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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6663290" data-attributes="member: 42582">My only quibble with this is over the nature of the "predictability". The outcomes will be mechanically fairly predictable - but the fiction associated with those outcomes can be as varies as the players and GM like (especially when it comes not non-combat resolution).What does the adventure mean here?If a GM is running a module (whether for 3E, 4e or 5e), the module author will typically state the DCs.Presumably, then, we are talking about a GM preparing his/her own material for use in his/her game.In that context, I don't think that it is uncommon for GMs to have regard to the level of PC they expect to use that material. For instance, when I was an AD&D GM building dungeons, I would have regard to the level of PC I expected to enter the dungeon. (For instance, I generally used higher-HD monsters in dungeons I was designing with the intention that my players high level PCs would explored them.)In AD&D, there are no on-combat DCs to speak of - non-combat resolution is generally based on a d6, d20 or d100 roll that is level independent (except for thief abilities, and in tht case the level of the thief sets the success chance, so there is no DC for the GM to set).In 4e, non-combat is treated the same as combat - something in which PC level is a factor in resolution, and hence in design. Just as an AD&D GM may well have regard to likely PC level in building a dungeon, so a 4e GM may well have regard to likely PC level in making notes on a mountain and the blizzards that notoriously occur on its slopes.5e doesn't have "level appropriate" DCs. Instead it has "level appropriate" damage ranges, which is why monsters in 5e have CRs but some non-combat situations don't. (But presumably some do: in deciding how much damage a PC suffers from a blizzard, or falling down a mountainside, doesn't the 5e DMG provide advice on level-appropriate damage?)As I've tried to explain upthread, I think there are interesting differences that go beyond sandbox vs scene-framing when it comes to objective vs subjective DCs. But I don't see that the combat vs non-combat divide is a very exciting place to draw the line. If we can and do assign combat challenges CRs, why is it any fundamental difference to assign non-combat challenges CRs?In addition to the point you were making in this passage, I think it also feeds into a more general issue with "objective" DCs - namely, that they are not self-evident. The notion of a mountain being Hard vs Very Hard for some (notional) "ordinary NPC" is not something that can just be read of the world (either the real one or the imagined one). The GM has to make stuff up, or alternatively the game designers have to make stuff up and provide lists of DCs.What you say about setting "objective" DCs may be true of 5e. It's not true in general - for instance, two of the systems I've mentioned a bit upthread (Rolemaster and Burning Wheel) have lists of objective DCs for a much broader range of tasks than opening doors and locks and climbing walls.But in any event, in my view the principal reason why "objective" DCs produce a sense of grittiness is because they focus attention very closely on the causal reasons why things are happening in the shared fiction. Whereas "subjective" DCs tend to focus attention on the dramatic significance of the things that are happening in the shared fiction.Consider the blizzard example again. In a system of "subjective" DCs, the GM states the DC for the blizzard. If the players mention that their PCs put on overcoats etc it makes perfect sense for the GM to say "I've already factored all that in". The point of the blizzard, as a challenge, isn't to make the players think about procedural solutions to cold conditions, but rather to engage the dramatic situation. In an "objective" DC game, on the other hand, it absolutely makes sense for the players to start looking for procedural/operational choices that will lower the DC. Which contributes to grittiness.</blockquote>

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