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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6012309" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think this is roughly right.But not necessarily mechanics-neutral. I'm thinking White Plume Mountain - where you're expected (for example) to remove doors so you can &quot;surf&quot; them down the frictionless corridor over the pits of super-tetanus spikes. For me, this is exploratory play - because interacting with the scenery is key to the point of play. It's your (1), not (2), because the environment is obviously not benign. But it's not mechanics-neutral. In a conflict resolution game, surfing the doors over the pits should still trigger an action resolution check - on a failure, for example, your PC's beloved hat falls into the pit as you surf over it! - Now what are you going to do? (ie complications, stakes etc).Whereas to adjudicate White Plume Mountain in that way would, I think, to be missing the point of it. Engaging with the scenery is what it's about, and once that's happened we move on to the next bit of scenery. (Tomb of Horrors is also like this, but I think less interesting - not as whacky as White Plume Mountain, and the &quot;scenery interaction&quot; very often can be reduced to &quot;The thief flies in tied to a rope and looks for traps&quot; - I'm not the biggest fan of exploratory play in general, but find the bomb squad version of it especially tedious.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6012309, member: 42582"] I think this is roughly right. But not necessarily mechanics-neutral. I'm thinking White Plume Mountain - where you're expected (for example) to remove doors so you can "surf" them down the frictionless corridor over the pits of super-tetanus spikes. For me, this is exploratory play - because interacting with the scenery is key to the point of play. It's your (1), not (2), because the environment is obviously not benign. But it's not mechanics-neutral. In a conflict resolution game, surfing the doors over the pits should still trigger an action resolution check - on a failure, for example, your PC's beloved hat falls into the pit as you surf over it! - Now what are you going to do? (ie complications, stakes etc). Whereas to adjudicate White Plume Mountain in that way would, I think, to be missing the point of it. Engaging with the scenery is what it's about, and once that's happened we move on to the next bit of scenery. (Tomb of Horrors is also like this, but I think less interesting - not as whacky as White Plume Mountain, and the "scenery interaction" very often can be reduced to "The thief flies in tied to a rope and looks for traps" - I'm not the biggest fan of exploratory play in general, but find the bomb squad version of it especially tedious.) [/QUOTE]

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