Sorry, but you are adding significant material to what is presented in order to draw that conclusion.
Look, all I can say is that I read those quotes as indicating you expected PCs to always be given warnings of what they would encounter. You don't feel that is what you are saying, that's fine. Nonetheless, that is how it came across, to me. Let's focus on the biggest example, here:
You hear about Some Awful Creature, come across a carcass of its kill (which demonstrates that it could take down a manticore in flight, and seems to have some sort of acid attack), then spy the creature on the wing, and only then have to deal with it to meet some goal.
You aren't describing having the PCs search for info about a creature. You are describing a scenario in which you, the DM, specifically have:
1) NPCs tell them about the creature;
2) Them come upon the aftermath of a battle that reveals the attacks it uses;
3) They actively see it and can ID it before they ever have to fight it.
That is the example you gave. As, specifically, your style of play, and what you were advocating. As, specifically, one of only two options, the other one being to encounter the creature with no clues at all.
Having presented that, do you really find it hard to beleive that the impression I got was that you were advocating handing PCs complete warnings about every upcoming encounter??
You have more recently argued that you are instead advocating leaving various clues that the PCs have the potential to find if they go looking for it. I am willing to accept this as your actual position. But I don't think it was unreasonable on my part to have come to a different interpretation of your view earlier, based on what you actually said.
As for “at the very least were always making informed decisions that lead to whatever their fate may be” you seem to miss the idea, no matter how often repeated, that it is the player’s responsibility to ensure their PCs are informed. The players, not the GM, determine when the PCs have enough information to act.
I... though that it
hadn't been your point of view that 'the players were at fault' if they walk into a Save or Die fight without fair warning?
I want to try and confirm this, because I feel like I may be misreading your point again. But are you saying that:
-If players enter a room with a Save or Die Encounter, either:
-They are responsible for not having found enough information; or
-The DM is responsible for not having provided enough warning signs or made the warnings easy enough to find.
Is this your view?
Because that may be the sticking point of this discussion. I see a third option - that there could very well be encounters that the PCs do not find or get sufficient warnings to know everything about in advance. That, in fact, the presence of such things seems almost inevitable in any game that actually has an 'internal consistency' - creatures adept at stealth and deception exist. Not every creature's tracks and leavings will inevitably be stumbled across by the PCs. Many creatures are similar enough in nature that the signs of their presence aren't going to reveal their specific identity.
And in those situations where PCs do enter an encounter without knowledge of what they will be fighting, the fault is not with the players or with the DM. It is an inevitability of the setting and the system.
Which is perfectly fine. It, in fact, only becomes an issue when SoD enters the picture - and introduces the potential, in those encounters, to die before being able to take any action.
Just as a note, this is part of my point. You can come up with scenarios in which a creature's footprint is obvious. I can come up with scenarios in which it isn't. But I'm not trying to prove that your examples aren't reasonable - I'm just trying to prove that both scenarios exist.
No one is arguing that both scenarios do not, AFAICT.
That is absolutely what you have been arguing.
If that isn't, then why have you felt the need, every time a scenario was presented which would have given a reason for PCs to not come across obvious clues or warnings, you've responded either by proclaiming it bad DMing or trying to give 'counter-examples' of similar scenarios with warnings, as though that invalidated the scenarios I had presented?
do the players happen to have the right skills? Do they look in the right place?
I was going to ask how these are a matter of luck, but you already answered my question:
Now, you can tie those elements into player ability
I walk into a dungeon. In one of these rooms are clues about the nature of a monster. The monster itself is found in another room or wandering the corridors. Is it really an issue of player skill if I happen to go down the path that encounters the monster before I find the clues about it?
Or are you suggesting that are clues should be found at the entrance to the dungeon, or the DM should make sure the players find the clues before the monster finds them? At which point I think you are getting away from the claimed goal of consistency, and instead getting into something else entirely.
After all, if the goal is having a setting in which supporting elements make the monster's presence consistent, isn't it just as likely the PCs will encounter those elements after running into the monster, rather than always having them carefully lined up beforehand?
If they run into a giant, half the party could be dead before they’ve been given that option.
Really? It has been my experience that, if PCs stumble upon a level appropriate encounter, a PC at full health will rarely be slain outright before having a chance to act. Unless SoD is involved.
There are dozens of branching points of decisions here. But if most of those decisions are uninformed, how much responsibility do you accept for that as a player? I mean, didn’t you make a decision to go down to Level Seven, informed by the knowledge that you still hadn’t learned anything about what’s down there?
Again, you are saying that if a PC makes an uninformed decision, it means either the player screwed up by not looking hard enough, or the DM screwed up by not having more clues.
Which I still find absurd. The idea that on level 6 you have to include detailed information about what's on level 7 just doesn't seem a reasonable requirement for a game to me. I'm not saying
you can't run a game that way, but I don't think it should be a requirement for anyone else.
But let me take a step back, one more time, and try to emphasize what I mean by an informed decision. That's where this entire tangent started from. If you respond to nothing else, here is the core of my concern.
In combat, I know that I am turning to stone. I know that if I choose to try and finish off the Basilisk, it might result in me becoming petrified. I know that if I instead try to fight off the petrification, or get my allies to help me with it, people will be getting more and more injured.
I have an idea both of what my options are, and what the consequences are depending on what I choose. And at the end of it, regardless of the decision, I have taken a number of actions that have influenced that. That is what I mean by an informed decision, and a chance to act before that single roll that finishes me.
If I am at the stairs to level 6, and trying to decide whether to descend, that is a decision point. But what do I know? I don't know what creatures are ahead; does this mean there might be clues somewhere on this level? Should I spend time exploring this level further? What if that results in enemies coming back up from below and reinforcing the way? What if it means they notice the havoc and are prepared for my attack? If I go now, maybe I'll take them by surprise? Or maybe I'll find out more clues about them at the bottom of the stairs?
I've got lots of possibilities here. I know that either decision could have good or bad outcomes. But I have no idea as to what those outcomes might be. I can conjecture, but I don't have enough information to make a completely informed decision - even the decision on whether to look for more information is largely uninformed, since I don't know, for sure, whether there is any information behind me to be found!
And more than that, this ia decision the group reaches as a whole. It isn't an action I am taking to influence my own destiny. It is simply proceeding in one direction or another. If I then do encounter a Bodak, that's the point at which I can start making informed decisions - except that, by then, I might be dead.
Or let's go one step further. Let's say I have found what clues are available on this level, and what they have told me is that there are undead below. Let's say I even consider the possibility that there is a Bodak down there?
How do I respond? Does the party walk forward blindly in case we turn the corner and are confronted by its death gaze? That seems a poor tactical decision. And if we choose wrong, and do run into one, and die because of it?
I don't feel like I had a real chance to influence my fate. I feel like I had to make a gamble on whether to walk around blindly or not, and apparently chose the wrong answer.
Or perhaps my other choice was to just... retreat. There might be a Bodak below, so I don't go there. Or I go back to town and hope to hire a high-level cleric. Etc.
Or maybe smart enough PCs will really have answers - the Gygaxian PC, expecting anything, has a backpack filled with chickens that he carries around (his eyes closed), and if they squawk and die in his hands, he knows he's up against a Bodak. Or he carries around mirrors strapped to 10' poles, and checks around every corner with them and inside every room before entering.
Which I suppose is one approach. But not the sort of game everyone wants to play. And here's the problem that brings this all back, once again, to SoD - with any other monster ability, these concerns wouldn't be that big a deal. Run into an unfamiliar enemy, and you have a chance to learn from it and adapt, or retreat and return better informed.
Run into a SoD, and you likely don't get that chance.
Remember, again, that I'm not saying SoD are a terrible thing useless for all games. This all evolved out of me giving one specific reason I am not a fan of them - I prefer being able to act and respond and influence my fate.
And in an encounter with SSSoD, or with any other monster capabilities, I feel I have that opportunity. In an encounter with SoD, I don't. And I don't feel that the events leading up to the encounter count - not finding a specific clue the DM left, or having the bad luck to explore the passage with the monster before the passage with the clues, doesn't feel like I influenced my fate or got to take informed actions to help or hinder it.
And dying as soon as the encounter starts doesn't feel like it was my fault as a player for being unobservant, or the DMs fault for not providing the right clues - it feels like the system's fault, for having the potential for a creature to exist where an encounter starts, and I die before I ever have a chance to act.
