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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6112087" data-attributes="member: 42582">Agreed.My games tend to be focused on big cosmological or world-historical issues, with local events being important, but important as reflections/expressions of the cosmological transformations.There aren't "competing adventuring groups" in the sort of game I run. But the PCs haven't "answered the call" either. They are the ones with the cosmological connections, who get swept up in these grand matters. Their opponents end up being gods, demons, archliches etc, not mere mortals!So my game is different from yours in detail - but the same insofar as it departs from [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION]'s assumptions!Party cohesion in my games tends to be understood flexibly and informally, although some of the PCs may be more tightly connected (eg in my previous RM campaign, two of the PCs were cousins within a down-on-it-luck samurai family, and a third a recruit into their clan from a merchant family hoping to raise their status).Intra-party conflict has been an element in my games in the past, and I expect it to be an increasing element in my 4e game as the game moves into Epic tier. I have some ideas on how to handle it, but to some extent have to wait and see (I'm not 100% sure 4e is as robust in this respect as I would like!).For mostly irrational reasons I tend to be a bit more of a stickler for the rules, but that is why I like a ruleset that itself works in a way that fits with "say yes". (4e does; Rolemaster doesn't really.)But the second part of what I've quoted I think can't be overemphasised, and is highly relevant to this whole discussion. One of the overtones has been that, by skipping the desert, the players are getting something for nothing. They're cheating. But this makes no sense to me! The game will keep going; it's not going to come to a sudden end. And the GM will keep coming up with new challenges and complications, no less difficult and taxing than the desert. Within the context of the game the players get no advantage by skipping the desert; it simply changes the fictional context within which they confront challenges, from an uninteresting to an interesting one.Given this, why waste play time on boring stuff? Cut to the interesting stuff!HeroQuest revised discusses the version of this issue that arises within its mechanical framework, which is uniform action resolution within a context of free-descriptor PC building.The scene: a rock needs to be moved. PC1: has an excellent rating in "Strong". PC2: has the same rating in "Pulls loads like a drafhorse". PC3: has the same rating in "able to heave and carry rocks like Obelix the Gaul". What to do to ensure niche protection?The HQrev solution is to impose a -6 penalty (on a d20 check) to PC1 - whose ability is the most generically applicalbe - and a -3 penalty to PC2, whose ability is less generic but still more widely applicable than PC3's.In a session in which PC1 was the only one present, however, no penalty would apply. In a game involving only PC1 and PC3, the full -6 penalty would only apply. In a game involving only PC1 and PC2, or PC2 and PC3, the GM would have to adjudicate between a -3 or -6 penalty to the first-named PC, based on a contextual judgement as to the niche-stealing tendencies of the broader descriptor.I'm personally a big fan of making these niche-protection decisions on a contextual, party specific basis rather than trying to capture all of them in the rules. (And if known tendencies and preferences trigger build choices downstream, as in your lurker-ganker example, c'est la vie. No single RPG table can be all things to all people!)</blockquote>

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