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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 9561651" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Yes. Obviously. You've had a fairly consistent group with little change for decades, if memory serves me. I've had dozens of groups over the last few years. My play experience has remained consistent across all of those players, which indicates something about how common the sentiment is.I don't care if you call it evil or call bubblegum. The point that it is NECESSARY and that that has consequences for how people conceive of and approach the game is the point. DnD has NEVER operated under a different dynamic since it was codified. HP has been with us the entire time, and it is a design choice that has an effect.I don't care if you think of it as plot protection. I'm talking about their attitude, their approach to the conflict. When people decide to emulate these characters, they are not approaching the conflict full of fear. And while you may want them to be fearful, that is not how the majority of people who play the game want to play. The occasional "oh crap this is too much for us" so they can flee, get stronger, and come back to defeat it? Sure. But they do not want to play a game where every single combat fills them with dread and fear unless they have planned a strategy so complete that no dice are needed and no loss is possible. If they DID want to play that game... they wouldn't be playing any version of DnD made in the last 25 years.No, it is not a bug. Yes, it is a feature. The entire point of leveling up is to get more powerful,  getting more powerful means that things that were potential threats stop being threats. A single Kobold is only barely a threat for a 1st level character. That is why they are CR 1/8th, they are one of the weakest possible monsters. And, actually, depending on how you approach the fight, and what you mean by low level, a level 3 PC might be able to (with luck, terrain and a great plan) take out a hill giant.So the only challenge to your traps is the players not paying enough attention to notice them. Beyond that, they are toothless and not a challenge. That doesn't mean you shouldn't foreshadow. That means you need to make better traps. Something as simple as the trigger on one end of the hall, and the mechanism being on the other, while the blades continue slicing which forces the PCs to find a way through the blades is already a far more interesting trap than what you have presented here.Of course it is their choice, but you can't make a choice if you are not informed about the choice. IF you don't have enough information to make an informed decision, it isn't a decision, it is random chance disguised as a choice. And AGAIN, my initial point was that I have seen DMs complaining "I told them it was dangerous, they went anyways and TPK'd, why are players so stupid?" and the solution to that is not to say "this is dangerous" because that is meaningless information. If it wasn't dangerous, it wouldn't even be worth the PCs attention.If you want to present the entire source of the gameplay as  "not making wise decisions" then you can't critique players for making "unwise decisions". To do so basically says, "the optimal way to play DnD is not to play DnD, because playing DnD involves acting like an idiot."</blockquote>

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