Chaosmancer
Legend
It does though. It's right there in writing, plain as day, and there's no need to deny it. Whether or not you implement that rule, however, is a different story. And if someone doesn't implement that rule, it changes the play experience accordingly. Would you agree with that?
You say it like they laid it out on the first page "Rule #1 of DnD, Rule #2 of DnD, ect." That isn't how this works.
And, you didn't ask me about what the rules (even though I would be hard pressed to call that section a rule) said, you asked me about what the game said. As my answer should have illustrated, the game and the rules are two different animals. The PHB has no rules for using Concordance to summon a Servitor of the Faerie Court, that's a 3rd party supplement. The DMG has no rules on what reagents are needed to mix a Potion of Fine Fettle, that is a 3rd party supplement.
There is no rule on when to roll the dice, there is advice on that subject, no rules.
If you want to keep on trying this proccess of slowly getting me to agree with your points so that I must accept your perspective as correct, I'd advise we move on from this point, but I do not agree with you here and rephrasing the question is not going to change my mind on that.
Though, because you will inevitably try and ask this anyways, why yes, I do agree that if you change which rules you are playing by the game will be different. Just like if you change the medium you are drawing with the picture will be different.
I remind the players of what consequences their characters should be able to ascertain, which may or may not be obvious to the players. Usually it is, but on the occasions that it isn’t, the players tend to be glad I did.
I'd ask you for an example of a time when the consequence was not obvious to the player, but after talking with you this long I suspect I wouldn't get a straight answer, since you'd want to know more about where my experiences with the question are coming from and if I'd ever tried it myself instead.
Do you like From Software games? They’re a good example of the kind of feel I aim to capture. Where, sure, you may be surprised by a trap or hazzard, but when you are you can think back and realize what you missed that could have tipped you off. I find that infinitely more interesting than just taking damage from something I could never have anticipated and my only recourse from is a lucky Dexterity save. If that’s not to your taste though, that’s fine, my games probably wouldn’t be for you.
I had to look them up, may I assume you aren't talking about the Armored Core games or the Adventures of Cookie and Cream?
Yeah, I've never played Dark Souls. I've enjoyed watching other people play them online, but a few things have driven me off of them. One is personal (involving my sister's ex-boyfriend and him being a complete @!#$%^#@) but other things have turned me off of ever trying them.
One is this constant reference to them as "the game where they telegraph every trap, and if you just look back you'll see exactly how to avoid it". You are a fan, so you realize part of that is simply because the traps never change, right? Everything resets constantly back to the same state. But also, it isn't like Dark Souls is the only game series to ever do that, if you play Prince of Persia and you see holes in the walls, spikes are going to come out of that. If you are paying attention, you'll see them, and if you get caught off-guard then you can look back and see what you did wrong. It is the exact same concept.
But in every case, until you know what to look for, you are going to set off the trap. And what happens when an intelligent enemy sets a trap that uses a trigger for the first time? How many times in Superhero stories do we see the hero get fooled by a robo-duplicate. Sure, after the first time, we and them begin to suspect it, but it works best when it is a surprise, and intelligent enemies work to reduce telegraphing. Some surprises you can't see coming.
See, I’d say I’m utilizing, rather than ignoring, psychology, to allow you the opportunity to consciously decide if you want your character to behave recklessly, rather than risk you doing so by mistake, due to lack of information. And again, I’ve never had a player protest this. I’ve had players grumble about other aspects of my DMing, most often the fact that I require them to state an approach in terms of what their characters do, but I’ve never had anyone complain that I’m preventing them from making bad decisions by accident. Turns out, players don’t tend to like making bad decisions by accident.
Note your value judgement. To you, going in without knowing the consequences is a bad decision. Whether or not the plan works, whether or not they ever find out what the consequences could have been, in your mind going forward without that information is a mistake.
My players also never complain to me about letting them make bad decisions by accident, because I am not responsible for their decisions. Interestingly enough, my players seem to realize that if they make a poor decision and bad things happen as a result of that, then it is because they made a decision, not because I chose to not step in and prevent their decision. They are responsible for their character's actions, not me.