Darkvision Ruins Dungeon-Crawling

[Micah Sweet]

You only apply it in situations where the monsters involved don't care about it for one reason or another. I'd think the benefit there would be pretty self-evident.

Wouldn't you just apply the rules of darkness whenever things are dark, no matter who benefits? The darkness isn't there because the PCs or anyone else are there.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I know people hate this, but magic is just different. It doesn't have the same burden of proof, just a general consistency of use IMO. Darkvision is not depicted necessarily as a magical ability, so having it have no basis is a problem for me.

Like they bother to make the distinction most of the time with permanent creature abilities. 3e might have tried to spell that out, but it was one of the first times D&D ever cared what an ability came from.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Wouldn't you just apply the rules of darkness whenever things are dark, no matter who benefits? The darkness isn't there because the PCs or anyone else are there.

You're clearly making assumptions about how most GMs decide to have something be the case based on your simulationist leanings that I can promise is not what most GMs do, or have ever bothered with; they decide because they decide, sometimes for gamist reasons, sometimes for story based ones, sometimes for reasons they can't even articulate. And when players have learned that somehow its only dark in a place when its going to cause them a problem, they aren't going to forget that soon.

Like I said, we're talking in at least big part about the game that had the main race in play not able to see in the dark but virtually every monster you were going to encounter that you'd ever hit in the dark able to see in it for 50 years. I don't think its a surprise that people's take-home from that was that they needed to get some sweet dark-seeing too should be even faintly a surprise.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Like they bother to make the distinction most of the time with permanent creature abilities. 3e might have tried to spell that out, but it was one of the first times D&D ever cared what an ability came from.

I loved and miss that 3e did that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You're clearly making assumptions about how most GMs decide to have something be the case based on your simulationist leanings that I can promise is not what most GMs do, or have ever bothered with; they decide because they decide, sometimes for gamist reasons, sometimes for story based ones, sometimes for reasons they can't even articulate. And when players have learned that somehow its only dark in a place when its going to cause them a problem, they aren't going to forget that soon.

Like I said, we're talking in at least big part about the game that had the main race in play not able to see in the dark but virtually every monster you were going to encounter that you'd ever hit in the dark able to see in it for 50 years. I don't think its a surprise that people's take-home from that was that they needed to get some sweet dark-seeing too should be even faintly a surprise.

Well, I can only speak for me, and for me the only reason a place is dark is because it makes sense in the setting fiction for it to be dark. You are undoubtedly correct in my reasoning.

For the record, I don't accept your assumption that most DMs use other reasons for darkness. How could you possibly know that?

 

[Bill Zebub]

It is interesting that in D&D Darkvision is a 2nd level spell. Seems to me the very few races that don't get Darkvision should have some other 2nd level "at will" spell. No?

I'll take Blindness/Deafness. Thanks.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I loved and miss that 3e did that.

There's some distinct advantage to it, but it requires caring about such things much more than most versions of D&D or their offshoots ever have.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, I can only speak for me, and for me the only reason a place is dark is because it makes sense in the setting fiction for it to be dark. You are undoubtedly correct in my reasoning.

For the record, I don't accept your assumption that most DMs use other reasons for darkness. How could you possibly know that?

Experience. Unless they've suddenly changed in the last 40 years, and since I see a lot of the other behaviors I saw still in play, I don't have any reason to assume this one has.

Edit: that said, as long as the near universal darkvision or equivalent is present in monsters (and if that's changed no one has indicated it) liable to be encountered in areas where darkness might be present, it doesn't matter why the GM is doing it; its still going to virtually always favor monsters, not PCs, and that becomes more true if its hard for the latter to get access to dark senses, so people are going to feel the same way about it.

 

[GrimCo]

Like I said, we're talking in at least big part about the game that had the main race in play not able to see in the dark but virtually every monster you were going to encounter that you'd ever hit in the dark able to see in it for 50 years. I don't think its a surprise that people's take-home from that was that they needed to get some sweet dark-seeing too should be even faintly a surprise.

There is simple reason for that. Fear of the dark (Iron Maiden starts playing in the background) is one of the most primal fears for humans. Cause there are things that go bump in the dark and we can't see them without some method of light (torch, lantern, whatever). And while we can make light, it marks us for predators that can see in the dark without it. Well, at least until we got to good NVG-s and thermals. With those, we own the night.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There is simple reason for that. Fear of the dark (Iron Maiden starts playing in the background) is one of the most primal fears for humans. Cause there are things that go bump in the dark and we can't see them without some method of light (torch, lantern, whatever). And while we can make light, it marks us for predators that can see in the dark without it. Well, at least until we got to good NVG-s and thermals. With those, we own the night.

Sure. But not to put too fine a point on it, a lot of people aren't in regular fantasy adventure games to play horror games, even action-horror, let alone survival-horror which is what GMs seem to want. So they're going to push back against in various ways.