D&D General Weapons should break left and right

Remathilis said:

We used to joke about "Death by Gotcha", a method of DMing where things that would be painfully obvious to a real person but not to a player sitting at a table. The classic example is the green slime dropped on a PCs head because they failed to announce they were looking up at the ceiling.

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How about getting the players paraniod about the ceiling by describing how green and slimy it is and then putting the actual Green Slime on the floor for them to step in?

Not a Decepticon said:

Well, maybe we should consider if we even need magic items for every silly little thing.

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If there's an in-setting need for something, odds are pretty good some mage or other has designed and built one somewhere along the line. Endless Quiver would seem to qualify.

Not a Decepticon said:

Then we fundamentally do not agree on what rpgs are and further discussion between is us pointless because root of our disagreement goes far deeper and beyond current topic.

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Not sure the disagreement's as fundamental as all that. I'd venture to say that we'd agree that RPGs in aggregate can cover the whole gamut between play-till-you-die-then-start-over roguelikes to the most narrative style of collaborative storytelling.

Where we disagree - and yeah, it's pretty fundamental - is where D&D specifically falls (or, in each of our opinions, should fall) within that spectrum.

Not a Decepticon said:

I do not think expecting a character who adventurers for a living to say they check for traps is "behaving like highly-trianed Navy SEAL". Maybe by modern Earth standars, but by standars of Fantasy World? Not at all.

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I assume PC competence at a basic level but not at a Navy SEAL level, in part because I'd prefer to think that Fantasy World standards and real-world standards are pretty much the same.

Lanefan said:

How about getting the players paraniod about the ceiling by describing how green and slimy it is and then putting the actual Green Slime on the floor for them to step in?

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The thing is that almost any adventurer over a 6 Intelligence would look around when entering a room. Look up and notice giant blob of snot on the ceiling. At the very least, you'd notice something in you peripheral vision. Now if it's hidden or disguised, all bets are off. This is about failing to provide clues to it's presence and then punishing the PC for not stating an obvious precaution.

Staffan said:

It's well established that no-one ever looks up to the ceiling.
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Long ago when I was a kid on vacation with my parents, we were in a hotel. I typically took the stairs and one day I noticed a ladder up to the roof so I climbed up. It was locked of course but as I was at the top of the ladder someone walked into the staircase.

He didn't see me there even though I was in plain sight because he never looked up. So yeah, people miss a whole lot of things because they're not paying attention, including a scrawny kid on a ladder where he had no right to be.

AlViking said:

Long ago when I was a kid on vacation with my parents, we were in a hotel. I typically took the stairs and one day I noticed a ladder up to the roof so I climbed up. It was locked of course but as I was at the top of the ladder someone walked into the staircase.

He didn't see me there even though I was in plain sight because he never looked up. So yeah, people miss a whole lot of things because they're not paying attention, including a scrawny kid on a ladder where he had no right to be.

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Counterpoint: was the person cautiously exploring the hotel wary of ambushes, traps, or hazards all while keeping an eye for treasure or hidden things? Probably not. Hence reasonable precautions. A reasonable person would be scanning the zone for anything from loose bricks to cobwebs to bats or green slime. But to declare at every X feet you are checking the ceiling, walls, floor, smelling for gas or rot, listening for noise, etc gets tedious and can easily be handled via skill checks and/or common sense.

Staffan said:

It's well established that no-one ever looks up to the ceiling.

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Anyone who watched Carpenter's Vampires (motel scene), specially as a kid, looks at the ceiling. I know i started after watching that movie when i was like 11ish.

Tracking stuff is choice. It boils down - does your group have more or less fun if they need to do inventory management. Mine has less fun ( with exception on post apocalyptic survival campaigns). We don't track ammo, rations, living expenses, encumbrance, after mid tier 2 we don't even track gold or mundane loot. It's just extra book keeping that adds nothing to fun at our table. And we stopped tracking those things probably decade ago.

Lanefan said:

If there's an in-setting need for something, odds are pretty good some mage or other has designed and built one somewhere along the line. Endless Quiver would seem to qualify.

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No, why should wizard give a rat's buttocks about some guy running out of arrows? What is gold that could be paid for creating Endless Quiver to a wizard? What is he going to do with it, pay rent? Like he cannot just conjure gold as he needs.

Maybe there is one somewhere but it is a singular thing to be found, made for specific person. Nobody is goign to mass produce this stuff because wizards have better things to do.

Lanefan said:

I assume PC competence at a basic level but not at a Navy SEAL level, in part because I'd prefer to think that Fantasy World standards and real-world standards are pretty much the same.

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Real world standards and fantasy world standards are very much not the same at all. And especially D&D standards are very much different. I mean, by xp by level standards, LEVEL FOUR PC is almost an equivalent of not jsut any Navy SEAL but that "Navy SEAL with 300 CONFIRMED kills" copypasta (commoner is worth 10 xp, level 4 is 2700 xp). By standards of real world pretty much 90% of things PCs do in an average D&D game would get labeled public enemies #1.

GrimCo said:

Anyone who watched Carpenter's Vampires (motel scene), specially as a kid, looks at the ceiling. I know i started after watching that movie when i was like 11ish.

Tracking stuff is choice. It boils down - does your group have more or less fun if they need to do inventory management. Mine has less fun ( with exception on post apocalyptic survival campaigns). We don't track ammo, rations, living expenses, encumbrance, after mid tier 2 we don't even track gold or mundane loot. It's just extra book keeping that adds nothing to fun at our table. And we stopped tracking those things probably decade ago.

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Tracking can be fun in situations of scarcity, as you describe, and for me that typically includes low level campaigns, since I like the players starting with very little and earning their way up. By the time they hit mid-level play and have some gold in their pockets, tracking stuff like ammo becomes a chore without much upside.

Paul Farquhar said:

Yeah, this is the sort of thing I find annoying - people who want things for “authenticity” when they have no real idea what actually would be authentic. A bit of abstraction helps to cover over lots of ignorance. At least the characters know what they are doing, after all, they are the people who live in that world.

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Yeah. You didn't leave a bow strung constantly, because it damaged the bow. You also had to wax the bowstrings.

Remathilis said:

Counterpoint: was the person cautiously exploring the hotel wary of ambushes, traps, or hazards all while keeping an eye for treasure or hidden things? Probably not. Hence reasonable precautions. A reasonable person would be scanning the zone for anything from loose bricks to cobwebs to bats or green slime. But to declare at every X feet you are checking the ceiling, walls, floor, smelling for gas or rot, listening for noise, etc gets tedious and can easily be handled via skill checks and/or common sense.

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Humans do not perceive everything around them, they can't. I don't have an issue with assuming that characters are doing their best to pay attention. I was just relaying that people not noticing things is normal.