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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7955571" data-attributes="member: 29398">I see "points of light" as being more the remaining outposts of decent civilization in a world going wild, but the same general idea applies.Both as player and DM I love dungeons like this!  In fact, one of the few of my own modules I've ever put together into vaguely-publishable form is just like this: completely random stuff that makes no sense whatsoever until and unless (it's not at all guaranteed) the PCs figure out the underlying reason for it all.Also, there's not that many of them.  Judges Guild put out a few doozies but I'm not completely sure whether they were supposed to be entirely taken seriously or not.  A couple of others e.g. EX-1 and 2 were intentionally supposed to be wacko.  After those, most things I've found to be more or less explainable.Because, as I said earlier, the world is out to get you.  Be careful, and take the time to search.Obviously.  Some things have to be learned by trial and error; and the first time a cockatrice turns someone to stone the rest of the party will learn about 'em real fast!  (that said, it'd be a truly nasty DM who didn't have the party meet just one the first time)Probably the nastiest trick I've used along these lines is the Magic-User Medusa whose favourite trick was to cast Invisibility on herself, wait until a PC got close to her, and then suddenly appear in front of said PC as her snakes attacked with surprise.... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f608.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":devilish:" title="Devil    :devilish:"  data-smilie="29"data-shortname=":devilish:" />Death, particularly in the modern editions, is the biggest risk a character can face; and thus if death isn't threatened one can argue the challenge is reduced greatly.  And this is why these debates always end up revolving around lethality: the other major risks are all gone.In older editions you could also threaten level loss, item loss, limb loss, and so forth; meaning death didn't have to be the only major risk.I thoroughly disagree that this change has bettered the game.I'd far rather see the PCs become heroes through play, rather than start there before play even begins.</blockquote>

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