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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8146878" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, only in certain models of RPG play...I think that's too simplistic. You can, in real life, say "gosh, I like that guy, but maybe he needs to go join the Army and get some sense kicked into his head." Right? There's a huge difference between being a 'fan' of someone or something, and "everything should just be milk and honey for this guy." I am a fan of the PCs, but the PCs need to be worth being fans of. It isn't worthy to just get a path lined with gold to whatever you want. Struggling for it, making hard choices, etc. is what makes the character worthy of being rooted for. I mean, in real life we rarely wish hardship on people (certainly not often when we like them). This makes sense, but PCs in a game aren't people. They are tools for exploring a fictional world, etc. Pain, fear, discomfort, difficult dilemmas, whatever are not actually experienced by any real person. There's no reason to "wish a PC well", that isn't part of the GM's job. The dichotomy of choice you present is false, IMHO.Not without amply telegraphing that, as the Tomb of Horrors does. Again, this betrays the fundamentally narrative/gamist nature of virtually all play.My recollection of the final encounter of the module is that the solution required is so utterly arbitrary that I never saw any group get through who didn't clearly have some prior knowledge though (IE they had at least read the FF entry for 'Demi-Lich' and probably most likely read or been told about some part of the actual module).Well, I'm not sure about 98%, but I don't think we're disagreeing here.I'm just saying, if you took a roomful of people that have never played an RPG and gave half of them D&D and half of them Dungeon World, D&D would be 'easier to figure out' in the sense that the referee/opposition role of the classic D&D DM is fairly straightforward to grasp, at a basic level. However, there are really huge pitfalls to doing it WELL. Most DM's will not, and D&D is pretty uneven about telling them to, take up the 'fair arbiter' role and simply present the material. Also good presentation is vital, etc. Most DMs will soon conceive an agenda, begin to steer things, etc. The people who try DW may also have some trouble of course, but once you grasp the concept, things flow pretty naturally from that. Anyway, I've seen a lot of dysfunctional D&D games, but I haven't really seen that in 'indy' type games much. I've seen players fail to take up the mantle and do it, but you can get those in any RPG.</blockquote>

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