We hates 4th ed DnD, we hates it precious!
- Thread starter Saskwach
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GURPS has its own issues, just like any other gameCid SilverWing said:
although, the one time I did sit down and look through the GURPS book, it had by far the coolest picture in one of the books that I have ever seen.
A Cowboy
Riding a Unicorn
that reeked of win
as for 4e, I think it's overrated and underrated at the exact same time. I think vitriolic hate of it is probably ill informed about it, and any overjoyous love that it has is because people haven't played other better games (and I'm not just talking about 3rd edition you set in stone troglodytes.)
I don't care for 4th Edition at all. I don't hate it. I just don't care.
It took me all of ten damn minutes to look at the preview content and figure out that it just wasn't what I wanted in a game. It was just that obvious. The game did a pretty good job of standing up and saying "Hey, this is what I'm about. Are you interested?" And I was like, "Nope" and we were done. Quick, painless, easy.
3rd Edition, though? I hate it. Man, I wasted so much time playing that crap. It was all like, "Hey, I can do this! And I can do that! And this! I am the perfect system for you!" while sucking ridiculously at every turn. Way to clunk along, get in the way, and teach your players bad habits at every turn, 3rd Edition!
Here's where I really crap on your fun, though:
I don't think it's the rules doing all that. The rules don't help, but I think it's chiefly the softer bits of D&D: the play advice in the book and passed down from person to person (with the Internet and magazines before it, there actually is a sort of "common wisdom" shared amongst most players). That play advice fucking reeks. It's like people just muddle around aimlessly and then turn around to share their wonderful secrets of how to muddle around aimlessly. For me, the epitome of this is when the 3rd Edition DMG talks about "deep-immersion storytelling" [http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/dmg_styles.html] -- an absolute failure to look even an inch past the surface of "roleplaying".
Come to think of it, that last phrase really crystallizes what "D&D" means to me.
-- Alex
It took me all of ten damn minutes to look at the preview content and figure out that it just wasn't what I wanted in a game. It was just that obvious. The game did a pretty good job of standing up and saying "Hey, this is what I'm about. Are you interested?" And I was like, "Nope" and we were done. Quick, painless, easy.
3rd Edition, though? I hate it. Man, I wasted so much time playing that crap. It was all like, "Hey, I can do this! And I can do that! And this! I am the perfect system for you!" while sucking ridiculously at every turn. Way to clunk along, get in the way, and teach your players bad habits at every turn, 3rd Edition!
Here's where I really crap on your fun, though:
I don't think it's the rules doing all that. The rules don't help, but I think it's chiefly the softer bits of D&D: the play advice in the book and passed down from person to person (with the Internet and magazines before it, there actually is a sort of "common wisdom" shared amongst most players). That play advice fucking reeks. It's like people just muddle around aimlessly and then turn around to share their wonderful secrets of how to muddle around aimlessly. For me, the epitome of this is when the 3rd Edition DMG talks about "deep-immersion storytelling" [http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/dmg_styles.html] -- an absolute failure to look even an inch past the surface of "roleplaying".
Come to think of it, that last phrase really crystallizes what "D&D" means to me.
-- Alex
I won't hate and flame 4th edition. It works and is enjoyable for some people, so good for them! Fun is the reason why these games exhist. I however will not touch the thing.
I bought 3.5 and left Thaco behind.
3.5 covers all the ease of D&D style play with finese, but keeps some roleplay grounded in the system (not, yaknow, alot or anything). It's got plenty of functional and wonderful media already released for it.
The reason why I won't go to 4.0 is because the system doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's the same thing as 3.0 and 3.5, just with a new cover. It's the same song sung to a new tune. It's not revolutionary in any way and it doesn't enhance roleplay at all. In fact, it promotes MMO style of game play, which is deplorable for a pen and paper game!
I don't like it, but that's not to say it's not bad for those that do enjoy it. My group still run 3.5 and maybe one of those guys is interested in 4.0.
(Besides, those of us that have been around D&D know to wait for the revised version. 4.5)
I bought 3.5 and left Thaco behind.
3.5 covers all the ease of D&D style play with finese, but keeps some roleplay grounded in the system (not, yaknow, alot or anything). It's got plenty of functional and wonderful media already released for it.The reason why I won't go to 4.0 is because the system doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's the same thing as 3.0 and 3.5, just with a new cover. It's the same song sung to a new tune. It's not revolutionary in any way and it doesn't enhance roleplay at all. In fact, it promotes MMO style of game play, which is deplorable for a pen and paper game!
I don't like it, but that's not to say it's not bad for those that do enjoy it. My group still run 3.5 and maybe one of those guys is interested in 4.0.
(Besides, those of us that have been around D&D know to wait for the revised version.
4.5)
Heck, I'm still operating on 3e! (You kids and your 3.5. Pshaw!) A few homebrew rules and it's not nearly as broken as the 3.5 elitists claim it is.
I haven't played 4e, but I have looked at it and talked to people who have. This system of choosing a destiny at the beginning sounds pretty lame. I would tend to agree that 4e looks like WotC is trying to make D&D as close to an RPG video game as they can without just designing a video game. (Turbine's DDO notwithstanding).
But, as I said, I haven't played it. Thus, I have no right to complain. And I don't see why people are getting in a tizzy. 3.5 is still there, folks. Just play that and enjoy your creativity and relatable characters. But leave 4e alone as a sort of "D&D for Dummies". Maybe it'll even bring in some much-needed traffic to the good ol' v3's.
I haven't played 4e, but I have looked at it and talked to people who have. This system of choosing a destiny at the beginning sounds pretty lame. I would tend to agree that 4e looks like WotC is trying to make D&D as close to an RPG video game as they can without just designing a video game. (Turbine's DDO notwithstanding).
But, as I said, I haven't played it. Thus, I have no right to complain. And I don't see why people are getting in a tizzy. 3.5 is still there, folks. Just play that and enjoy your creativity and relatable characters. But leave 4e alone as a sort of "D&D for Dummies". Maybe it'll even bring in some much-needed traffic to the good ol' v3's.
For me, the disconnect with 4e is that it's not even about matching the rules to a real-world. Now every game has those moments of "that couldn't possibly happen, even within the consistency of this fantastical setting." But 4th ed doesn't even try.
For me this is a complete betrayal of what I got into roleplaying games for - they weren't videogames. They didn't look at the real world - or the 'real world' they were creating - and say "Man that's too complex, let's have a little mini-system that looks something like it but at the mildest prodding is totally unrealistic'. That's what videogames do. They do it for a reason, but that's what they do. RPGs don't have to do that. They can make good rules that can mostly approximate the reality of a given setting/s. Attacks of Opportunity? They got ridiculous but they were there to express a basic truth: you run past a guy without the faintest care and you might get shivved. Grappling? So messy that no one grapples, but all the things you could do in a grapple seemed realistic.
4th edition has said "Fuck it, let's be a videogame." I've said this before a long time ago, but here's the example again. (And link [http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/dissociated-mechanics.html], which explains things well.) In WoW there's the Ranger. He has normal shots and he has special shots (IIRC). He fires his normal shots, but every once in a while when the recharge bar hits full, he'll pull out a special shot. BLAM! Extra damage. But where do those special musket balls go during the cooldown? Does the Ranger have temporary amnesia? Is this a side effect of the gunshot? These questions can't be answered, or they can't be answered in a way that makes sense to the Ranger as part of his fictional gameworld. This is what 4th edition has done (oh noes, I compared 4th to WoW!). PCs get all sorts of special abilities that are once per encounter, once per day, once per whatever. This made sense when it was wizards and you could say "It's magic!" It doesn't when fighters and rogues now have 'spells'.
For example (from the link):
Trick Strike (Rogue Attack 1)
Through a series of feints and lures, you maneuver your foe right where you want him.
Daily - Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee or Ranged weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: +8 vs. AC
Hit: 3d4 + 4 damage, and you can slide the target 1 square
Effect: Until the end of the encounter, each time you hit the target you can slide it 1 square
This is a daily power. It's described as a Rogue's ability to using feinting, footwork and other tricks to move his opponent where he wants him. Fair enough. But why is it daily? What, the Rogue forgets his footwork and feints, and only remembers it the next day? If you were to interview this Rogue and ask him why he forgets years worth of training he would reply with "..Well...I guess...Maybe...I don't know." And then he'd pop into nothingness in one concentrated moment of existential horror.
And this is one of many examples. 4th ed has thrown away the illusion that you're adventuring in a real world. And that's why I don't play it. I don't rage about it, I don't give the issue it all my spare thought and free time, and I don't hang over 4th ed players telling them they're having wrongbadfun. But I still think it's a ghastly piece of design that's given up on what makes RPGs special in some sort of capitulation to video games. That won't work: video games do video game design better than anything DnD could do.
For me this is a complete betrayal of what I got into roleplaying games for - they weren't videogames. They didn't look at the real world - or the 'real world' they were creating - and say "Man that's too complex, let's have a little mini-system that looks something like it but at the mildest prodding is totally unrealistic'. That's what videogames do. They do it for a reason, but that's what they do. RPGs don't have to do that. They can make good rules that can mostly approximate the reality of a given setting/s. Attacks of Opportunity? They got ridiculous but they were there to express a basic truth: you run past a guy without the faintest care and you might get shivved. Grappling? So messy that no one grapples, but all the things you could do in a grapple seemed realistic.
4th edition has said "Fuck it, let's be a videogame." I've said this before a long time ago, but here's the example again. (And link [http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/dissociated-mechanics.html], which explains things well.) In WoW there's the Ranger. He has normal shots and he has special shots (IIRC). He fires his normal shots, but every once in a while when the recharge bar hits full, he'll pull out a special shot. BLAM! Extra damage. But where do those special musket balls go during the cooldown? Does the Ranger have temporary amnesia? Is this a side effect of the gunshot? These questions can't be answered, or they can't be answered in a way that makes sense to the Ranger as part of his fictional gameworld. This is what 4th edition has done (oh noes, I compared 4th to WoW!). PCs get all sorts of special abilities that are once per encounter, once per day, once per whatever. This made sense when it was wizards and you could say "It's magic!" It doesn't when fighters and rogues now have 'spells'.
For example (from the link):
Trick Strike (Rogue Attack 1)
Through a series of feints and lures, you maneuver your foe right where you want him.
Daily - Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee or Ranged weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: +8 vs. AC
Hit: 3d4 + 4 damage, and you can slide the target 1 square
Effect: Until the end of the encounter, each time you hit the target you can slide it 1 square
This is a daily power. It's described as a Rogue's ability to using feinting, footwork and other tricks to move his opponent where he wants him. Fair enough. But why is it daily? What, the Rogue forgets his footwork and feints, and only remembers it the next day? If you were to interview this Rogue and ask him why he forgets years worth of training he would reply with "..Well...I guess...Maybe...I don't know." And then he'd pop into nothingness in one concentrated moment of existential horror.
And this is one of many examples. 4th ed has thrown away the illusion that you're adventuring in a real world. And that's why I don't play it. I don't rage about it, I don't give the issue it all my spare thought and free time, and I don't hang over 4th ed players telling them they're having wrongbadfun. But I still think it's a ghastly piece of design that's given up on what makes RPGs special in some sort of capitulation to video games. That won't work: video games do video game design better than anything DnD could do.
I'm going to say here what I said in another thread that was JUST like this earlier today. Doesn't matter what edition you play, it's how you play it. 3.5 had parts that were better, 4th has things that are better. They are, in essence, different games. No one is forcing you to throw away your old books and play 4th so stop complaining. I personally don't mind it because most of the people (with a couple of exceptions) can role play and make it just as enjoyable as it always was.
Here is the thread from earlier: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.126605
Here is the thread from earlier: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.126605
I see what you're saying there. I think that disconnect is almost omnipresent in RPGs, though. I can see what the 3rd Edition rules are trying to represent, yes, but often they fall miserably short and just create situations that are neither "realistic" nor tactical.Saskwach said:
Experience has taught me that the only way to have games that consistently create acceptably "realistic"/"verisimilar"/"in-genre"/whatever situations is to create systems that let the players define what's happening and why. A abstracted test followed by player narration can be jarring for "immersionists", but it does guarantee that the only fictional events that happen are the ones that actually make sense to your group.
Expanding dailies to affect everybody was a terrible design decision. I steadfastly believe that getting rid of dailies altogether would've been a vastly superior approach.Saskwach said:
-- Alex
All-in-all, it seems that instead of catering to the audience that D&D has already captured, they tried to simply the system to make it run smoother and a little faster as far as combat goes because that's what tends to be the main attraction to a lot of players. A simpler, smoother, and quicker system was what they felt they needed to do to bring in a more casual crowd to chase the almighty dollar. Just because they took this step in 4E does not mean that one cannot play previous editions if you so desire, nor does it mean that future editions will be just like 4E. For now, that's what is available, if you don't like it, play an older edition. I personally play 3.5 and it's a blast because I get more enjoyment out of developing my characters to see how they will play out later in the game.
Oh, and I actually play a lot of Iron Kingdoms as well, which runs off of the 3.5 system. It is a Privateer Press product and is my favorite setting without a doubt. It's like D&D except with steampunk stuff all over, it's much darker (ie druids are known to be cannibals and healing/rezzing someone can have dire consequences), and puts more emphasis on item creation so you can create some rather unique stuff. IK was Privateer Press's brainchild that lead to the release of WARMACHINE (a game so awesome it needs all caps) and Hordes, if anyone knows about them. Just check the Privateer Press website and check some of the galleries. At the moment, my cleric is being turned into a Lich, which basically is a construct created by the undead and is powered by the souls of the enemies I crush. That's not something I ever found in D&D... (Google Lich Lord Asphyxious for a nice visual).
Oh, and I actually play a lot of Iron Kingdoms as well, which runs off of the 3.5 system. It is a Privateer Press product and is my favorite setting without a doubt. It's like D&D except with steampunk stuff all over, it's much darker (ie druids are known to be cannibals and healing/rezzing someone can have dire consequences), and puts more emphasis on item creation so you can create some rather unique stuff. IK was Privateer Press's brainchild that lead to the release of WARMACHINE (a game so awesome it needs all caps) and Hordes, if anyone knows about them. Just check the Privateer Press website and check some of the galleries. At the moment, my cleric is being turned into a Lich, which basically is a construct created by the undead and is powered by the souls of the enemies I crush. That's not something I ever found in D&D... (Google Lich Lord Asphyxious for a nice visual).
Oh, 3.X definitely has gaping holes, and that's why it's not my favourite system.Alex_P said:
I've never understood the deal with tactics. When a fight has conditions that require some sort of response and risk/reward judgement I'm satisfied. And if it was cool. I couldn't care less whether or not what I was doing was tactically rich. IMO, video games are better at creating systems that are tactically rich; RPGs create battles that feel real. And real battles aren't always that tactical - and they never look that way to the grunt at the pointy end.
As a mostly-immersionist I do indeed find the idea repellant. Seems too much like wish-fulfillment power-fantasy to me, but to each his own.
Dailies and I have a weird relationship. Hell, the whole Vancian system and I have a spotty relationship. I like the idea; I think it's flavourful. But when it comes down to it, I'll choose the guy who's least shackled to the Vancian system. I've never played a Wizard; Beguilers and Sorcerers are my thing.
I picked up Jack Vance's Dying Earth series recently. The magic system is even tastier now, but it still grates in practice.
It depends on the group.
I have one group of friends I game with, in which 4.0 works great. They're gamers, they pretty much like to do hack and slash their way through hordes and hordes of enemies together, laughing at critical fumbles, and being amazed at heroic feats.
I have one group which like to solve problems, think, and act. 3.5 is perfect for this group.
I personally like 3.5, one, because I've dumped a ton of money into it (40 source books), two I like the variety I get because of having those books.
I like 4.0 because if I have to play a fighter, I can have fun with it. You can have fun with fighter type classes in 3.5, but fun is sub-optimal for the most part.
For me, its a coin toss. Really depends on what mood I'm in and what Group I'm with.
I have one group of friends I game with, in which 4.0 works great. They're gamers, they pretty much like to do hack and slash their way through hordes and hordes of enemies together, laughing at critical fumbles, and being amazed at heroic feats.
I have one group which like to solve problems, think, and act. 3.5 is perfect for this group.
I personally like 3.5, one, because I've dumped a ton of money into it (40 source books), two I like the variety I get because of having those books.
I like 4.0 because if I have to play a fighter, I can have fun with it. You can have fun with fighter type classes in 3.5, but fun is sub-optimal for the most part.
For me, its a coin toss. Really depends on what mood I'm in and what Group I'm with.
I find that, in practice, "stakes"-based games allow you to actually crank up the misery by setting up conflicts that players can meaningfully lose without it turning into a "TPK" and the end of a campaign. Now, you can certainly do that in a more classical make-a-skill-check-to-see-how-many-feet-you-climb-this-round systems, but it requires a lot of delicate setup and a bunch of handwaving.Saskwach said:
-- Alex
It's an opinion I've voiced many times before, but I'll say it anyway:
It's not so much "bad" as it is "trying to be World of Warcraft". Its a sad fact that most kids these days don't know their predecessors, and that most of the old school D&D crowd is getting old. That being said, I get what they're trying to do. They want to make it fresh, easy to pick up, new, but like a lot of you already said, it takes the soul out of D&D, but if they take that path, it won't be D&D anymore, people'll just compare it to WoW.
Which is a sad fate, given how we probably wouldn't have WoW (or most, if not all modern RPGs in fact) without D&D, and personally, I hate seeing it relegated into a WoW clone, but with dice instead.
It's not so much "bad" as it is "trying to be World of Warcraft". Its a sad fact that most kids these days don't know their predecessors, and that most of the old school D&D crowd is getting old. That being said, I get what they're trying to do. They want to make it fresh, easy to pick up, new, but like a lot of you already said, it takes the soul out of D&D, but if they take that path, it won't be D&D anymore, people'll just compare it to WoW.
Which is a sad fate, given how we probably wouldn't have WoW (or most, if not all modern RPGs in fact) without D&D, and personally, I hate seeing it relegated into a WoW clone, but with dice instead.
This coming from a guy that doesn't play the RPG (and WOW in general) and got into the minis part of the D&D.
When you change something, one of the reasons you do it is cause you think that it needs fixing. But edition 3.5 SOOOO didn't need something like that. I liked the minis and I liked the the cards. They gave you the tools to further imagine your into a medieval/steam punk tech era. The planes were so easily put together and the factions were characterized with the usual LG, LE etc. This was a lot more personal. Every card came with a description that further characterized the creature. They also had that feeling that remained with me ever since I bought my starter. The cards looked like they burned and black in some areas, like they had to go through some trial of fire or something. Now however, only a few cards have description and they look like they came from the future or something
The abilities were also a lot better. And again, personalized. There were spells, sorcerer spells. special abilities. No what do we have? Abilities and special powers? This sucks. It makes many creatures look similar. Where are the commanders? Why were they replaced with champions? The champions' abilities are awful at times and if they happen to be awesome like the first one of the Elder Red Dragon but ...what is that? You like this power? Well, nuts to your face, mate, cause you can use it only two times in a game. The commander and special effects were everpresent and more amazing (Solar and Sphinx will bit slap you with that until you pass out). The commanders had sometimes abilities that could change the whole course of the game in one round and I have not seen such radical changes when I played the 4th edition. There are no more sleeper creatures like the Mezzoloth of the Blood War. Now, the conditions that are to be met for an ability to be activated are sometimes ridiculous (Visceral Devourer come to mind here).
The good creatures also took a heavy hit with the 4th. Which sucks cause I am strictly LG. My strategies with morale went down the drain. The factions sucked big fat balls when it came to forming a warband. Unaligned? Good. Bad AND 4 factions? Unnecessary. And who the hell would think to make a White Dragon unaligned? Epic creatures also serve little to no purpose in 4. They made a much bigger bang in the previous edition. Blackrazor is a good example.
On a closing note, the 3.5's Tordek The Dwarf Champion, still rocks your face off, epic or not.
When you change something, one of the reasons you do it is cause you think that it needs fixing. But edition 3.5 SOOOO didn't need something like that. I liked the minis and I liked the the cards. They gave you the tools to further imagine your into a medieval/steam punk tech era. The planes were so easily put together and the factions were characterized with the usual LG, LE etc. This was a lot more personal. Every card came with a description that further characterized the creature. They also had that feeling that remained with me ever since I bought my starter. The cards looked like they burned and black in some areas, like they had to go through some trial of fire or something. Now however, only a few cards have description and they look like they came from the future or something
The abilities were also a lot better. And again, personalized. There were spells, sorcerer spells. special abilities. No what do we have? Abilities and special powers? This sucks. It makes many creatures look similar. Where are the commanders? Why were they replaced with champions? The champions' abilities are awful at times and if they happen to be awesome like the first one of the Elder Red Dragon but ...what is that? You like this power? Well, nuts to your face, mate, cause you can use it only two times in a game. The commander and special effects were everpresent and more amazing (Solar and Sphinx will bit slap you with that until you pass out). The commanders had sometimes abilities that could change the whole course of the game in one round and I have not seen such radical changes when I played the 4th edition. There are no more sleeper creatures like the Mezzoloth of the Blood War. Now, the conditions that are to be met for an ability to be activated are sometimes ridiculous (Visceral Devourer come to mind here).
The good creatures also took a heavy hit with the 4th. Which sucks cause I am strictly LG. My strategies with morale went down the drain. The factions sucked big fat balls when it came to forming a warband. Unaligned? Good. Bad AND 4 factions? Unnecessary. And who the hell would think to make a White Dragon unaligned? Epic creatures also serve little to no purpose in 4. They made a much bigger bang in the previous edition. Blackrazor is a good example.
On a closing note, the 3.5's Tordek The Dwarf Champion, still rocks your face off, epic or not.
Now I must reveal my ignorance: "stakes" based gaming?Alex_P said:
And to talk about the rest, I don't know about delicate setup, but I a certain type of what might be called handwaving is acceptable to me - the "what skill is that action related to and how difficult do I think it is" line of DM thinking. Unless I'm missing your point?
It's a paradigm that has us "setting the stakes" when we start a game-mechanical conflict: What is this scene about? What are the consequences of game-mechanical failure or success? We forge ahead with the die-rolling or card-drawing or whatever only after we've agreed on the big picture of what the narrative struggle in this scene is about.Saskwach said:
So, for example, imagine our two characters are fighting an honor duel. My dude accused your dude's mother of heresy and martial indiscretions. Your family name is on the line!
In D&D or GURPS or WoD, we'd use the combat mechanics, maybe with some ad-hoc tweaking. The story would be about defending your family honor but the game rules would really focus on hitting each other with swords, and it's really up to us and the GM to work the actual point of the scene in.
In contrast, a game in the style of say, Dogs in the Vineyard, would kinda bring the why of our fight into the (abstract) mechanics of the fight itself. The game-mechanical resolution of that scene is going to tell us something about what happens to your dude's family honor.
There's a bit of a code of fairness in RPGs. It's seen as bad form for a GM to hose a player just with "fiat". Like, if we have our honor duel and you win, then it's kind of a curve ball to have the GM step in and say "Okay, you kicked his ass, but public opinion at court still turns against your family and their fortunes suffer!" -- it's basically negating the purpose of the scene we just had. Some groups make it work but it takes a light touch and a lot of care to do it right.
So, I personally find that mechanics that allow me us to say "Okay, if I win this contest, my accusations will stick and your family will suffer!" permit me, both as a player and a GM, to ratchet up the pain without feeling like I'm just being a dick. And they introduce a clear point where you can say "Okay, but if I win, then I will not only redeem my honor but also greatly impress your wife who is watching the duel!"
(That point is also a very natural place for us to stop and think "Okay, am I comfortable with this or should we take it in a different direction?" without having to "retcon" anything. It's certainly possible to turns this into "godmoding" by always protesting about any interesting threat to your character, but you really can't do it without making it painfully, horribly obvious that you're wussing out on the actual point of the game. Having an explicit check there does make it much easier for me to suggest some out-there or offensive stuff without having to worry about "What if it makes people uncomfortable but they go along with it anyway and it totally kills the mood of the session for two hours?")
Attaching game mechanics to that stuff also turns up the feeling of risk -- while we're having out little duel, the question of "Does your family get screwed?" really is up in the air.
(This isn't the best or only method. I'd say a lot of newer "indie" designs are actually moving away from this. But I do think it works wonderfully.)
...
In terms of handwaving, I'm not so much talking about picking skills and difficult levels -- I don't think of that as a problem at all, usually -- as much as carefully tweaking circumstances so that the consequences of failure and success work out as desired. In D&D, for example, it's easy to ask for Climb checks and set a DC, but it's harder to, say, set up circumstances such that a fall won't outright kill PCs but threatens them with lasting harm that will make it harder for them to complete their ability to complete their mission. Going by the rules you'd have to carefully adjust the height and there's a good chance a character will outright die or just chug a healing potion to ignore the bad stuff; to really get the desired effect, you pretty much have to ad-hoc it, which a lot of the time ends up looking like a clumsier, less transparent variant of "setting stakes" anyway.
-- Alex