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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6660201" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>But he was not talking about "shifting DCs for static challenges". He was talking about <em>setting a DC</em> . Setting a DC is not shifting it. (Also, a blizzard does not seem to me to be a static challenge. It can get lighter or heavier, and - as [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] himself indicates in his reply to you, at 1289 - a GM can exploit that feature of a blizzard to shape the ingame situation to narrative purposes.)</p><p></p><p>In post 1261 upthread (a reply to you), I said:</p><p></p><p>AbdulAlhazred applies the same "loose until pinned down" approach in 1289.</p><p></p><p>In my post with spoilerblocks, I gave more examples of this. Also, a way upthread I talked about the relevance or irrelevance of counterfactuals of the sort you put forward.</p><p></p><p>In my 4e game, the Abyss has been known, throughout the game, to be a challenging place. When the PCs tried to seal it off from the rest of the cosmos at 28th level, the DC was set by reference to that line on the DC-by-level chart. Had the PCs been 29th level, I would have used <em>that</em>, lower, line on the chart. But this is not "shifting DCs for static challenges", because no DC has shifted. It is setting a DC, rendering the difficulty of the challenge precise at the moment of play when that is required. The fact that, under different circumstances I would have set a different DC has no bearing on the nature of the actual fiction in the actual gameworld.</p><p></p><p>This is why, in a thread more than 4 years ago, which I have linked to in the same post above, and in which you were a participant at the time, I described this technique as "just in time" GMing.</p><p></p><p>Unneeded by whom? The fact that you don't use a particular GMing technique doesn't determine the question, for the rest of humanity, whether or not they want to use that technique!</p><p></p><p>Not all the 5e players in this thread use the same approach for setting DCs.</p><p></p><p>You, and [MENTION=6784868]Erechel[/MENTION], use "objective" DCs.</p><p></p><p> [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION] uses 4e-style "subjective" DCs, though without a handy chart to help.</p><p></p><p>The fact that 5e is ambiguous in its presentation of DC-setting practices is probably a deliberate decision by its authors.</p><p></p><p>I can say that, in my case, reading around The Forge, and familiarity with games like HeroWars/Quest and Maelstrom Storytelling, and especially Luke Crane's GMing advice for Burning Wheel, helped me with 4e from day 1.</p><p></p><p>Here is a bit of advice I wrote and circulated to my players at the start of our campaign (it refers to 3E and RM because those are the game my players had previously been playing):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Unlike 3E or Rolemaster, a lot of the 4e mechanics work best if they are not treated as a literal model of what is going on in the gameworld. So keep in mind that the main thing the mechanics tell you is what, mechanically, you can have your PC do. What your PC’s actions actually mean in the gameworld is up to you to decide (in collaboration with the GM and the other players at the table).</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Some corollaries of this:</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><u>Character Levels</u></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Levels for PCs, for NPCs and for monsters set the mechanical parameters for encounters. They don’t necessarily have any determinate meaning in the gameworld (eg in some encounters a given NPC might be implemented as an elite monster, and in other encounters – when the PCs are higher level – as a minion). As your PC gains levels, you certainly open up more character build space (more options for powers, more feats, etc). The only definite effect in the gameworld, however, is taking your paragon path and realising your epic destiny. How to handle the rest of it – is your PC becoming tougher, or more lucky, or not changing much at all in power level relative to the rest of the gameworld – is something that will have to come out in the course of play as the story of your PC unfolds.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><u>PC Rebuilding</u></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">The rules for retraining, swapping in new powers, background feats etc, don’t have to be interpreted as literally meaning that your PC has forgotten how to do things or suddenly learned something new. Feel free to treat this as just emphasising a different aspect of your PC that was always there, but hadn’t yet come up in the course of play.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6660201, member: 42582"] But he was not talking about "shifting DCs for static challenges". He was talking about [I]setting a DC[/I] . Setting a DC is not shifting it. (Also, a blizzard does not seem to me to be a static challenge. It can get lighter or heavier, and - as [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] himself indicates in his reply to you, at 1289 - a GM can exploit that feature of a blizzard to shape the ingame situation to narrative purposes.) In post 1261 upthread (a reply to you), I said: AbdulAlhazred applies the same "loose until pinned down" approach in 1289. In my post with spoilerblocks, I gave more examples of this. Also, a way upthread I talked about the relevance or irrelevance of counterfactuals of the sort you put forward. In my 4e game, the Abyss has been known, throughout the game, to be a challenging place. When the PCs tried to seal it off from the rest of the cosmos at 28th level, the DC was set by reference to that line on the DC-by-level chart. Had the PCs been 29th level, I would have used [I]that[/I], lower, line on the chart. But this is not "shifting DCs for static challenges", because no DC has shifted. It is setting a DC, rendering the difficulty of the challenge precise at the moment of play when that is required. The fact that, under different circumstances I would have set a different DC has no bearing on the nature of the actual fiction in the actual gameworld. This is why, in a thread more than 4 years ago, which I have linked to in the same post above, and in which you were a participant at the time, I described this technique as "just in time" GMing. Unneeded by whom? The fact that you don't use a particular GMing technique doesn't determine the question, for the rest of humanity, whether or not they want to use that technique! Not all the 5e players in this thread use the same approach for setting DCs. You, and [MENTION=6784868]Erechel[/MENTION], use "objective" DCs. [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION] uses 4e-style "subjective" DCs, though without a handy chart to help. The fact that 5e is ambiguous in its presentation of DC-setting practices is probably a deliberate decision by its authors. I can say that, in my case, reading around The Forge, and familiarity with games like HeroWars/Quest and Maelstrom Storytelling, and especially Luke Crane's GMing advice for Burning Wheel, helped me with 4e from day 1. Here is a bit of advice I wrote and circulated to my players at the start of our campaign (it refers to 3E and RM because those are the game my players had previously been playing): [indent]Unlike 3E or Rolemaster, a lot of the 4e mechanics work best if they are not treated as a literal model of what is going on in the gameworld. So keep in mind that the main thing the mechanics tell you is what, mechanically, you can have your PC do. What your PC’s actions actually mean in the gameworld is up to you to decide (in collaboration with the GM and the other players at the table). Some corollaries of this: [U]Character Levels[/U] Levels for PCs, for NPCs and for monsters set the mechanical parameters for encounters. They don’t necessarily have any determinate meaning in the gameworld (eg in some encounters a given NPC might be implemented as an elite monster, and in other encounters – when the PCs are higher level – as a minion). As your PC gains levels, you certainly open up more character build space (more options for powers, more feats, etc). The only definite effect in the gameworld, however, is taking your paragon path and realising your epic destiny. How to handle the rest of it – is your PC becoming tougher, or more lucky, or not changing much at all in power level relative to the rest of the gameworld – is something that will have to come out in the course of play as the story of your PC unfolds. [U]PC Rebuilding[/U] The rules for retraining, swapping in new powers, background feats etc, don’t have to be interpreted as literally meaning that your PC has forgotten how to do things or suddenly learned something new. Feel free to treat this as just emphasising a different aspect of your PC that was always there, but hadn’t yet come up in the course of play.[/indent] [/QUOTE]
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