NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bill Zebub" data-source="post: 8729440" data-attributes="member: 7031982">I am a big fan of the approach [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] is describing, but I think part of the disconnect is that to work really well it requires a different approach to writing/planning adventures.  If you just to apply it to, say, official WotC adventure paths, it doesn't work well. At least, I personally struggle to make it work, because most adventures don't really telegraph the presence of traps/ambushes/secret doors/etc, and I end with the thing [USER=7025508]@Crimson Longinus[/USER] is describing. You don't want the players declaring they walk slowly across every floor, scanning for pressure plates; you want them to have some reason to suspect this particular floor.In my experience, it works best when the players stop worrying that hidden things might be completely untelegraphed, and learn to pay attention to clues.  It might be an immediate clue, like charred skeletons in front of a door, or it might be a more roundabout clue, like looking at the map and realizing that there must be a secret room in that blank area.  Maybe the PCs find spare parts for crossbow traps and tripwires in a storage room, or an NPC gives them a cryptic warning that seems to reference a feature of the dungeon they just found.I know some people object to the players themselves solving these sorts of things, because they're supposed to be roleplaying the 9-Int Fighter, and apparently (from previous threads) 9 Intelligence is insufficient to come up with interesting plans and solutions, but personally I find figuring things out, rather than being handed them via RNG, to be one of the best parts of RPGing. I find it completely unrewarding...playing a "board game"...to roll a d20 and be told, "You find a trap."  /yawnNow, the caveat is that this is hard.  It's hard to come up with unique, interesting clues.  It's much, much, much easier to wait until they say "I roll Perception" or even to say myself, "Everybody give me a Perception check."  But I just don't find that style of play...after years of doing it...fun anymore.  Expedient, yes.  Fun, no.</blockquote>

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