Is this fair? -- your personal opinion

[Brian Gibbons]

If this is a campaign where only an idiot pulls an obvious lever, then this is fair.

If this is a campaign where the GM expects players to follow his lead, investigate clues and jump at plot hooks, then this was a really stupid thing for him to do.

I have played in campaigns where half the fun was outsmarting the module, where it was common to passwall through walls instead of using the door and taking the obvious path was sneered at. In that kind of campaign, pulling an obvious lever without taking a half-dozen dfferent precautions means you deserve whatever is coming.

On the other hand, I have played in campaigns where not pulling the lever means that you don't find the secret dungeon with the imprisoned elven princess that the GM was counting on to lead into the next adventure, where you assume that the rogue is always taking 10 on Search while he walks down the corridor because all that time investigating every 5' square of empty floor is time that could be spent on more fun activities.

The issue isn't fair or unfair, it's what kind of campaign the GM wants to run and what kind of campaign the players were expecting.

If the GM wants to run the kind of campaign where no one investigates further after they have the MacGuffin and spends five minutes at every door before opening it, he emphasized his desires quite explicitly. If that actually isn't the type of campaign he wants to run, he certainly sent the wrong message.

 

[T. Foster]

Levers have disintergate traps in my game, but normally I at least throw the characters a bone, like it is possible to detect, or there is some clue like a pile of dust with maybe a few surviving bones next to it, etc.

We don't know that the trap wasn't possible to detect, only that the characters in the OP didn't detect it. For all we know a find traps spell or a wand of secret door and trap detection, or perhaps even a simple detect magic spell would've detected the trap (or, in the latter case, that the lever was somehow magicked, which should be enough to make any reasonable player suspicious and cautious). (Plus, as mentioned previously, in OD&D/1E (which are the games I play, and thus the games I tend to think in terms of when responding to ostensibly edition-neutral questions like this one) thieves can't detect magic traps and there's no such thing as Taking 20, so as a player I'd never be confident that there wasn't a trap somewhere (especially somewhere that I was suspicious about there likely being a trap) just because the party's best trap-sniffer said he didn't detect one.)

This one there is no in game reason for a character (not a player) to think there is a trap on the lever. Unless every lever in the dungeon has been trapped perviously or some other reason that isn't availble from the discription provided at the start.

With out some in character reason to think there is a trap why should they take any precautions and try and out smart it?

I don't follow the logic here. Why would a character be any less suspicious than a player? Because the player knows that random levers in dungeons tend to be dangerous (especially ones found way in the back of the dungeon in otherwise empty rooms) but the character (who does this sort of thing for a living and whose life depends on it) doesn't? If anything I'd think the character would have reason to be a lot more cautious and suspicious than the player. My reasons as a player for suspecting a trap aren't based on "metagame" knowledge, they're based on exactly the same line of reasoning I would employ were I actually in such a situation (i.e. were I a character rather than a player). That's the way I approach the game -- I project my mind into my character's situation and try to decide what I would do were I in that character's situation.

Are you seriously suggesting that PC's should pull every door in the dungeon open at the end of a 50ft length of rope or burn through scrolls of Telekinesis to pull every lever and open every door? Should they levitate down every corridor just incase the next 5ft has an undetectable trap?

Of course not. Because most doors and corridors (especially ones that have traffic going in and out -- which is something that should be apparent to a reasonably cautious set of PCs) aren't going to be trapped. Levers are a little more of a borderline case -- as I mentioned in a previous post, if I come across a lever in a dungeon and don't know what will happen if I pull it, I'm almost always not going to pull it unless I have no other options (and the PCs in the OP did have at least one other option -- go home with the macguffin, like they'd originally planned to). But when I do come across something that seems likely to be trapped (and the situation described in the OP definitely would've seemed to me like something likely to be trapped) yes, I'll take precautions and, if it isn't something crucial to my mission (as the situation in the OP wasn't -- they'd already recovered the macguffin) more than likely I'll just leave it alone.

That's the way I've played the game for years, and that's honest-to-goodness what's fun to me -- knowing that the DM was trying to kill my character but I was clever and cautious enough that I managed to survive, and even prosper; that I took all the necessary risks but no unnecessary ones; that I accomplished my mission and avoided getting distracted by red herrings (and maybe, just maybe, that some other players weren't as lucky or clever as me -- but that's not something that's usually admitted out loud ). This sort of may not sound like fun to other folks, and in that case all I can say is that it's probably for the best that we're not playing at the same table. But even so I'd hope the hobby would be big enough for both approaches -- that Tomb of Horrors and Dragonlance can both exist, and both find an appreciative audience, and that we could focus on the common-ground rather than the differences.

 

[pawsplay]

Yep. My way of challenging Players is to figure out when to use the Search skill, which this has only showed them is a useless thing to do.

Also, my character will die before I metagame.

I just don't see the metagaming argument. If I were Bob the Elf, and I found a secret door and an obious lever, I would not pull it until I had some clue what it did. What if it's the "release the Kraken!" lever or something?

Or, for that matter, what if it opens a secret treasure stash? Most likely, it was specifically designed to deal with casual intruders.

"Should this trap exist?" is one question. That would really depend on the context. "Does the monk's player have a right to be outraged?" is another, and the answer is no. Save or no, he had good reason to suspect pulling the lever was a really bad idea. He's just lucky it wasn't a Lever Golem imbued with one use of trap the soul.

 

[T. Foster]

Personally, I would MUCH rather have a trap that's as easily avoidable as this one with some reasonable player choices rather than one where I'm left with little choice as to whether I actually activate it or not and a reasonable save DC. I would much rather my character's welfare rest with my decision-making ability as a player than a random roll of the dice.

In my opinion, if you're making the saving throw you've already screwed up. The way to avoid death isn't to have a high save bonus and roll well, the way to avoid death is to not put yourself in the position of making the saving throw in the first place.

QFT.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

At that point, it could have been a trap that disintegrated you even then. The key is that the DC was absurd. .

Any save at all is a bonus, and not at all required by the dm.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Any save at all is a bonus, and not at all required by the dm.

What is required by/of the DM?

EDIT: By the way, just for the record, I totally and completely disagree with the sentiment of your statement in its totality. A DM who killed my character without a save won't be my DM for long, and I wouldn't expect to have many Players if I ever pulled that anywhere.

 

[silentspace]

I still don't get how this is any different from having a regular door, or section of floor trapped. The rogue actually searches for traps, but doesn't find one. He steps on it, and poof. Because it's a lever and not a door you should waste detect magics and summon monster spells? Because that's what the pro-trap arguments seem to boil down to: it was a lever, for crying out loud! Of course it's trapped!

 

[ThirdWizard]

I just don't see the metagaming argument.

silentspace just did a nice job of summing up the metagame argument nicely. Oohhh a lever, the DM must have put a trap there!

 

[Quasqueton]

And now, I'm very curious to know:

When you posted this scenario, did you have any particular opinion as to whether it was fair or unfair?

Has the subsequent discussion done anything to alter your view?

Has the discussion gone the way you thought it would, and has it been useful to you?

Yes, I had an opinion.

No, the discussion here has not altered my view.

The discussion has gone the way most threads here do -- it has become an argument that some/many people want to win, rather than a discussion to understand. The first page was good and insightful, but it soon thereafter turned to an absurd argument.

When participants in a discussion start using hyperbole and strawmen, any potential for understanding gets buried in the bullcrap.

Quasqueton

 

[Hussar]

Any save at all is a bonus, and not at all required by the dm.

Yeah, I'm with ThirdWizard on this one. This attitude wasn't all that much fun when I was 13 and played this way. I certainly don't do it now.

DM: Bang, you're dead.
Player: What?
DM: The great flaming booger of the gods fell on you, you're dead.
Player: .... You're kidding right.
DM: Nope. You were walking down the corridor and SPLAT! You die.
Player: Not even a saving throw?
DM: Nope. I'm the DM. I don't have to give you a saving throw.
Player: Well, I'm the player. I don't have to play.