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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5157654" data-attributes="member: 42582">HeroQuest 2nd ed has quite different mechanics both for setting difficulties and for resolving extended contests from those in HeroWars and HeroQuest 1st ed.I'll confess that I haven't done the caluclations myself, but am relying on the presentation of the rules by the author. For the reasons you give, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a degree of deviation at the margins, but the clear intention is that simple vs extended is about investment by the players, not about difficulty of task. As my post tried to indicate, this is a difference from 4e skill challenges, although there are features of the 4e rules (like aiding another) that mitigate against the difference if used sensibly.Sorry, I don't see what you're getting at here. Rereading my original post, I notice there is some syntactic confusion in my use of the word "former" - it is intended to refer to what I am calling the modern approach. Does that help?I don't see why you think I'm against the possibility of sweet-talking vs intimidating making a difference. I just prefer a system where that difference is structured by the mechanics (eg in HeroQuest, it is structured by the players' decision to use their "Tongue of honey" or "Steely gaze" ability, and in 4e it is structured both by the decision to use Diplomacy or Intimdate, and the GM's setting of a difficulty level at Easy, Medium or Hard).As to the GM's role, in 4e, of making the Easy/Medium/Hard determination, I think it would strengthen the rules for skill challenges to have more guidance on this. But even as it is, it imposes mechanical strictures that are much tighter than in what I am calling the traditional approach.No. It makes a difference in two ways. First, it factors into the Easy/Medium/Hard determination. Second, it determines the ingame consequences of the resolution of the challenge (eg does the successful resolution of the challenge by the players leave the Titan a loyal servant of the PCs, or a cowed slave, or a grudging cooperator?). In HeroQuest the first consideration does not apply, but the second obvioulsy does - and in HeroQuest, questions of aligning or conflicting interests would also affect what abilities can be used for the challenge, both as primary abilities and as augments (eg depending on the alignment or conflict of interests, certain relationships may or may not be able to be used to resolve the challenge).I don't really understand the hostility of your resonse. I've GMed AD&D 1st ed. I've played and GMed Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert. I've played RuneQuest. I've played Classic Traveller. I've played Rolemaster, and GMed it regularly for 20 years. I'm very familiar with the traditional approach in a range of variations.Of course the players can succeed in those games via the game mechanics. I've GMed multiple RM playes whose characters are built around social skills plus spells to enhance those abilities, and I've looked up and applied the results from the Influence and Interaction static action table dozens, probably hundreds of times.The difference between the traditional and the modern approach that I experience in my own GMing is that the traditional approach does not have the same rigour in scene framing (because their is no such game mechanial notion, whereas it is central to a HeroQuest conflict or a 4e skill challenge), and therefore does not have the same rigour in setting explicit game mechanical parameters for success. In the traditional approach the GM has to assign difficulties (which in RM range from +30 for Routine to -70 for Absurd), has to interpret the meaning of near or full success with only the barest of guidane from the rules, has to decide whether one or many rolls are required, has to make calls on the permissibility of retries with very little guidance from the mechanics, etc.As I said in my post #172, this can work. It works better, in my experiene, when there is a high degree of familiarity and trust between players and GM. My belief is that this is a result of the traditional appoach putting more weight on non-game-mechanically moderated exercises of discretion by the GM.I happen to find the modern approach works better for me and my games. It supports me as a GM. It reduces the need for me to exercise discretion. And it brings out more interesting play from my players in social encounters.Not in my experience. If a player roleplays her/his heart out, with her +100 to Seduction PC, but the GM has decided the difficulty for influencing the Titan is Absurd, then there is nothing the player can do to drive the encounter in a certain direction but to roll the dice and hope for luck, and that the GM will interpret success in the way the the player wants it to be interpreted. If the GM is having an off day, it can all go wrong (or at least boring) in a way that combats in games like D&D and 4e, simply in virtue of the intracy of mechanical play (and hence intricacy of interpretation of the imagined ingame situation), do not. In my experience, the modern approach goes a long way to eliminating this risk, becuase it introduces mechanical drives for ingame events (eg in skill challenges, the necessity to interpret the ingame meaning of each skill check, and to frame the next skill check in light of that) which resemble the way fantasy RPGs have tended to handle combat (each turn produces movement which can change the tactical situation, a die roll to see if hit points are deducted which can also change the tactical situation, etc).I wouldn't imagine that everyone, or even a majority of those who visit ENworld, would share my preference for the modern over the traditional approach. I would expect most people familiar with both types of games to notice that there is a difference between them, though. And I have tried my best to answer your question, in relation to the modern approach, of how it works.</blockquote>

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