Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vyvyan Basterd" data-source="post: 5654570" data-attributes="member: 4892">I think I didn't elaborate enough and you misunderstood me. I'm not saying a DM should tailor around precise abilities of the PCs necessarily. You should use whatever method you wish to set the DCs of specific tasks. You could have predetermined in your setting that deciphering that particular ancient script was a DC 30 task. When the time comes and you decide to use that script and you see that the best Arcana in the group is +10, then you should be aware that there is a 95% chance the characters will fail and be at least mentally prepared for common courses of action they may consider taking at that point.I have to agree with others. I think we're crossing hairs with the terms "setting" and "story." I think we'd find that our styles of play are much more similar than it seems in this discussion. You make it sound like you plop down the setting map in front of your players and ask "Now what do you do?" I'm sure you don't actually do that. I'm sure you present your players with events occurring around them and then ask "Now what do you do?"While it seems you think others sit down with a Paizo AP and force the players to follow the tracks all the way to the end. I've run APs before and it starts much the same as I imagine your campaigns do. I present the players with what is going on around them and ask "Now what do you do?" Usually, as a group, we've already expressed interest in the AP before play began and it would be very unlikely for the players at that point to change their mind and not take the hook. But if they didn't I would let events unfold around them based on their actions.My point is that "random die roll" is just as scripted as "pre-scripting." Even if you use tables from a published book or those of your own creation, you are scripting possible events in your campaign world with an element of randomness thrown in. It still boils down to the DM deciding how events unfold in his world. I don't think anyone is implying sinister intent. I believe Hussar is merely trying to point out what I said above. That rockslide occurred because of DM input, whether planned to occur 100% of the time or as a random mountain occurance on "environmental table M." It didn't happen because the players made their own story.  For reasons of their own? Yes. But there usually has to be some thing or event or location in the seting that the party sets their sights on. Without some kind of cue from the DM, the players are in the vaccuum that Hussar mentioned.I wouldn't say plot. But it is story. Story only made possible by the DM choosing to use the d% 'Mountain Random Encounters Table' or another method of his choice.</blockquote>

Verification