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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 7598544" data-attributes="member: 6801228">If we are going to play it this way, sure. The DM is the one who decides what happens after the player declares their actions, and as such they must determine how effective that approach is based off a variety of factors.Nope, the game tells me nothing of the sort. The rules give some suggestions to that end, but the game is what myself and my players make of it. Just as I would disagree that "the game" tells me that a rogue gets a 1d6 sneak attack ability at level one, I disagree that "the game" tells me there must be meaningful consequences for failure before rolling the dice. The rules suggest it, but I am free to do what I like to make the game more enjoyable for myself and my players. If all you are meaning with "tell them the consequences of failure" is to remind them of the obvious, then I would have far less issue with it at the table. I can't say it would never get aggravating, but that would require sitting at your table to determine for certain. However, everything else you say seems that it really wants to take the majority of surprise out of the game. If the players are paying attention there will never be a time when they are caught off-guard, you have laid out every clue possible to point out to them what is dangerous and requires extra attention and what is simply window dressing that has no bearing on what they are doing. I find the idea of that mildly boring. I mean, I love puzzling things out as much as the next guy, and I'm sure you build a mean plot that will keep things moving, but some of my best memories of these games is the moment something I had no way of seeing show up and the scramble to solve it now. That seems harder to come across in a game where everything has been laid out for me to solve beforehand. That ignores some basic psychology though. See, if they rush forward and things bad things happen, they may look back and decide next time they aren't going to rush forward. They made a decision, there was immediate repercussions. This might change how they act in the future or act as character growth for them. If they rush forward, you stop them, tell them the consequences, suddenly they have a choice. Continue doing what they wanted to do, ignoring the potential consequences, or back off and think about it. They must confront this, because you have stopped them and gated their action behind a second decision set, and they must choose to either consider their actions or ignore the consequences. They can no longer just go forward, they must go forward after consciously weighing that they are willing to take the risks associated with that action. Fundamentally, you have taken control of their character and changed how they act, because you are determining they must slow down and consider the consequences. You are going to have to explain this to me. How is not telling the players the immediate consequences of their actions making analysis a focus of play and making them choose between being analytic and guessing what I have in mind? If a player wants to take time to study a situation, they can make that choice. IF they do not, they can make that choice. I'm not making anything a focus, I'm simply running the game and letting them make the decisions they want to make.</blockquote>

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