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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5392272" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't entirely agree with this. At least as I read the 4e PHB, players get to choose a race, a class, a paragon path and an epic destiny for their PC. This all sets some parameters on the gameworld, which the GM is not free just to ignore.I know some people contend that the GM is always free to veto any given race, class, PP or ED. But this isn't written into the PHB. (It may be in Essentials. I haven't seen those players' books. If it is, it would be yet another reason why I like the technical design of Essentials but dislike the feel of the RPG it describes.)The 4e rules (in Essentials as much as the earlier books) also make it pretty clear that it is up to the players to choose quests for their PCs to pursue, and that when conflicting quests are on offer the players get to choose between them. This pretty much presupposes that the players have some degree of power in resolving the situation, just as much as it presupposes that the GM has a high degree of power in setting up the situation ("originating the scene", as Mal put it upthread).I think that part of the point of 4e's DC-by-level guidelines and skill challenge rules is to put constraints on this sort of exercise of GM power. So if the players chooses to have his/her PC jump over the pit (which, as others have said, is itself a type of exercise of power) then the GM is not free to arbitrarily jack up the DC. And the maximum number of succcesses that can be required in the context of a serious non-combat challenge is 12 before 3 failures.There is some stuff in the DMG2 that contradicts this, canvassing the setting of DCs by the GM at high or low levels in order to facilitate plot development (bizarrely enough, written by Robin Laws) but no effort is made to explain how to integrate those remarks (which are much more apposite to HeroQuest and its systematic mechanical approach to the pass/fail cycle) with the standard 4e mechanics. So I prefer to treat them as non-canonical!EDITED TO ADD: If, as GM, you think the game will be better - more interesting, speaking more immediately to the players' metagame concerns, giving the players a more engaging field of action for their PCs - by having them fall into the pit, then don't tell them they see a pit, get them to roll, and then retrospectively set the DC so that they fail. Originate the scene with the PCs at the bottom of the pit! Conversely, if you're pretty sure your players don't want to play in a game, or a session, or whatever where they start at the bottom of the pit, then you should be letting them use the action resolution mechanics to avoid that outcome, which makes fudging or abitrary jacking up of DCs redundant. And if you can't think of anything interesting happening if they cross the pit (or, conversely, if they fall into it) then what the hell was the pit doing in the gameworld in the first place?(This is the Trail of Cthuhlu approach to investigation - the players find the clues if they arrive up on the scene, and the real action is in interpretation/elaboration of those clues - transposed to an action/adventure game like D&D. If a given event is a necessary condition of action or adventure, then it's not something that should be left to the vagaries of the action resolution mechanics. And there shouldn't be any need to pretend otherwise.)</blockquote>

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