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2 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2011 - 6:05AM
#861
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Date Joined:
Jun 16, 2004
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Red_Jack, wrecan, Hocus, and several others have stated, multiple times, that 4e does have problems. They have also tossed out several ideas of how to address those problems. They are not, I say again not, falling prey to the Oberoni Fallacy, as they are not excusing the faulty Skill Challenge mechanic on the grounds that it can be houseruled into functionality. Rather, the main focus of their posts on the topic of skill challenges are trying to address conceptual blocks held by you and others. Granted, they also did toss out a few possible houserules, but hey, we're nerds, that's what we do. Now, i'll end my post with a succinct Purple People Monster Eaters Pick Pickled Peppers.
Moderated by
ORC_Nashira
on Jan 16, 2011 - 08:55AM
Gold is for the mistress, silver for the maid Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade." "Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall, "But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all." -Kipling Defenders: We ARE the wall! I've replaced the previous Edition Warring line in my sig with this one, because honestly, everybody needs to work together to make the D&D they like without trampling on somebody else's D&D. Miss d20 Modern? Take a look at Dias Ex Machina Game's UltraModern 4e! I am a hero, not a chump.
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2 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2011 - 8:48AM
#862
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Here's the interesting thing to me. Writing good SCs in my experience requires the DM to do a number of things (maybe not all of these things, but you need to think about several of them). 1) Goals of the party 2) Reason for the encounter 3) Flesh out details of the location and NPCs 4) Focusing the action by framing the encounter 5) Diversifying the action by including elements interesting to all players 6) Consequences and benefits of success/failure. These are all things that you probably would want to do for any good encounter. I found that the 'free RP' method where you just let the narrative go here and there with the players indicating actions with no boundaries between 'chapters' or consideration by the DM of success and failure at any specific point felt a bit aimless. If I break it up into SCs then I can say "If the party fails to accomplish X then the evil Baron activates the chute and they're dumped into the Pit of Death". I just found that in the old days either I basically created what would be called an SC now, OR I had a lot of trouble deciding when the bad stuff happened. Either I'd be in my evil DM mode and the party would get everything sprung on them or I'd be in my nice DM mode and they'd weasle out of anything. If I instead make a rule for myself, then things actually go better. Individual situations are always a learning experience. I totally abandoned the structure of an SC that I had worked up the other day when I ran it. It just didn't 'jell'. But that was OK, the players went nuts. The game was lots of fun. Things are totally off the rails and I love it. The hour I spent coming up with the SC was great though. I invented all kinds of extra details for the town, created a bunch of new NPCs, a whole new conflict that is going on, and just generally it helped me develop an area of my setting. It was great.
Moderated by
ORC_Nashira
on Jan 16, 2011 - 08:52AM
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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2 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2011 - 10:20AM
#863
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I’ve removed content from this thread because trolling/baiting is a violation of the Code of Conduct. You can review the Code of Conduct here: wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg... ************ Please keep your posts polite, respectful, on-topic, and refrain from personal attacks and flaming, these are violations of the Code of Conduct. You can review the Code here: wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg... . You are welcome to disagree with one another but please do so respectfully and constructively. ************ Please return discussion to the topic of the thread, or it may need to be closed.
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2 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2011 - 12:19PM
#864
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Date Joined:
Oct 24, 2008
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If I instead make a rule for myself, then things actually go better. Individual situations are always a learning experience. I totally abandoned the structure of an SC that I had worked up the other day when I ran it. It just didn't 'jell'. But that was OK, the players went nuts. The game was lots of fun. Things are totally off the rails and I love it. The hour I spent coming up with the SC was great though. I invented all kinds of extra details for the town, created a bunch of new NPCs, a whole new conflict that is going on, and just generally it helped me develop an area of my setting. It was great.
You spent an hour writing a skill challenge that didn't work?
Which side are you arguing for again: pro-SC's or anti-SC's? 
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2 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2011 - 1:24PM
#865
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If I instead make a rule for myself, then things actually go better. Individual situations are always a learning experience. I totally abandoned the structure of an SC that I had worked up the other day when I ran it. It just didn't 'jell'. But that was OK, the players went nuts. The game was lots of fun. Things are totally off the rails and I love it. The hour I spent coming up with the SC was great though. I invented all kinds of extra details for the town, created a bunch of new NPCs, a whole new conflict that is going on, and just generally it helped me develop an area of my setting. It was great.
You spent an hour writing a skill challenge that didn't work?
Which side are you arguing for again: pro-SC's or anti-SC's?
It was an hour in which I made a map of a town, wrote up a couple of rather interesting NPCs, and created a whole bunch of other background info. The SC was OK, it just didn't match well with what the players decided to do, which invalidated a good chunk of it. I still used about half the SC as written, just not how I intended. It was also a pretty complex situation in game. Part of it was I could have used more time to prepare for the whole session too.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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