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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6658195" data-attributes="member: 42582">[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] has said a bit about this not far upthread,in the skill challenge context. What I would add is that even "calibrating the threats" is seen by some as departing too far from ingame "objectivity" (see eg [MENTION=10021]kamikaze[/MENTION]Midget's remarks a way upthread about confronting a dragon in a low-level adventure).In the context of a combat, the 4e GM doesn't have Doom Pool-style currency to spend, but can just introduce more opponents! Of course GMs in other versions of D&D can do this too, but 4e supports it robustly in a way that other versions of D&D perhaps don't: first, its calibration techniques allow the GM to do this with a lot more precision than in other versions; second, 4e players have a depth of resources to draw on (surges, daily powers, etc) that allow them to respond to this sort of spontaneous amping up in a way that is different from other versions of D&D.Because 4e is much more "relaxed" about how magic works, and about world metaphysics in general (eg there is no Anti-Magic spell, hence no notion of EX/SU/SP, etc), the GM can easily set a level appropriate DC and narrate in some sort of magical effect or burden to explain, in the fiction, where that hardness comes from - whereas in a game which anchors fiction and mechanics more tightly, the GM would be more likely to feel an obligation to explain the higher DC by reference to codified effects like a curse, a trap etc.As for fate/luck, this is where some of 4e's "looseness of fit" comes into play. To give a concrete and (I hope) clear example, think about the heroslayer hydra, which gets a damage bonus vs an opponent that has marked it. In the fiction, this means that the heroslayer hydra will tend to overwhelm the hero who marks it (ie tries to solo it) compared to the harm it will do to a member of a group. But I don't think we therefore infer that, in the fiction, the hydra has some sort of magical power to slay heroes. It's a type of metagame device which helps make it true, in the fiction, that this hydra is fated to slay heroes.Another example is the paladin's at-will power Valiant Strike, which grants a bonus to hit for every adjacent enemy. I think this is best seen as a metagame effect that rewards the player of that PC for making his/her PC be valiant - ie charge into the thick of things. It provides mechanical reinforcement for a type of fate/destiny/archetypical persona for that character.On the non-character based DC setting side of things, a GM could set a cliff's climb DC very high not because of its slickness or lack of handholds but because the cliffs are fated never to be climbed. Or to be climbed only by a demigod. Etc. This is the same sort of thing, using DC-setting to convey ideas of fate or luck or destiny or archetype rather than more-or-less mundane facts about the gameworld.A game based on "objective" DCs can still incorporate this sort of thing, I guess - there could be a known ingame state of "Fated not to be bested by mortals" which causes a +10 DC boost or something similar - but I think this tends to push against the whole thrust of an objective DC approach, which is DCs transparently anchored in more-or-less transparent ingame realities.I hope that makes some sense.I agree with the second paragraph - though it's still a difference from a truly "embedded" objective system where that sort of resetting just doesn't work (eg the meaning of a certain mechanical element might just be the typical strength of a human or the amount of hurt a typical person suffers from being struck by a sword).I mostly agree with the first example, except that if some of the link between DCs and fiction is the ineffable luck/fate/destiny/meta- element, then when that becomes irrelevant DCs can change (eg once the Cliffs of Insanity have been climbed for the first time, we might just handwave from then on - the meta-/story element that underpinned their high DC first time round has been discharged). I think 4e, and similar "subjective" systems, are much more flexible in this respect then the typical "objective" system.I agree that 4e lays bare the maths. What I've tried to explain in this post how that laying bare, plus some other elements of the game (the associated looseness of fit, the largely independent system for depth of player/PC resources), allow a quite different approach to scene framing and narration of the fiction around action resolution from a more gritty, "objective" game.</blockquote>

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