NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6179769" data-attributes="member: 42582">4e's combat mechanics are designed to engender this structure as a natural consequence of combat resolution. (It works pretty well for my group; I gather other sorts of party build and GM approach to encounter design can produce different, less successful results.) The basic mechanical underpinning is the difference in PC vs NPC/monster build. NPCs and monsters have more hit points and greater base damage, but PCs have resources to unlock - APs and limited-use abilities to boost their base damage, and healing surges to bring them back from failure.4e doesn't do a lot to impose this structure on the broader arc of play, but few RPGs do. Even games like HeroWars/Quest, or Marvel Heroic RP, which - by those who use such labels - would typically be labelled as "story games", don't geneate an inherent tendency towards dramatic structure. They rely upon the GM.In my experience, what is important here is that other mechanics get out of the way. In classic fantasy RPGing, the mechanics that get in the way of imposing dramatic structure are recovery mechanics (replenishing hit points, replenishing food, replenishing arrows, etc) and exploration mechanics (the game now grinds to a dramatic halt as we all search the dungeon again looking for the secret door that we missed; and make sure we're not too encumbered to actually walk through the dungeon at all!). I don't think it's a coincidence that 4e significantly downplays these traditional elements of D&D play.I don't see the Forge approach as an alternative to the dramatic approach.  I see it as a solution to the problem of railroading that you identify. Instead of the dramatic arc being laid out in advance, the PCs are built so that both these things are true: (i) they have a dramatic arc inherent in them (their antithesis in opposition to the GM's thesis); (ii) no one knows in advance what the resolution (synthesis) will be, because it can't be realised except via actual play and the back-and-forth of resolution between players and GM.You're correct that D&D doesn't have the mechanical bells and whistles to drive narrativist play (though they're not inherent to HeroWars/Quest either, to pick one example - it is possible in that system to build a PC with no relationships, for instance). That's why I've always referred to me 4e play as vanilla narrativist, and very light narrativism at that (ie pretty generic and low-risk fantasy tropes and themes).As I already mentioned, what is important for me in 4e is that it's mechanics get out of the way of pushing other agendas (simulation/exploration). Also, even though you don't have to build a PC with relationships, it's very easy to do so (because of the way the gameworld, which is itself riven by conflict, is built into so many PC build elements).</blockquote>

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