Is this "Fair" - Part III

[Someone]

What i find interesting is that all 2this is fair" questions always end with the players dead. Would also be fair, good and fun to have your 15th level characters through the Sunless Citadel, or The burning plague, to put a couple examples, and spend there a couple hours slaughtering kobolds?

 

[delericho]

If the response to their investigations had of been "With your limited resources and lack of contacts you were not able to uncover any information about the site marked on the map in the wilderness".

Would you still think that it was unfair on the GM's part?

Yes. If something is that deadly to the PCs, I expect there to be some sort of warning. Hell, if the existence of rumours bothers you that much, put some dead and mutilated bodies outside the dungeon or something.

But as the scenario exists, the players have to decide whether to take the adventure or not based purely on a guess. Good play simply cannot save them. So, no, it's not fair.

(And, by the way, a significant part of my 'due diligence' before the adventure means checking at the nearest village to said dungeon. If the dungeon is truly deadly, I expect there to have been other adventurers tried to loot it and not returned, and I expect finding that information to be easy to find - the arrival of adventurers in a village is big news unless it happens all the time. If it's big news, the locals will remember it. If it happens all the time, the locals will remember the general outcome. Either way, I expect a DC 10 Gather Information check to turn up the information, and would consider ANYTHING else unfair.)

Would you as a player have thought it safe to go there with your limited information?

No. But I'm not an adventurer by trade. If I were, I might well consider it a reasonable risk to take. A lack of information is not in and of itself a warning.

 

[mcrow]

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 think people here are not reading the OPs description. He said that the character chose not to research it and just went @ it.

Yes, if the PCs investigate and you don't give them anything that might warn them, then it is unfair. But in the given example the players decided not to research it.

 

[spectre72]

A lack of information is not in and of itself a warning.

I guess on this point we will just have to agree to disagree.

And you are assuming that the location shown on the map is near civilization, and that there is someone "LOCAL" to ask.

If the nearest town is hundreds of miles away I would not assign a DC of 10 to the check.

The disagreement on if this is fair shows the difference in play styles, and even though you would not have fun in my game I am sure I would not enjoy yours either.

Guess it is too many years of kicking butt and taking names in 1st edition.

Nothing wrong with either of our styles, but give me a good old fashioned dungeon any day.

If I wanted to work out political intrigue I would go to work

 

[spectre72]

I think people here are not reading the OPs description. He said that the character chose not to research it and just went @ it.

Yes, if the PCs investigate and you don't give them anything that might warn them, then it is unfair. But in the given example the players decided not to research it.

Well they did try and research it, but did not get a high enough check get any usefull information.

They then decided to go for it anyways because there was treasure to be found.

 

[delericho]

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.

You know what I've come to realise, both from these threads and also from my gaming experience?

There is a segment of DMs, the vast majority of whom have been running games for years and have been doing so since 1st Edition days*, who consider the deathtrap dungeons of yore, exemplified by "Tomb of Horrors" as the exemplars of adventure design. And so they model their adventures on the works of the master, putting all sorts of obscure and deadly traps into place without sufficient thought or reason, and without considering the notion that their players might not think exactly as they do in order to solve the problems. They think they are designing in the vein of the legendary Gygax, without realising that virtually none of them have the wit and wisdom of the master.

Looking at "Tomb of Horrors", one finds lots of deadly traps, it's true, but these have clues to their existence that go beyond "you find a lever in a room." Besides, "Tomb of Horrors" isn't a master-class in design. It's a tournament adventure designed to 'catch out' arrogant players who think they're untouchable.

These DMs tend to have no problems filling their tables. They generally have a strong group they have played with for years, and who turn up week after week. Lulled by the strength of their group, therefore, they consider themselves the absolute masters of the craft...

Except that as time goes by, players have to drop out of the game, for one reason or another. They try to attract new players, who come for a session or two, get frustrated, and quit. Either they give up gaming entirely, or they seek out DMs who understand that the appropriate level of difficulty is somewhere between "challenging" and "abandon all hope, ye who enter here".

Anyway, it's their prerogative to run their games as they wish. I'm sure they'll have a great time, with their one remaining player.

One more thing: you cannot convince me that an undetectable extreme-save DC insta-kill trap is an example of good design. You can't convince me that springing an ambush by hill giants on a 1st level group is good design. You can't convince me that a map saying "great treasure" that leads the a group to a TPK that they could not have predicted coming is good design. These are all examples of really sloppy DMing. Any fool can kill off PCs. The challenge comes in putting together an adventure that requires them to use every skill, every spell, all their brainpower, and a lot of luck to come out alive, but which guarantees success if all these elements are in play.

* Which is not to say that all DMs who've been running since 1st Edition, or even all those who are still running under 1st Edition, are like this. But a minority are.

 

[mcrow]

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.

Sorry, I meant to say "tell the players".

I'm not one to save players from decisions they make.

If they didn't research it and just go up there, nope I will let things fall where they may.

If they research it and it is clear that they should not go up there from the info they find, nope I'm not saving them.

Now if it is a failure of mine somewhere or I missed something as a GM, then I will say something to stop them from going there.

 

[Wolfwood2]

Sorry, I meant to say "tell the players".

I'm not one to save players from decisions they make.

If they didn't research it and just go up there, nope I will let things fall where they may.

If they research it and it is clear that they should not go up there from the info they find, nope I'm not saving them.

Now if it is a failure of mine somewhere or I missed something as a GM, then I will say something to stop them from going there.

What do you hope to accomplish by "not saving them" (or as I would phrase it, "wasting their time")?

If you just want to teach them a lesson, then perhaps a verbal explanation of the lesson might suffice rather than trying to communicate it through the game.

 

[mcrow]

Well they did try and research it, but did not get a high enough check get any usefull information.

They then decided to go for it anyways because there was treasure to be found.

Ok, then in that case I say it's not fair.

if it would be a TPK and they did try to research it, I would throw them a bone.

I won't let a failed die roll result in a TPK

 

[delericho]

And you are assuming that the location shown on the map is near civilization, and that there is someone "LOCAL" to ask.

Fine, assume it's not. Then what about the augury spell that is so hailed in the thread about the lever. What about all those previous adventurers who went in and got killed? Why don't we see their bodies?

If the location is so secret that no-one knows anything about it, then by your logic there is no level at which the party should dare to go there. If there's no way to know about the danger, and not knowing about the danger necessitates staying away, then you always have to stay away. Guess that map was just a waste then, eh?

Guess it is too many years of kicking butt and taking names in 1st edition.

Nothing wrong with either of our styles, but give me a good old fashioned dungeon any day.

If I wanted to work out political intrigue I would go to work

The one has nothing to do with the other - I love a good dungeon crawl as much as the next guy. But I demand a fair chance to survive, and that means that if I'm investigating a site of extreme danger with a view to going there then there must be some manner of warning, beyond the words "great treasure".