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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5158749" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't understand this. If Sam once was able to defeat goblins, but only with difficulty, and now is able to defeat demon lords with about the same degree of ease, how is Sam not getting to shine? I also don't understand this. I can see that one might prefer to play a different sort of game, in which "engaging the situation" is the preferred mechanism for play, rather than "engaging the action resolution mechanics". But I don't see how the latter negates player agency.Yes, I set the DCs and complexity within the constrains permitted by challenge level - I've set out in some detail in earlier posts the nature of the constraints this imposes on the GM. No, I did not determine which skills were applicable - the players choose which skills to use, based on their assessment of how, given the abilities their PCs have to bear, they want to tackle the challenge.I discussed in some detail earlier how the scene-framing discretion a GM has in the modern approach works, and why - in my experience - it constrains the GM in a different, and in my view greater, way than is the case for the traditional approach. I return to this again at the end of this post.What of it? They chose how to tackle the situation - to negotiate rather than fight, to use diplomacy rather than intimidation up until the last minute, and to settle the issue via a contract for ransom at an undervalue in which the duergar therefore bore the loss. I don't quite know what greater degree of involvement there could be, given that they are still playing a game in which there is a GM who has distinct responsibilities for controlling the gameworld beyond the PCs.In light of what I've said in previous posts, including a detailed example of actual play from a game I GMed last weekend, I don't really see where this is coming from. To reiterate - the players choose how to engage the scene (both via skill choice, and indication of what they hope to achieve via that sill check) and repeatedly do so at every point where a skill check has been resolved and the ingame situation therefore changed in response (either as the players desired, or not, depending upon the success or failure of the skill check). I don't see the railroading. I've deliberately drawn the comparison to tactically rich combat mechanics (such as Rolemaster's system of choosing an OB/DB split every round of combat, or 4e's system of the player having to choose which power to use and how to deploy a limited suite of actions each round) to illustrate the similarities to mechanical systems which are generally seen as the antithesis of railroading, precisely because they provide a mechanical framework in which the players get to determine their goals and the way they will use the game mechanics to try and achieve those goals, with the rules mandating mulitple points of engagement unfolding in a dynamic fashion responsive to the players' choices.Of course there can be twists and turns in the traditional approach. But the mechanics don't guarantee it, or build it in from the ground floor up. It depends upon mediation by the GM interpreting the ingame causal logic of the negotiation situation. This can work, but in my exerience is more difficult both for GM and players. I take this up again at the end of the post.I'd prefer it if you didn't impute desires or wilful blindness. But putting that to one side, in the modern approach there are things to visualise, of PCs doing things in the world. Furthermore, these determine the way the resolution of the challenge unfolds. The difference is that at certain key points the question of the success or failure of the PC's schemes is given over to the dice, with difficulties having been set in a way that responds to metagame priorities rather than the GM's judgement of the ingame causal likelihoods.Which happens in skill challenges via secondary checks, or via augments in HQ contests. Likewise in a skill challenge - by changing the ingame situation at an earlier stage of the challenge, the later situation can be made more conducive to the PC's abilities. (There is some discussion of this also in the HeroWars rulebook, which you have, in the rules on extended contests.)I don't understand "after the fact". The framing of the scene, and of the circumstances of each check, is part of the process of making the check, and happens before the dice are rolled.I don't agree with this. I've regularly posted (including in this thread) that the 4e skill challenge rules need work, both in their detail and in their exposition. But it is pretty obvious how they're meant to play. The early designers (Mearls, Heinsoo) have been quite upfront about the influence of modern (indie) games on the design. The later designers include Robin Laws, who is one of the most influential of the  modern designers.You may have noticed over a number of threads where you've encountered friction that I've never been one to query your presentation of the traditional approach to play, even at points where it is fair to say that the rules don't always express it clearly, but rather assume that the player already knows how to do it (whether from earlier rulebooks, or from actual play experience with other players). Well, I would hope that you would extend the same courtesy of not holding me responsible for the deficiencies of the 4e designers in stating their own rules. For anyone who knows the context of those rules (as I've set out in the previous paragraph) it's pretty obvious how they are to be used. It's not just an arbitrary interpretation imposed by me and my group.I don't insist on any such thing. I do assert that the operation of these mechanical constraints depends to a greater degree upon the GM's discretion - as I've tried to explain in previous posts, and will take up again below.Yes. The rulebook tells you "firm but fair, +5%". What counts as "firm but fair"? This is an exercise of GM discretion. It's as if the combat rules said "hard blow, -5 hit points" and the GM had to determine, for every round of combat, whether what the player described his/her player as doing counted as a hard blow. But combat doesn't work that way - there are to-hit dice, damage dice and so on which obviate the need for the GM to exercise that particular sort of discretion. The modern approach is analogous - not identical, but analogous in the ways I have described - to this.This is the obvious point where the contention lies. This is why I talk about GM discretion - because in traditional play, the GM is sole authority over both the starting state of the ingame situation, and the way that it unfolds in relation to player input. The modern approach takes some of that authority away from the GM by establishing mechanics which mandate, if certain dice rolls succeed, the occurrence of transitions of the ingame situation in the players' favour. The nature of those transitions is ultimately up to the GM to narrate in light of the action the player has described, but their occurrence is not. That is, the link between the GM's authority over the nature of the ingame situation, and the GM's authority over the likelihood of the players succeeding in their endeavours, is severed.As I've said in earlier posts, I have successfully GMed many games using the traditional approach. I believe that that success is helped when there is a high degree of familiarity and trust among GM and players, such that the need for the GM to translate his/her authority over the ingame situation into actual difficulty levels and modifiers is not a source of disagreement or tension between participants.THe modern approach changes the GM's role in a way that I find makes my job easier. And I certainly do not have any experience of it reducing player agency.Different people want different things from the game. For some people, "the dice-churning part of combat" is an important part of the game, in which choices are made that express their character and develop the adventure. The combat mechanics obviously matter here - Rolemaster is in my view superior to AD&D or Runequest in this respect, because it has the OB/DB split decision to be made every round (Classic Traveller also has similar rules for it's hand to hand combat), as opposed to simply a role against static numbers. D&D 4e is also dynamic in a similar way, because of the power system, the economy of actions, and their interactions.I'll happily agree that mere dice rolling without choices that express the PC, or other aspects of the player's orientation towards the adventure, is tedious in more than small doses. But in my play experience 4e does not have a lot of such dice rolling. Both in combat and in skill challenges, the dice rolling is integrated into a framework of choices that are meaningful in both a tactical sense - ie they affect the likelihood of winning or losing - and a narrative sense - they determine the shape of the story and the way the PC is expressed as a protgaonist in that story.I would certainly not recommend 4e to anyone who prefers to "engage the situation" in the classic (A)D&D style, rather than engage via (rather heavy) game mechanics. But nor would I recommend classic (A)D&D to anyone who wants to play a game that will run smoothly for non-combat as well as combat challenges, unless they could be assured of a GM in whom they had not only a high degree of trust in general, but also a high degree of overlap in the way they picture the gameworld and the ingame causality that governs it. And I think years of threads on ENWorld, RPGnet, Usenet etc concerning alignment disputes, adjudication of charm spells, complaints about "mother-may-I" GMing and the like show that I am not alone in perceiving these weaknesses, as well as the obvious strengths, in the traditional approach.</blockquote>

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