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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6103985" data-attributes="member: 42582">But you argued upthread that this is a reason to think that what [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] wants to do - exercise an informal veto over scene framing and informal control over stakes - is not viable.Whereas I think that it clearly is. And there are a whole systems designed to facilitate it.At that level of description you can't tell whether play is G, N or S.I also outline two skill challenges - one involving dinner with the duke, one involving interrogating a prisoner. Neither was free roleplay. The first, at least, prompted a multi-page discussion of how skill challenges work as a system of adjudication and resolution.I'm not remotely thespian, and nor are most of my players. Some speak in first person, some in third person. For me personally, it's not a huge part of the play experience.If combat wasn't going to be a big part of play, I wouldn't be playing D&D!As I think I posted upthread, I don't find any particular conflict or contrast between combat and thematic stuff. That's one of the significant strengths of 4e.Off the top of my head, from my memory of the posts I linked to, the following encounters/challenges were improvised:* the interrogation of the Torog cultists; * most of the details of the exploration scenario, including key details of cultic practice and how that related to the last days; * the hobgoblin/Calastryx encounter; * the dopppelganger encounter; * the details of the Kas encounter; * the wizard's reincarnation as a deva invoker; * the presence of an Orcus temple underground; * the thin barrier between the world and Shadowfell with a dracolich coming through; * the giants + eidolon encounter; * the duergar fungus farm; * the details of the duergar hold that the PCs ended up near-destroying.Plus probably other stuff I'm not thinking of. That strikes me as different from your own account of your preference for preparing complications in advance.Again off the top of my head, things driven by player cues (cues themselves in brackets):* The cultic details and the way the last days played out in the exploration scenario (Raven Queen worship); * The Orcus temple and associated stuff (Raven Queen worship); * The sucking of power out of Calastryx's corpse, and the opening of the gate (Chaos obsession); * The framing of the doppelgangers via a dream about dragonborn (tiefling paladin); * The whole rebirth episode (the wizard's religous doings both ingame and in pregame backstory); * If I mentioned it (I think it came up), the whole series of events around reclaiming and rededicating the ruined temple (initiated by the Erathis worshipping wizard, resolved by him as an invoker of (among others) Erathis); * The PCs' relatioship with the duergar, going back to their redemption of slaves from the duergar; * Not to mention the two social skill challenges, as explained in the relevant posts.Plus a lot more. The most obvious non-player-driven example there is the beholder encounter, which really was just "This would be cool" - though the roper in that was player-driven (as explained in the post).</blockquote>

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