Is this "Fair" - Part III

[Ridley's Cohort]

I think what I am becoming to realize after reading a bunch of these threads is that there are many people that do not believe that there should be challenges in the gaming world that are not level appropriate.

In my campaign world there are things that low level PC's hear about that would be instant death if they followed up on them, IMHO there will be times that a PC will not have the appropriate skill levels to investigate something, or open a lock, or find a trap, ...etc.

I think the number of people do not believe that there should be challenges in the gaming world that are not level appropriate is very, very small. Perhaps as low as zero, in terms of participation in these recent related threads on the topic.

Different campaign worlds have different feels. It should not be difficult for a PC who lives in that world to acquire the necessary knowledge and habits to figure out how to steer clear of things way out of his league...most of the time at least.

What knowledge or habits are necessary to accomplish this vary wildly by specific campaign.

What would be wisdom in one campaign could easily be idiotic in another. Being inadequately wary may be a sin worthy of punishment by death in one campaign. Being paranoid to the point of slowing down play may be a sin worthy of punishment by death in another campaign.

This really has another at all to do with whether relatively high powered threats exist in the campaign or not. You are confounding the issues.

 

[librarius_arcana]

A continuation of the Is it "Fair" polls

As part of treasure given to a 1st level party there is a map to a location that is noted as being filled with great treasures. The location could be Rappan Athuk, the Tomb of Horrors, ...etc. The party decides to go and explore the location without researching it and is greeted with a TPK inside the front door.

Is this "Fair"

No, it's not fair, you mislead them,
if they think this is your lead in to the next adventure, they will take it for granted (if you at least don't give a hint) that the adventure will be balanced and fair

so no

 

[mcrow]

No, it's not fair, you mislead them,
if they think this is your lead in to the next adventure, they will take it for granted (if you at least don't give a hint) that the adventure will be balanced and fair

so no

Redux:

Ok, so I'm so supposed to say:

" oh, don't follow that map or research it any, cuz its way to tough an adventure for you."

I guess I don't follow the logic that I (as the GM) am supposed to tell the PCs directly that they shouldn't do something.

Of course if they did even minimal research or question the locals they would likely find the warning they should get.

 

[Mort]

Redux:

Ok, so I'm so supposed to say:

" oh, don't follow that map or research it any, cuz its way to tough an adventure for you."

I guess I don't follow the logic that I (as the GM) am supposed to tell the PCs directly that they shouldn't do something.

Of course if they did even minimal research or question the locals they would likely find the warning they should get.

That, I think, is the point. Giving them the clue is not unfair in the least. BUT giving them the clue, providing no information even when the PC's investigate, and yet not giving them anywhere else to go - that's unfair.

 

[Wolfwood2]

"Fair or not fair" is completely and utterly the wrong question.

The real question is, "good for the overall enjoyment of the game or bad for the overall enjoyment of the game". I think that in most cases this is bad for the enjoyment of the game.

Forget the game world. The game world is not real. Let's look at what happened in the real world. In the real world the players have had an entertainment for which there is no pay-off. It's little different from watching a DVD that is damaged after the first fifteen minutes so that's all of the movie you get to see.

What is going to happen now, in the real world? What is going to happen is that the players are going to make new first level characters and the DM is going to have to go back and rework the beginning of the adventure.

Why would you want to do that when it would be infinitely simpler for the DM to go, "Whoops guys, I made a mistake. You're heading for that dungeon, and your PCs can't handle it. I expected you to research it or something. Lesson learned, let's go back and start over so we can get this campaign off the ground right."

 

[Wolfwood2]

Redux:

Ok, so I'm so supposed to say:

" oh, don't follow that map or research it any, cuz its way to tough an adventure for you."

I guess I don't follow the logic that I (as the GM) am supposed to tell the PCs directly that they shouldn't do something.

You're not telling the PCs. You're telling the players, who exist in the real world, that they are about to waste a couple of hours of their leisure time on an entertainment that will never have any real pay-off.

If that's the sort of thing your players are into, then stay silent. If, on the other hand, they'd rather skip ahead to actually getting to a camapign that has a future as a continuing entertainment, then maybe you ought to speak up.

 

[spectre72]

That, I think, is the point. Giving them the clue is not unfair in the least. BUT giving them the clue, providing no information even when the PC's investigate, and yet not giving them anywhere else to go - that's unfair.

I never said that they had no where else to go.

You are assuming that that was the only plot hook that they had available.

I never have only one plot hook out there for them to look into, but they chose the one that they had zero information about and followed it.

They made the choice to follow a map they had no info about, not me.

 

[T. Foster]

What's totally fair, but nonetheless completely unfun (IMO) about the expanded situation is that the PCs were done in by bad die rolls rather than any good or bad decisions they made. If they'd done the exact same things but rolled better (either to Gather Info before going to the dungeon, or to detect/avoid the traps once they got there) the outcome would've been entirely different. That's entirely "fair," I suppose, but it's not the style of play I prefer. I'd rather have my success or failure in the game depend on the quality of the decisions that I as a player make and not on the results of a random die-roll. That's why I like the exploration and problem-solving aspects of the game so much and dislike combat (unless I've been able to stack the odds enough in my favor that the actual die-rolling part of the combat is little more than a formality).

 

[Harmon]

Seldom is life "fair"

An Elder Red Dragon showing up at a group of adventure's nightly camp for dinner seems like a reasonable adventure by the sounds of some of these replies.

It has never made sense to me that critters come in packages more and more difficult. Seldom do we see adventurers of 10th lvl combating a small band of 1 HD Kobolds, as they had months or years before in the beginning of an adventuring career.

Should a group of beginning adventurer's not research a dungeon then its their own fault. They should also learn to camp along side 20th lvl characters for protection against the occasional Red Dragon that drops by for a mid night snack.

 

[tzor]

Absolutely fair.

To be honest, treasure maps that claim to have treasure alwyas set warning bells going in me as a player and almost always in my characters. Not that I don't appreciate lady luck to slap a map on me from time to time, but when a map starts advertising I start to wonder.

"How old is the map? How accurate is the information? What's the chance that this place hasn't already been looted?"

On the other hand I also start to wonder.

"How much is someone willing to pay for this map?"

If I'm playing a first level character, a treasure map is treasure more than a potential plothook. Especially ones that promise me vast treasures!