Is this fair? -- your personal opinion

[ThirdWizard]

Even if no trap is involved, the lever is inherently more dangerous than the doorway. But as you say, "Nothing anyone can say is going to convince me to be more afraid of levers than doorways. Your attempts are doomed to failure, so you might as well not bother with that particular line of debate.", so I won't assume you have any illusions that your position is even remotely objective here.

The problem is that this was debated ad nausiem earlier, and no one could say anything to support the position of levers being innately dangerous. I don't want to have the same debate again. I doubt you can bring up anything that hasn't already been refuted in this thread.

Wrongbadfun?

Yes!

No. But, it holds about as much value to me as a hack and slash game, or heaven forbid a puzzle game. *shudder* I'd run screaming from these kinds of games, hoping to keep my sanity in tact.

YMMV

 

[gizmo33]

Dungeons though, are not innocuous objects. So a bowl of cereal sitting in my kitchen is innocuous, and something with which I am familiar. The same does not apply to a dungeon.

By the way, I find the concept of the 10 foot pole abhorrent.

Me too - any but the most impoverished PC could afford to upgrade to a halberd or something with the same reach that could also double as a weapon. The hook end of a typical polearm could probably be used to pull a lever too. That's just common sense.

EDIT: Nothing anyone can say is going to convince me to be more afraid of levers than doorways. Your attempts are doomed to failure, so you might as well not bother with that particular line of debate.

I'm not trying to convince you at all! Cripes, if your DM never traps levers, then it makes no sense to be afraid of them. I can say that I'd be really afraid of swirling dirt after watching your PC get pentrified by it. It all depends on experience.

 

[ThirdWizard]

So, in other words, the reason that the trap is unfair is because it isn't designed specifically with you in mind? I.e., no matter what anyone says about levers, no matter what the real world implications of levers are, no matter what, levers are inherently innoculous, so any trap that assumes a different viewpoint is unfair?

Your playstyle indicates that levers are dangerous. I have no reason to accept your playstyle as fact.

I submit that the trap in the OP is nearly the same in terms of fairness as the earth weird encounter you described.

Submission examined and declined.

 

[gizmo33]

So, in other words, the reason that the trap is unfair is because it isn't designed specifically with you in mind?

Yes, the Stay-Puff Marshmellow Man could never hurt anyone! Therefore, it would be unfair if a giant-sized one of those tried to kill you.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Dungeons though, are not innocuous objects. So a bowl of cereal sitting in my kitchen is innocuous, and something with which I am familiar. The same does not apply to a dungeon.

Okay... no less innoculous than the doorway then, or the doorknob on it. We search the doorway and door for traps, after which they open it or walk through. The rogue searched the lever for traps, after which they pulled the lever.

Me too - any but the most impoverished PC could afford to upgrade to a halberd or something with the same reach that could also double as a weapon. The hook end of a typical polearm could probably be used to pull a lever too. That's just common sense.

The concept of the 10 foot pole is all about, IMO, the "thinking man's dungeon" which involves no real thinking but instead coming to every situation going down a checklist of things to do like its deadly, interacting with nothing unless you have to, and spending 20 minutes of play time trying to figure out if opening the door will end in a TPK.

And, no, using anything but your hands to pull the lever isn't "common sense" its a trained conditioned response for those who played through old 1e modules that had traps like this.

I'm not trying to convince you at all! Cripes, if your DM never traps levers, then it makes no sense to be afraid of them. I can say that I'd be really afraid of swirling dirt after watching your PC get pentrified by it. It all depends on experience.

I believe RC disagrees, and is trying to convince me. He thinks levers are objectively dangerous, I think.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The problem is that this was debated ad nausiem earlier, and no one could say anything to support the position of levers being innately dangerous. I don't want to have the same debate again. I doubt you can bring up anything that hasn't already been refuted in this thread.

By the Bloody Beard of Crom, there hasn't been a single refutation yet!

"Doorways are as dangerous as levers; prove that they're not!" isn't a refutation, nor is "I simply refuse to accept that pulling a lever implies that the lever will cause something to happen."

You can say you refuse to follow the consequences of the blantantly obvious "pulling levers implies something is being caused to happen" -- and doing so is, at least, honest -- but please don't claim that this is somehow a refutation.

Wrongbadfun?

Yes!

No. But, it holds about as much value to me as a hack and slash game, or heaven forbid a puzzle game. *shudder* I'd run screaming from these kinds of games, hoping to keep my sanity in tact.

YMMV

 

[ThirdWizard]

You can say you refuse to follow the consequences of the blantantly obvious "pulling levers implies something is being caused to happen" -- and doing so is, at least, honest -- but please don't claim that this is somehow a refutation.

Sure something will happen. The question is how likely do you think something bad will happen? Odds just aren't high enough that something bad will happen that it should be of concern to a PC pulling the lever. You have given no reason to think something bad will happen other than you seem to think it is likely, which isn't an actual reason.

Basically, all of your "reason" for levers being dangerous come down to your playstyle.

It seems to me that the majority of ENWorld does not share your concern for levers.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I believe RC disagrees, and is trying to convince me. He thinks levers are objectively dangerous, I think.

No, RC believes that levers inherently imply that moving the lever does something. Do you disagree with that? Is your life filled with levers and switches and buttons that do nothing?

RC believes that making something happen can make something good happen, something bad happen, some of each, or something which is neither good or bad. Do you disagree with that? I would say that this is objectively true because it is tautological.

RC believes that, within the concept of dungeons promulgated by the Core Rules, the history of the game, and within similar settings in the history of literature, film, and television, "making something happen" in a dungeon-like setting has a disproprtionate chance that the "something" is going to be bad. Do you disagree with this?

RC believes that, in an unfamiliar setting where you cannot intuit what a lever/switch/button will do -- such as the cockpit of an F14, a room in a prison, the main building of a hydroelectric plant -- it is often a good idea to leave it alone. Do you disagree with this?

RC believes that pulling a lever in a dungeon without at least attempting to ensure that one knows what it does is the equivilent of entering a new room blindfolded. I won't even ask -- I know you disagree with this. But, if you agree with any or all of the above, what I do not know is why.

RC

 

[gizmo33]

And, no, using anything but your hands to pull the lever isn't "common sense" its a trained conditioned response for those who played through old 1e modules that had traps like this.

It involves a little more thought than you're implying since I'm actually not there (it's my character). The conditioned response is me throwing my arms over my head and saying "oh, god, a lever." The thoughtful response is telling the DM that my player summons an orc, hands him the halberd, and goes in the next room while the orc pulls the lever. It's not all that unconscious, it's very conscious. It's not really trained, I might do something completely different the next time (hobgoblin with a lasso and a tower-shield). Mixing it up adds some zest.

It probably is an old school thing. Nowadays an adventurer is a mo-hawk sporting half-shirt wearing pretty-boy that wants to look good trading one-liners and fireballs with the BBEG. He certainly wouldn't be caught dead fishing around in an otyugh's trash-pile looking for loose coins or picking ear seekers out of his ears (ear seekers: you want to talk about unfair!) That stuff's a waste of time to him, not very cinematic or heroic.

In my day, adventurers were rather plain-looking Joes that wore conical helms with a nose-piece and bulky suits of chainmail. A train of miserable looking peasants usually followed him carrying his treasure (this was before there was a rules mandate that your character be awarded a bag of holding by 3rd level). He just didn't have the abs for a half-shirt. Success was measured in surviving and building a castle at 9th level. He didn't have the luxury of the DM's proxy NPC teleporting in to tell him what a good job he was doing or giving him his next mission. Monsters tried to kill him all of the time, not just when the music was scarey. He wore his paranoia as a badge of honor. The DM was an impartial bastard.

My comical reminiscings are not objective. Clearly I consider the pretty-boy a bigger success.

I believe RC disagrees, and is trying to convince me. He thinks levers are objectively dangerous, I think.

Yea, I think it's campaign specific.

 

[ThirdWizard]

RC believes that, within the concept of dungeons promulgated by the Core Rules, the history of the game, and within similar settings in the history of literature, film, and television, "making something happen" in a dungeon-like setting has a disproprtionate chance that the "something" is going to be bad. Do you disagree with this?

That I do disagree with.

It's a playstyle decision that you have made. Why do you think it is universal?