Best practices for easy-to-run modules [+]

[Bill Zebub]

More I'm saying "If you're careful and spend the time it takes to search,

To make sure I'm understanding, are you suggesting that they should be careful and search every single square of the dungeon so they don't miss anything, or that there was some reason (that they missed) that they should have searched for that secret door? If it's the latter, then yes I'm agreeing with you. If it's the former, then just no. No interest in playing that way. It's not fun now and it never was.

you give yourself a not-guaranteed chance of making things easier on yourselves; if you don't, that chance disappears."

...and even if they do search in the right place (or every place), you still use RNG to determine if they are successful?

This assumes they didn't find the other end of the passage while searching the chambers for the Vizier, who had by then used said passage to esacpe. That's the much-more-likely outcome here: they realize they missed it on the way in when they find it, in effect, on the way out.

That, and IME it's quite rare that a party finds everything in a site or dungeon: it's almost inevitable they're going to miss a passage or some treasure or something else relevant, either by choice (we've done the mission, let's get out fast) or by impatience or by sheer bad luck.

If they are missing things because of their own (the players') mistakes...such as missing the tells...then I'm with you. If they are missing things because they are expected to search every square of the dungeon, and/or because the dice told them they missed it, then no.

Unpredictability is what random is.

No. That statement is only true in one direction. Yes, random things are unpredictable. But not all unpredictable things are random. People used to not be able to predict comets and eclipses. That doesn't mean they used to be random and now they are not.

In the here and now moment when the information is needed, not knowing something and not remembering something amount to exactly the same thing: you don't have the info in your mind when you need it.

If they are synonymous then why do we have two different verbs?

So, as this has not yet been determined otherwise, what we're rolling for is to determine whether you happen to be one of the 80% of the in-game population who don't know this bit of semi-obscure information or the 20% who do.

Yes, I understand that people who play that way are using randomness to model uncertainty. I can understand why that is a tempting short cut. But it's not random whether or not a certain person knows something. Any more than it's random whether or not a sword strike lands.

 

[Lanefan]

To make sure I'm understanding, are you suggesting that they should be careful and search every single square of the dungeon so they don't miss anything, or that there was some reason (that they missed) that they should have searched for that secret door? If it's the latter, then yes I'm agreeing with you. If it's the former, then just no. No interest in playing that way. It's not fun now and it never was.

Sorry, but it's the former.

...and even if they do search in the right place (or every place), you still use RNG to determine if they are successful?

Yes.

An analogy:

Let's say that on my way to work each day there's a little cat I sometimes stop and pat while walking down Street X, but only sometimes as the cat isn't there every day and there's no real pattern to it.

Which means, if I walk down Street X there's a chance I'll see the cat but if I walk down equally-convenient Street Y there's no chance of it. Same goes here: if I search I give myself a chance to find something but if I don't search there's no chance.

If they are missing things because of their own (the players') mistakes...such as missing the tells...then I'm with you. If they are missing things because they are expected to search every square of the dungeon, and/or because the dice told them they missed it, then no.

So you're saying if they search and there's something there to find they'll auto-find it? As a player I'd break that in one action declaration: "I'm searching everywhere we go, as SOP". If there's no chance for me to miss things when I search, I've just blown open every secret the place has, which is very quickly going to discourage you-as-DM from placing secrets in your dungeons. And where's the fun in that?

No. That statement is only true in one direction. Yes, random things are unpredictable. But not all unpredictable things are random. People used to not be able to predict comets and eclipses. That doesn't mean they used to be random and now they are not.

To the people observing them at the time, before their patterns became known, they appeared to be random; which for our here-and-now gameplay purposes is the same as their actually being random.

Yes, I understand that people who play that way are using randomness to model uncertainty. I can understand why that is a tempting short cut. But it's not random whether or not a certain person knows something. Any more than it's random whether or not a sword strike lands.

How else do you model uncertainty?

If I walk up to 20 random people in the street and ask each one who won the 1993 Stanley Cup I've no way of knowing how many of those 20 people will know (and-or in the moment remember) the answer. From my perspective as the inquirer, it's random.

 

[Bill Zebub]

So you're saying if they search and there's something there to find they'll auto-find it? As a player I'd break that in one action declaration: "I'm searching everywhere we go, as SOP".

"While you're searching the room, the monsters chasing you catch up with you. Roll initiative."
"Wait....what? We were fleeing, I didn't say we stopped to search the room!"
"A while ago you said you search everywhere you go, as SOP."
"..."

So, yeah, another thing I used to do in 1980 but don't anymore is play with standard operation procedures declared at the beginning of the dungeon.

If there's no chance for me to miss things when I search, I've just blown open every secret the place has, which is very quickly going to discourage you-as-DM from placing secrets in your dungeons. And where's the fun in that?

First, there's a time cost to searching, which actually works pretty well in games that have good mechanisms for it (I mostly play Shadowdark, which does.). So sometimes you will miss things because you choose not to search.

Second, in some cases you will have to be very specific about what you search in order to find the secret, but those cases should always contain a tell.

But you do get at a deeper question, which is how to hide "secrets" in a roleplaying game. For a long time I played by gating secrets behind RNG. "1 in 6 chance to notice secret doors" etc. But that's not actually very fun. Playing D&D itself was fun, and random dice rolls to notice things was part of D&D, so I didn't question it. But, really, randomly discovered secrets don't add any fun. Getting a lucky die roll is not accomplishing anything. As a junior high DM it would torture me when my friends missed the secret door to the treasure room, so invariably I would keep dropping hints until they went back and found it. (I'm specifically thinking of module G1 here.)

As others have noted in this thread, "Traps suck." They really do! And secret doors, too. They are incredibly hard to do well in an RPG, but in my opinion that doesn't mean we should just give up and ask for a Perception check. It means we should use a lot fewer of them, but take the care to design them well so that they are telegraphed, they require problem solving, the solutions require risk, and the players feel like they've actually accomplished something when they succeed. And they also feel like it's their own fault when the fail, rather than just arbitrary resource loss imposed by the dice.

A while ago I was running a long adventure and my players eventually realized "there must be another level below us". I think they spent the entire session trying to find the entrance to it. They eventually narrowed down where it must be, and my description of the location triggered a memory of something they had found in another location, so they dug that up again, deciphered the clues, went back and performed the correct sequence. When I said, "Click," they burst out cheering.

I'd rather have one of those every 10 sessions than a bunch of randomly discovered secret doors.