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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3813196" data-attributes="member: 42582">Because I don't know what RPGs you play, I'm not sure what sorts of examples I might give. I'll try one non-RPG example, and then an RPG example.From time-to-time I play collectible card games with a friend of mine - Middle-Earth: The Wizards (ICE) and LoTR (Decipher). My friend was once the Australian MTG champion, so is a better CCG-player than I am. But as it happens I tend to know the card set for the two Middle-Earth games better than he does, and neither game is prone to come to a sudden and rapid end in the way that MTG is. The result of all this is that, when we play, it is pretty certain that he will win the game. But the win is not "automatic", in the sense that he has to pay attention to the play to bring it off, actually doing the clever things that his level of skill enables him to do. He can thereby derive pleasure from the game - after all, he enjoys doing those clever things with cards - even though there is little likelihood of him losing.In my experience, the same can be true of an RPG. The main game that I GM is RM. This is a game which, for figthers, involves making a decision about allocating attack vs parry in each round, and about how to deploy Adrenal Moves (which work as a sort of per-encounter resource, as I explained in an earlier post). Very often my players' characters find themselves in fights which they have little chance of losing, provided that they make the correct decisions about attack/parry split and Adrenal Move use. To make those decisions requires information about their opponents - attack strength, armour and other defence strength, etc - which is itself often acquired only during the combat. The result of this is that a typical combat plays out as quite suspenseful for the first round or two, as the players get a sense of what sort of foes they are up against and how they should best respond, and then as an exercise in ruthless efficiency for the next round or two, as the players win the combat through deploying winning tactics. This is a source of pleasure in play - my players are the sort of game players who get pleasure from playing a game well - although typically there is little doubt about the outcome.A subsidiary point to make here is that RM has a series of mechanical features (a very deep resevoir of hits between unconsciousness and death, the existence of Life Keeping spells to stop soul departure, etc) so that being taken out in a combat doesn't necessarily result in character death.But the main point is that it makes a big difference to a game, in my experience, whether the value of X in your "X%" is a function of player skill or not. In a set of mechanics where the only option is to park one's PC next to the opponent and role full attacks until you win or lose, the value of X will be largely a function of the numbers. This can give rise to the same sort of interest that a lottery does, but I wouldn't see it as mechanical interest of any deep sort. But if X is a funciton of player skill - so that the best player can push X very close to zero - then the game becomes one which rewards skill, encourages group play (as the better players give the less-skilled players advice on how to optimise a situation) and is, at least in my experience, generally fun to play.In no edition of D&D do I think that this example can be made interesting in the sense I have described above. In 1st ed, the 20th level fighter closes and kills the kobolds automatically in 1 round, barring natural 1s (because s/he gets 20 attacks per round against 1/2 hit dice creatures). In 3rd ed, its much the same, assuming the fighter has either whirlwind attack or great cleave.In RM the encounter can be more interesting, because the players have to choose between killing all the kobolds in the first round - and thus facing some risk of suffering real damage - or playing it completely safe, facing no risk of damage unless the kobolds roll open-ended high, but perhaps taking more than one round to kill the kobolds.But even in RM I don't think it is a particularly good example. 4 20th level characters against 4 Stone Giants might be better, because at that point the ways in which different choices about how the encounter is approached affect the outcome (particularly in terms of the trade-off between speed of resolution and risk run) start to become more complex, and hence more interesting.My expectation is that 4e, by giving each player a wider range of choices to make in terms of resource-deployment (because fighters will have some, and wizards will have more), will make D&D play (in general, abstract terms) more like my RM example than like current D&D. The way that an encounter unfolds will be more highly dependent on player decisions, and those decisions will be more complex and so require more thought by players. This experience of engaging in a complex activity will be (for some players, at least) interesting.Of course I may be wrong, but my prediction is that 4e encounters will, if anything, take longer to play because of the greater number and complexity of decisions that the players will have to make. (Though apparently it will be easier for the GM, and that might compensate to some extent.)I know by "them" you don't really mean "your players" but rather "their PCs". Nevertheless, I think this is telling, because it suggests a high degree of expectation, in your game, that the player's experience will mirror that of the PCs - for example, that a setback for the PCs is also a setback for the players. Not all RPGs unfold that way - in some games, a setback for a PC can be a reward for the player, in the sense that it can be a source of fun and pleasure in playing the game. This latter sort of player is, I think, less likely to care for playing out the sort of logistical matters to which operational play gives rise.For those play groups who do not enjoy operational play, what makes not resting an interesting choice is that they find resting tedious to play out. They don't want to specify a camp site, a watch regime, etc. Not wanting to do this, they don't, and proceed even though they are (perhaps) at less than full resources.</blockquote>

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