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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 6114329" data-attributes="member: 386">I haven't been following the desert-city stuff in this thread, but I wonder: how much of the desert Hussar would be willing to skip/hand-wave if he was playing with a different system vs. 3E D&D.If I was playing Burning Wheel and we did some kind of magic to plane shift near the city but failure meant that we ended up in the desert instead, I think I'd be okay with that.  I wonder if Hussar would be as well.  It seems like it'd engage my Belief of "I must enter the city and get the MacGuffin."  (To which I'd add "Anyone who stands in my way will be killed without mercy."  But that's me.)However, if I really wanted to get to the city and the MacGuffin, I'd probably be a little bored of 3E play through the desert - again, playing Story Now type play.  (It took me forever - in real time - to achieve my D&D 3.5E PC's goal to return from the Plane of Faerie to Faerun, but that was fine since we weren't playing Story Now.)  In 3E a fight can easily last an hour or more, and you could have many such instances, and just negotiating how you're travelling through the desert can take a while - since 3E's currency makes such travel important to the game.Unless the DM is willing to stop the game and say, "Hey guys, do you want to deal with the desert, or just hand-wave it?" I think it puts the DM in a difficult position.  The players might be bored if you go through the dozens? of wandering monster checks, XP gains, the rations used, the spells used, the HP lost, the wand/staff charges lost, the potions used, the scrolls used, the days passing, magic item creation times, etc. (I may be missing some currency here.)  Or they might want the XP gain and whatever else might happen.  You have to stop the game to ask, I think.Whereas in Burning Wheel (for example) a player can state directly to the DM, "My intent is to get to the city, and I want to do it by summoning a centipede for all of us to ride."  Since you're going to get your intent with a successful roll - as long as the DM thinks it's a valid intent, and if he doesn't there's going to be dialogue - you're engaging with the player's goals and still staying right in there with the system's currency.  (The BW players might think this desert trek is a good chance to gather Fate and Tests of Desert-wise, Oasis-wise, Nomad-wise, Orienteering, Persuasion, combat skills, etc., so they may still decide to "montage" through the desert through smaller intents.  But that's up to them.)Anyway.  I guess what I'm saying is that system matters here.</blockquote>

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