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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6100091" data-attributes="member: 4937">It's not necessarily a strong assumption that a module is more secret from the players than is recommended by the Burning THAC0 pdf.  It was the interior of a module that was deemed secret and the reason modules were shrink wrapped.  It wasn't strongly assumed that players couldn't see the front cover or read the back blurb and many would have been familiar with the product from the blurb product catalog, and at least known the title of the module (which in many cases was a blurb itself).  In fact, some DMs did show players this much in order to obtain permission from the players for running the module, as in, "Is this something you think your characters would do?" or "Is this something you are interested in as a player?"  A DM in a long running campaign probably just isn't going to assume the players go to the Tomb of Horrors.   He's going to in some fashion obtain their permission to frame the scene.  What's important about Burning THAC0 is it does assume some degree of secret knowledge is best ("You don't have to reveal every twist and secret"), usage of the maps in some cases, preplanned encounters, a predictable and therefore roughly linear plot, etc. This is get really silly.  D&D telegraphs the stakes to, "Fantastic treasure or horrible doom await!  Step on up!"  And how many D&D groups have been hooked by appealing to the characters idealism, "Innocents are endangered!  My Paladin just can't stand by, we must make haste to Durbinshire!"Yes, but Burning THACO has moved out of that canonical mode into a new equally valid mode.  It's still BW, but its got a list of monsters in the module discussed as an appendix.  Remember the goal here is to capture old school feel.  It does that not mostly by changing mechanics, but mostly by changing the approach to play.Ok, sure, but I'm not saying that you need to make these alterations.   Keep the 3 volleys, and its still going to play like D&D.   My point was just how minor the mechanical differences really were between BW and various editions of D&D.   And as far as simultaneous secret declaration goes, the 'strike when they're not defending' is as applicable in shorter volleys as it is in longer.  It's an aspect of 'secret simultaneous' and not of '3'.</blockquote>

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