Do you know that the Russo brothers killed Quintillions of people by having Thanos snap his fingers? And man, if you haven't, go rewatch those fights with Thanos in Infinity War, there is no way that was a balanced fight. Seems completely unfair, especially when he got the ability to manipulate reality at his will.
Wasn't it a great show?
See, now you’re talking about combat encounter difficulty, which is a different thing than trap/hazzard telegraphing.
If I create a lich that is an undead sociopath, with no regard for mortal life except as a fuel source to delay it's own death for as long as possible... Why on earth would I have it sandbag the heroes by posting a riddle before a trap? "Oh, if the heroes are clever enough they'll bypass my defenses, right into my inner sanctum, but of course they'll never be more clever than me and catch all the clues I left them."
No.
This is a being of cunning, evil, and above all a desire to preserve its own existence, it will not try and be clever at the risk of making itself vulnerable, it will work to make itself unassailable. Did I make it that way? Yes, just like Sherlock Holmes was a drug addict, CU Thanos was obsessed with balance, and Mammon is obsessed with gold. I could also make my lich like the Riddler, desperate to prove itself smarter than anyone else and layering clues upon clues into everything. I could make him a jester, chortling and making bad puns while fighting the heroes where a rubber chicken suit. I can make anything. But, what makes the right impact?
Sometimes, it is to have the joke character, sometimes the character who is too consumed by ego, honor, or duty. Sometimes, it is the character who will utilize every resource to its full potential, no games, no compromise, they will come at you with everything they are capable of.
Which villains do you think are the most viscerally satisfying to take down?
This is a false dichotomy. There is a whole spectrum of villain motivations between ineffable mastermind who foresees all possible ways the heroes could notice his traps and takes measures to cover them up, and the riddler. There are any number of reasons that the details that telegraph the presence of traps might remain intact. You have chosen to set this scenario up in such a way as to excuse your conscious choice to make the traps in your dungeon impossible to detect. That’s your prerogative if you think that will lead to an enjoyable play experience for you and your players, but personally I wouldn’t want to play that game.
I have a feeling if I phrased it that way, you would be right.
What if I asked them is they would prefer a realistic world compared to a saturday morning cartoon? (Unfair analogy, it makes your style seem cartoonish)
What if I asked them if they would prefer the greatest challenges I could lay before them, or a game where I took it easy on them? (again, unfair, makes it sound like you take it easy on your players.)
If you ask a black or white question, and phrase it correctly, you can get anyone to agree to anything. And even though I constantly feel like my games aren't good enough, I have yet to have a single player agree with me, so they must at least enjoy the way I lay it out.
Except, we haven’t been discussing realism vs stylization or challenge vs. ease. We’ve been discussing fair challenge vs. unfair challenge. It is entirely possible to design a campaign that is “realistic” (insofar as D&D can be realistic), challenging, and fair. Again, I point to Dark Souls as the classic example of difficult but fair game design. That is in fact exactly what I aim to capture in my games. You’re the one who said that a fair challenge isn’t always desirable. I disagree with that. And that’s fine, you don’t need my permission to run your game any way you want.
We've been talking styles, I never once said I was limiting it to only traps and hazards. That's why I kept bringing in examples that are not only traps or hazards. If you should telegraph everything, then you should mean EVERYTHING, not just this subset of things.
Well, sorry, I don’t think your elf’s identity needs telegraphing. If you thought I would think it did, now you have an example why I don’t think you actually understand my style.
So... when I set up something and say "well it isn't reasonable for them to know this" I should be reminded that it is only unreasonable because I made it so, therefore I should make it reasonable.
You only tell them what is reasonable, but you set up challenges so that the consequences are reasonable to know... and you only tell them the reasonable bits and leave out the unreasonable ones?
I hope you can see where I'm confused here. Either you are telling them everything, because their consequences should be reasonable to know, or you are doing the exact same thing I am and holding me to task for not doing it on a large enough scale? I mean, we are both not telling them what it is that is unreasonable to know, and we are both crafting the scenarios and deciding what is reasonable or unreasonable... so the only difference is how much we decide is unreasonable. Right?
I literally do not care what you do. You presented my style as if I was telling players things their characters couldn’t possibly know, which I disputed. You gave an example of a consequence the character couldn’t possibly know (the chandelier with the rotten beams thing). I said that I wouldn’t have set it up that way, because I’m not interested in hiding vital decision-making information from my players like that. I’m not “taking you to task” for anything because I literally don’t care what you do, I am responding to misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the way I run the game.
Nope. I said what I meant.
You are making it impossible to make a mistake. I've watched playthroughs of Dark Souls, failing the dodge at the right time is a mistake, rolling over an edge is a mistake, hitting the button too many times and not leaving enough poison cures in your inventory is a mistake.
Failing to dodge at the right time is a failed Dexterity saving throw, that’s not the same thing as what we’ve been talking about, which is letting the players know the potential consequences of their action (when said action has a chance to succeed, chance to fail, and consequence for failure) before making them commit to it. Rolling off the edge is something that can happen due to the game’s real-time physics, and pushing the button too many times and using up more of a consumable than you meant to likewise. These aren’t issues that arise in a pen and paper RPG, they are unique to video games.
Your players can be inattentive, they can miss things, but they can never make a mistake. Because if they were to make a mistake, you would tell them they were about to make a mistake. At that point, it is no longer making a mistake. It is choosing to face the consequences of a risky action.
If we’re defining “mistake” as “blunder into a consequence of your own action that you were not aware of the possibility of,” then sure.
In that thread of our conversation, I pointed out at the end of a section that I was not attacking your choice of style, but instead trying to show you that your word choice was indicating biases.
You responded with "could have fooled me"
Yeah. Into thinking you were in fact attacking my choice of style. I assume you’re familiar with the idiom, right?
Instead of trying to defend myself, I went on a merry little thought experiment about if I was trying to fool you. What would it be like to fool you into thinking that your words couldn't have interpretations that you did not want them to have. If I could fool you into thinking that you are not coming across in ways that are hurting your position.
If I could fool you into thinking that, then you'd never see how badly you come across with some of your statements.
I’m sorry, but this reads as gibberish to me.
Because it showed what we were seeing before you made your position more clear. It helps you understand where we saw the fault in your statement, and I followed it with the acknowledgement of your intent, to show that I know understand what you were trying to say, despite what it looked like you were saying.
Besides, anyone not willing to read another line down to see where I was wrong was never going to read your clarification anyways.
Whatever, I don’t care to belabor this point.
