play through your plans rather than come up with their own.  This is very far from my tastes (which are to present the threat as sensibly as I can and leave the player response entirely up to the players.  (And then wince when one of the PCs decides that getting the rampaging Hulk mad at them would be a great idea).Better isn't the issue.  The issue is that you are proposing having characters who are incompetent at one pillar - and the pillar that is most "All hands to the pumps".You mean that you've written better dialogue by describing what the silt horror is and how it behaves?  I'll agree that that's an improvement.  But that's a thirty second improvement if that.  And it still leaves the PC response up to the PCs without pandering to them.  Possibly some of them will take your options.  Possibly they won't.On the contrary.  You have specifically hacked in superfluous things to do with the skills.  Notably the exploration material - that unless it's quick actively detracts from the immediacy of the Silt Horror's attack.  You have done so because you've taken a game based round three pillars - and then chosen to reject the benefit that that brings in terms of allowing everyone to contribute in a range of situations.The time to explore is not when the Silt Horror is wrapping its tentacles around you.  Although you might be able to see weak points from that. At this point if you are playing D&D (rather than Fate or DW:AITAS) and especially if you are playing the gritty Dark Sun you've put the gladiator PCs immersion on the table as a potential risk.  Just because you have convinced him to surrender doesn't prevent me coup de gracing him.  If we're playing in a high pulp universe like Fate where there is no fundamental difference between physical and social combat it might work.  But you're changing the metaphor of the game if you think you can prevent me from killing the scumbag of a Sorceror King unless you start off by protecting him with a Wall of Force or the like, or by literally catching the arrow I shoot the bastard with.Once more you are trying to pretend that D&D is Fate - and by doing so you are creating an inconsistent world.  And such inconsistencies in the world give me serious problems with immersion.  D&D is not and has never been set up to deal with such conflicts.  And that influences what happens in the game.  A game like Fate (where social conflicts are equivalent to physical ones and actual death is rare) or better yet DW:AITAS (where the talkers move first and the fighters move last) can have such conflicts without suddenly changing their metaphors.And the only way that happens is that Sam's attempt is futile.  And he knows that in advance.</blockquote>

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