[Torg] That D&D thing

[Travis James Hall]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com 
> [mailto:torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com] On Behalf Of Phil Dack
> Sent: Thursday, 27 August 2009 4:51 PM
> 
> I never really saw the fuss about Skill Challenges in D&D4. 
> It was giving a fancy name to something that wasn't actually 
> particularly innovative, and that actually ran the risk of 
> increasing meaningless dice throwing rather than genuine 
> role-playing and problem solving.

Mmm, yes.

I remember that even in my earliest days of roleplaying, there were quite a
few terms that encompassed using game mechanical representations of
character abilities combined with innovative thought and roleplaying in
order to overcome challenges set by the GM. Depending on the scope of the
series of challenges and the system in question, we used to call them
"adventures", "modules", "scenarios" and even "scenes", "acts" and
"stories".

Sarcasm aside, GMs for decades have been saying to themselves, "Yanno, the
rulebook doesn't specify exactly how hard it is to complete these taks. I'd
better just asign each a difficulty from the provided generic chart. There's
an obvious skill for each, but if the players can make a convincing argument
for using something else, I'll bite." String a series of those together,
allow for roleplaying to affect matters, and you've got a
scenario/adventure/module.

Travis Hall