Save or Die: Yea or Nay?

[Raven Crowking]

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.

Care to tell me what my response is, then, too?



Given an argument that SoD is bad because it leads to Broken Encounter A, B, C, and D, I have demonstrated repeatedly that none of those encounters need to be broken, and that, in general, the broken encounters also tend to lead to an inconsistent game milieu. If one allows for internal consistency and self-reference, one tends not to have the broken encounters as exampled.

Does that mean that broken scenarios do not exist? Of course not.

Does that mean that one cannot use a SoD monster -- or any monster -- in a way that is neither broken nor telegraphed? Of course not.

What it means is that one need not use broken encounters. And one need not ditch SoD to not use broken encounters.

And, Crom forbid that I have to object once more to the word "obvious". Why does that word have to creep in again and again? Because signs of a medusa are present, it does not mean that they are "obvious". That is a tired, tired straw man. You think that my point is that such signs must be, or even should be, obvious?

The bigger the environmental footprint, the more obvious the signs. That is true, IRL, for just about everything. And, as IRL, that doesn't mean that the signs are observed, correctly interpretted, or heeded if understood.

And, "the more obvious the signs" =/= NEON SIGN.

"2" is a bigger number than "1". If I say "2" is bigger than "1", it does not imply that "2" is almost 2,000,000,000.

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.

Ah. Now your "scary giant" is level appropriate, and the PCs are at full health. More power to the animated goal posts, I suppose. Their movement rate far exceeds my own!

I guess if you can only imagine responsibility as having "screwed up" if things don't pan out the way you want them to, it makes sense to play a more padded game. I neither require not expect "enough information to make a completely informed decision" - I expect that adventuring is going to including having to "make a gamble". Indeed, the fundamental tensions of the game are all gambles.

This reminds me very much of certain other posts upthread, where the question seems to be "But how can I be safe?"

The obvious answer is, "Don't be an adventurer."

The perhaps less obvious, but equally true, answer is, "If you don't like risks, play a game without them. Choose a game where your safety isn't actually in question, or where your gambles are never big gambles. There are plenty of games like this to choose from. Heck, Gary Gygax even recommended one such game in the 1e DMG!"



RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

The "logic" that turns the positive statements into negative ones is of the same absolutist order as reasoning that because thieves can remove small trap devices with a dice roll, there is (barring magic) no other way to deal with traps; or that because they can climb sheer surfaces and move silently, other characters cannot climb trees or move quietly.

That makes sense; thank you.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'd find that far more a travesty of DMing than this.

And you can house-rule it as you like, if that's what floats your boat. Just, please, be aware that that is what you are doing here.

For the record, the rogue who said "I am trying to hide from him, and meet his gaze at the same time" is going to find one or the other unsuccessful at my table.

Shall we pull out the full text, rather than the SRD summary? I imagine, as with the 1e medusa, that it will prove enlightening.



RC

 

[Ariosto]

And maybe that is part of the old school field that I'm not getting, that there is a level of player skill to making sure they aren't taken unaware by an encounter.

But I don't think that level of behavior is a reasonable expectation for a game.

That's a Grand Canyon of a culture gap.

I expect that RC, like me, grew up playing games of skill as well as chance. I'm not even talking wide-open wargame / proto-role-playing-game campaigns like the galactic conquest game some friends and I made up for ourselves before we encountered D&D. I mean a whole host of games that were very challenging, whether of skills intellectual, physical or social.

 

[MrMyth]

Ah. Now your "scary giant" is level appropriate, and the PCs are at full health. More power to the animated goal posts, I suppose. Their movement rate far exceeds my own!

Dude, not cool. I'm not moving any goalposts here. I'm trying to explain myself, and demonstrate the issues with SoD compared to other encounters.

If you are indeed claiming that SoD is expected to be equivalent to entering a fight that isn't level appropriate, or entering a fight already injured and in a position to lose, than I suggest that you have directly proven that something is wrong with SoD in the context of the game.

I guess if you can only imagine responsibility as having "screwed up" if things don't pan out the way you want them to, it makes sense to play a more padded game. I neither require not expect "enough information to make a completely informed decision" - I expect that adventuring is going to including having to "make a gamble". Indeed, the fundamental tensions of the game are all gambles.

This reminds me very much of certain other posts upthread, where the question seems to be "But how can I be safe?"

The obvious answer is, "Don't be an adventurer."

You know what? I think I'm done here.

My position, all along, has not been that I want the character to be guaranteed safety.

My position has been that I don't want my death to be instantaneous and feel like I couldn't do anything about it.

It isn't that I don't want to have to take gambles in adventuring. It is that I don't want one botched gamble to instantly result in my death. That's the entire point!

To you, apparently, this is playing "in a padded game". This is "playing safe". Or being unwilling to accept responsibility for the decisions made as a player, or a character's failure to find the right clue.

Fair enough. You've got your style of play, and you're welcome to it. I've never argued with that. But I'm done trying to justify my preference to you. If you really can't understand it, or even make the attempt to do so, and you really can't help but find fault or talk down to the way other people like to play, than this discussion was pointless from the start.

 

[MrMyth]

And you can house-rule it as you like, if that's what floats your boat. Just, please, be aware that that is what you are doing here.

Planesailing has given an argument as to why common sense should override the rules here, and that I can understand where he is coming from, even though I don't agree with it. I'm not sure where you made the conclusion that was what is specified in the rules. The houserules being proposed are the ones you are making, not anyone else.

For the record, the rogue who said "I am trying to hide from him, and meet his gaze at the same time" is going to find one or the other unsuccessful at my table.

So, just to confirm, it is your belief that a rogue who has successfully hid himself is not capable of viewing the face of someone he is observing?

 

[Scribble]

If the character's intelligence and wisdom stats weren't supposed to enter into the characters ability to overcome traps and instead it was all about player skill... How come the same wasn't true for physical stats?

How come people didn't like, arm wrestle the DM to see who won the fight vrs the monster?

 

[MrMyth]

That's a Grand Canyon of a culture gap.

I expect that RC, like me, grew up playing games of skill as well as chance. I'm not even talking wide-open wargame / proto-role-playing-game campaigns like the galactic conquest game some friends and I made up for ourselves before we encountered D&D. I mean a whole host of games that were very challenging, whether of skills intellectual, physical or social.

Like I said, different styles. I'm not advocating a game were player skill is absent, by any means!

But it is sounding like there is an expected approach, from what you are saying, where the game is more about the player and the DM trying to outsmart each other. And I can see the entertainment in that, and that there is room for games along those lines - but at the same time, I don't really want that to be the default for the game, and think that at the extreme, it starts to get into the style of behavior mocked in Knights of the Dinner Table, or the 'magical arms race' where each side needs to have multiple layers of 'counters' to come out ahead.

 

[Ariosto]

And I can see the entertainment in that, and that there is room for games along those lines - but at the same time, I don't really want that to be the default for the game...

Do what you will is the whole of the law for your game.

Otherwise, I am sorry but -- like football or figure skating or whatever else you might undertake to dislike -- it's not about you. The people who like it are as entitled to it as you are to the things that you like.

Live and let live (or save and die, as the case may be).

I enter level 7 of a dungeon. I know that there could be Bodaks here, just like there could be any of a thousand other level 7 monsters.

"What is a bodak?" I wondered.

According to the AD&D Monster Manual II:

A bodak is a human who was changed to a monster after venturing somewhere upon the Abyssal Planes where mortals were not meant to be....

Bodaks are very rare because they remain upon the Abyssal Plane except when called into service by some evil or foolish magic-user.

I reckon that if a foolish magic-user can discover how to summon one in the first place, then slightly less foolish adventurers can discover what they need to know about the lair of Dreadgore the Deranged and the Dweller in Darkness before they invite themselves in.

If the damned thing isn't using its death gaze, then what was the point of Dreadgore's having gone to the trouble?

 

[Abraxas]

Planesailing has given an argument as to why common sense should override the rules here, and that I can understand where he is coming from, even though I don't agree with it. I'm not sure where you made the conclusion that was what is specified in the rules. The houserules being proposed are the ones you are making, not anyone else.

Its not a houserule really - you have to meet the creatures gaze to be affected by it - what that means is determined by the DM - merely looking does not automatically equal meeting its gaze. If it did the text about averting your eyes wouldn't make any sense. In addition, unless otherwise stated the creature does not have to have it's gaze active at all times. It is the DM's call whether or not an unaware bodak has it's killing gaze active. I find the idea that it would have it's gaze active all the time a bit odd and highly unlikely. Otherwise everything around it would be dying (insects, vermin, rats, bats, etc) which would probably leave an environmental foot print that wouldn't be too hard to notice.

IMO, YMMV and all that - play the way you like it's all fine and dandy - yes it's possible that the players may miss all the clues and blunder into a nasty gaze attack, just like it's possible to open the wrong door while scouting and get to that level +4 solo encounter alone and die before getting to do anything - the number of needed rolls before that's a game breaker varies from person to person. Agree to disagree - its all some form of D&D.