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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6082949" data-attributes="member: 7006">You and GX.Sigma both point out the one big issue that crops up between "old school" D&D and AD&D... and the players of said games and game styles.  All of this stuff... like mapping and calling, or carrying 10 foot poles through dungeons, etc. etc... are all things long-term players of D&D remember fondly with rose-colored glasses, but in actuality just don't need to do anymore.  We've played so long and have gone on so many adventures that having something like an extremely detailed map of the dungeon we're exploring just isn't necessary.  One, because we're so in tune with the concept of dungeoncrawling that many of us can just keep basic track of where we are in our heads... and two, we've learned over the intervening 30+ years that it's extremely rare for DMs to introduce situations within the dungeon where actually having a map ends up being useful.Whereas... back when we were kids first playing those games all those years ago, OR new players today who have just started playing for the very first time... actually creating detailed maps so the group can know where everything is, is sort of a 'eureka' moment.  It seems like having a map should help in the long run.  At some point, having those details will come in handy, so better safe than sorry-- plus, they just look really cool in the process of getting made.The 10 foot pole is the same issue.  Players 30+ years ago and new players today both find the party falling into the occasional pit trap while walking within a dungeon.  So the 'eureka' moment of "Let's take a 10 foot pole and tap the floor in front of us to find the pit traps as we go along so we don't fall in!" seems like a brilliant bit of roleplaying and intelligent gaming.  But that 'brilliance' on our parts only last as long as it actually remained new and exciting.  Eventually that wears off-- either because we've now found the 10th pit trap that way, or the DM just stops putting pit traps out there since they've become impossible not to find via this method.  The rose-colored glasses have come off, and it's now just become another cliched gaming trope that we just don't bother with anymore.  So that's the dichotomy that the designers now have to deal with in a lot of these tropes.  Putting in rules and allowances for us to harken back to the game styles of yore... despite the fact that 95% of all the players who will play this game have run through these tropes so many freaking times that they're no longer useful, fun, or interesting.  But it's good to have them just for those few 5% for whom these tropes are actually new and exciting.It just means the rest of us have to hope the designers also include methods for just skipping the tropes so as to not waste our time... which, thankfully, it seems like Mike is actually doing.</blockquote>

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