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<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 7652832" data-attributes="member: 22424"><p>Good review. Though perhaps not <em>quite</em> good enough to be worth reading twice. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Emphasis mine. Those conditionals are surely the difference between a railroad (where the PCs <em>can't</em> influence the plot) vs an adventure where the odds are merely stacked heavily against them?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yeah, that's terrible. It's almost as bad as the scene in "Expedition to the Demonweb Pits" where, in order to progress, the PCs <em>must</em> consult a specific NPC... and immediately before meeting this NPC they are explicitly told not to trust said NPC.</p><p></p><p>But...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Is this an introductory product, though? Sure, it's the first 5e product, but given that it was a Gen Con exclusive, the intended audience must surely be attendees (and their home groups). By their nature, Gen Con attendees are surely not new to this whole "roleplaying" thing.</p><p></p><p>It's still bad design, no question about that. But I'm not convinced it's <em>especially</em> horrible by virtue of being "an introductory product".</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yeah, that's frustrating. Both WotC and Paizo <em>know</em> read-aloud text is problematic, and both still overuse it.</p><p></p><p>The problem is that it's hard to write this stuff in a way that makes sure to convey all the important information to the players, and since the only things they know about their environment are the things the DM tells them, missing information can be a real problem. Still, I've seen at least one good solution to the problem - provide the DM will bulet-point lists of the salient points, and trust him to deliver that to the players.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="delericho, post: 7652832, member: 22424"] Good review. Though perhaps not [i]quite[/i] good enough to be worth reading twice. :) Emphasis mine. Those conditionals are surely the difference between a railroad (where the PCs [i]can't[/i] influence the plot) vs an adventure where the odds are merely stacked heavily against them? Yeah, that's terrible. It's almost as bad as the scene in "Expedition to the Demonweb Pits" where, in order to progress, the PCs [i]must[/i] consult a specific NPC... and immediately before meeting this NPC they are explicitly told not to trust said NPC. But... Is this an introductory product, though? Sure, it's the first 5e product, but given that it was a Gen Con exclusive, the intended audience must surely be attendees (and their home groups). By their nature, Gen Con attendees are surely not new to this whole "roleplaying" thing. It's still bad design, no question about that. But I'm not convinced it's [i]especially[/i] horrible by virtue of being "an introductory product". Yeah, that's frustrating. Both WotC and Paizo [i]know[/i] read-aloud text is problematic, and both still overuse it. The problem is that it's hard to write this stuff in a way that makes sure to convey all the important information to the players, and since the only things they know about their environment are the things the DM tells them, missing information can be a real problem. Still, I've seen at least one good solution to the problem - provide the DM will bulet-point lists of the salient points, and trust him to deliver that to the players. [/QUOTE]
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