Is this fair? -- your personal opinion

[Raven Crowking]

So, if they didn't look for traps, then it would be unfair? It's fair because they searched for traps?

No. That they looked for traps establishes a priori that there were conditions in the dungeon which led the group to believe that a trap was either possible or likely. Therefore, any posit which requires that the dungeon complex somehow does not get the PCs to the point of thinking a trap possible or likely fails to meet the requirements of the OP.

In other words, if your argument relies a priori on the idea that a trap in this room is preposterous, it fails to meet the minimal standards of the original post.

This is exactly the same, btw, as if I claimed that the trap was fair because it teleported, rather than killed, the monk. We are told that the monk was killed; we are told that the rogue checked for traps.

The fact that the rogue checked for traps means one of the following was true:

(A) The PCs had sufficient information to suspect that there was a trap. Since all real-world analysis suggests this, and since it requires no play style assumptions, this is a pretty solid possibility.

(B) The PCs had sufficient information to suspect that anything might be a trap based upon play style. This is possible, but (1) requires play style assumptions, and (2) still means that the likelihood of a trap was high enough to warrent further investigation.

(C) This rogue just randomly checks things for traps. This is possible, but again requires play style assumptions. That the OP states that the monk (presumably the character with the highest saves in most or all categories) pulls the lever indicates the unliklihood of this. In fact, that the PCs choose this character to pull the lever indicates that they knew it was likely that they missed a trap. Again, even so, the fact that the rogue checks the lever for traps is sufficient evidence that the possibility has occurred to the PCs (even if from random chance).

It would, of course, help if Quas clarified this matter. Again, though, the only scenarios which are absolutely thrown out by the series of events described in the OP are those in which it never occurs to the players that the lever might be trapped or be a trap.

RC

 

[ThirdWizard]

So, then, to rephrase it. If the rogue didn't check for traps, we wouldn't know if it were fair or not?

I still say you are making the assumption that the party has experience with traps that aren't going to be bypassed by Search/Disable, the main methods of adventurers to bypass traps given in the RAW. If the party isn't used to traps that require extra-ordinary means to bypass, then there is absolutely no reason for them to tie a rope to it. The thought simply will not occur to them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So, then, to rephrase it. If the rogue didn't check for traps, we wouldn't know if it were fair or not?

No.

Of course, if we ignore enough of the original post, sooner or later we'll get to a point where the trap becomes unfair because the monk simply dies. I avoided mentioning the a priori assumption earlier because it isn't needed. The only reason I mentioned it at all was to demonstrate the level of reaching Someone was doing to ignore the conditions of the OP, and that the playstyle assumptions being made by Someone simply didn't apply.

I still say you are making the assumption that the party has experience with traps that aren't going to be bypassed by Search/Disable, the main methods of adventurers to bypass traps given in the RAW. If the party isn't used to traps that require extra-ordinary means to bypass, then there is absolutely no reason for them to tie a rope to it. The thought simply will not occur to them.

I didn't suggest the rope; I suggested 1st level divination spells. Which exist for a reason.

Removing the a priori considerations:

(A) That the lever is potentially dangerous is based upon a rational train of thought that only requires real-world considerations to be taken into account.

(B) The (exhaustive) discussion of the nature of traps requires only real-world considerations to be taken into account.

(C) That the lever can be trapped, and that the trap might not be found by our particular rogue Taking 20, are both inherent assumptions of the Core Rules, requiring no adjudication of play style to be true.

and let's add:

(D) While Search/Disable are presented in the Core Rules, and may even be presented in the Core Rules as "the main methods of adventurers to bypass traps" they are certainly not presented as the only means, nor are they presented as infallible. In fact, spells like find traps explicitly exist for just this purpose.

A given playstyle may ameliorate the foregoing considerations, but unless you take playstyle into account, that is what you are left with. Which explains very clearly why every theory that results in this being unfair requires some other unfair condition to exist a priori.

 

[Someone]

Either the current inhabitants were the original inhabitants or they were not. This is simply tautologically true. Yet for you this is somehow "more and more far fetched"?

Yes, because it requires additional assumptions. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem; if the milk in a dish dissapeared and you have a cat, there´s no need to posit the existence of a second cat or a milk fairy. In the same way, a moronic builder´s existence is simpler than the existence of said moronic builder and a tribe of orcs who go great lenghts to make the trapped room appear as they are.

In any event, what you are calling "ad-hoc hypothesis" are examples that demonstrate the flaws of your initial assumption (that the builder must be moronic). There are, literally, thousands of ways in which the complex could logically contain the trap as described -- and your line of reasoning works only if all of them are untrue.

Since you obviously don´t know what an ad-hoc hypothesis is, and this thread´s purpose isn´t to enlighten anyone, I´ll abstain from further commenting on that, at least until I replace the keyboard.

A moronic builder is not necessary.

It´s the most likely and rational explanation in abscense of more evidence, though, the same way that if you see IRL hoof tracks you think on horses, not centaurs.

Not only have you failed to demonstrate a rational train of thought that leads to that concludion, but the evidence is conclusive -- the trap worked.

How can you possibly think that? The party got the McGuffin!

A game that doesn't challenge me to think is not a game I would want to play in. Period.

This game isn´t challenging: It just requires spending a lot of time testing every possible danger in any possible way. It´s as challenging and boring as putting a puzzle together by brute force: does this piece fit? No, next piece. Fits? No, next piece...

Sure, but you are presupposing that the purpose of every trap is to alert you to intruders or to kill intruders as they enter your home. Not only is this a dangerous assumption (as the monk learned in the OP), but it is an incorrect assumption (as mousetraps, bear traps, wiretaps, and all sorts of other security measures demonstrate more than amply).

Mousetraps don´t kill mice? You must have sturdy mice over there. And for god´s sake, the lever disintegrated the monk. I think that´s quite aggresive; even nasty, if you allow me. I´d say that the trap´s purpose was to kill, judging by what was left of the monk.

Please quote from the OP how the dungeon is built.

The party got the McGuffing before finding the lever. Therefore they didn´t have the opportunity to interact with the lever before accomplishing their goal.

Taken in isolation, the trap is obvious. If you assume, instead, that the trap is part of a "fair" complex (rather than simply assuming it is there for no reason, which is a condition not existent in the OP), then it is perhaps even more obvious.

They cleared the dungeon, and the lever-pulling monk is alive. Big clue that says us that the dungeon wasn´t so tough after all, in fact less tougher than the deadly lever.

Which, agreed, makes this less than ideal as a trap...but a trap which, I would argue, as a direct result of being less ideal is also more fair.

Great insight on your way of thinking. But, have you even read what I´ve been writing in this thread?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Not at all. When asking if something is unfair, one assumes that we are talking about some form of objective analysis. The OP does not ask, "Is this unfair in your campaign? One can easily imagine that something is unfair within the context of a particular group dynamic but this does not make it unfair in and of itself.

"DM is giving a setup the PCs have seen hundreds of times that was relatively safe with a few precautions" is a playstyle assumption. There is no assumption inherent in the OP, and it is safer therefore to follow the assumption that you do not know the playstyle and act accordingly.

The quality of your arguments have descended from presumption built upon subjective personal opinion and pure speculation...to utter gibberish.

So it is the old One True Way of gaming argument, not merely because your style is better, but because it is objectively correct.

 

[ThirdWizard]

A given playstyle may ameliorate the foregoing considerations, but unless you take playstyle into account, that is what you are left with. Which explains very clearly why every theory that results in this being unfair requires some other unfair condition to exist a priori.

Nope. Your oppinion is obviously biased by your previous experiences in gaming. I see no way to debate with you if you will not agree with me on this point.

 

[Someone]

I just remembered a great quote from Wulf´s story hour:

"Ach... right. Right." Wulf blinked. "Look, see, I'm havin' trouble thinking of so much as one possible reason that we would want to open up a sealed pit in the middle of a vampire's tower."

"You know. Treasure?"

"Right. So, ahh, the lid is clamped down to keep the treasure from walking away?"

"Look, this is what adventurers do, okay? We pull the levers marked 'Do Not Pull,' we open the doors that say 'Do Not Enter'..."

 

[Lanefan]

I think I start to see your position. Adventurers are mice to you. If you like to put them in a maze to measure their IQ or just to amuse yourself, I don´t know yet. No, you shouldn´t compare adventurers to mice, but to intruders to your home. In this case, you´re putting the alarm not on the windows or the main door, but connected to a bathroom you rarely use. You see, if a robber enters your home, he could want to take a shower!

But you still to miss the point, despite having repeated it several times. Given how the dungeon is built there´s absolutely no reason to suspect that such a trap could be present –and please, spare us the speculations on orc burial customs-. The only reason to suspect that the trap could hold such a trap, beyond the ability of the rogue and more advanced than whatever else they’ve found in the dungeon, is to metagame that, since it´s a lever, it´s likely that it has a very dangerous trap and/or proceed with paranoid care.

The scenario also has no gaming redeeming qualities: it requires caution for it´s own sake; it´s not innovative in any way, or rewards the adventurers for thinking logically but to approach new situations with a mechanic, algorithmic, slow approach and discard their assumed personalities instead of acting in character, act dynamically or use logic. It´s, in a nutshell, designed to keep the mice dancing.

You need to play through some old modules - A1-A4, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Lost Temple of Tharizdun, Quest for the Heartstone, White Plume Mtn. - and learn that yes indeed, death *does* wait in the most unlikely of places and for the most unlikely of reasons...and just get used to it.

The lever trap sounds like it could easily have come from any of those adventures, though I suspect that in fact it did not.

Lanefan

 

[Raven Crowking]

Yes, because it requires additional assumptions. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem; if the milk in a dish dissapeared and you have a cat, there´s no need to posit the existence of a second cat or a milk fairy.

You have a builder. That you assume the builder is "moronic" is a non sequitur, an argument where the conclusion is drawn from premises which aren't logically connected with it.

I would also say that several of your previous statements fall under the ad hoc fallacy:

If we're interested in establishing A, and B is offered as evidence, the statement "A because B" is an argument. If we're trying to establish the truth of B, then "A because B" is not an argument, it's an explanation. The Ad Hoc fallacy is to give an after-the-fact explanation which doesn't apply to other situations. Often this ad hoc explanation will be dressed up to look like an argument.​

Until you have established that you have a cat, said cat has no power as evidence. Until you establish that the builder is moronic, you are simply adjusting the facts to meet your ad hoc assumption.

1. You assume the trap is moronic,
2. Therefore, whoever built the trap was moronic.

Without a line of rational thinking that demonstrates (1), (2) is meaningless.

OTOH, the examples I am providing are not necessary cases for the trap to not be moronic. They are simply examples that demonstate that the first premise (1) is not conclusive. It is as though you were claiming that you had the cat without any evidence that the cat exists.

Your argument for the builder being a moron requires that a previous assumption (the trap is moronic) be true. Your argument is, in effect, "It is unproven that there is a good reason for this trap to exist, therefore no good reason exists."

In other words, argumentum ad ignorantiam.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam means "argument from ignorance." The fallacy occurs when it's argued that something must be true, simply because it hasn't been proved false. Or, equivalently, when it is argued that something must be false because it hasn't been proved true.​

The existence of A is simpler than the existence of A + B, so long as circumstances do not make A + B necessary, in accordance with Occam's Razor, but there are again two things we must guard against:

(1) The presumption of A. We know that a builder exists. By making the claim that the existence of a builder implies the existence of a moronic builder, you hide and attempt to confuse your base assumptions.

The principle of Audiatur et Altera Pars is that all of the premises of an argument should be stated explicitly. It's not strictly a fallacy to fail to state all of your assumptions; however, it's often viewed with suspicion.​

(2) Mistaking Occam's Razor for proof. Simply because you have a cat, one cannot conclude definitely that your cat drank the milk.

You conclude that the trap cannot be effective because "The party got the McGuffin!" but again your logic fails on two points:

(1) The assumption that the purpose of the trap was to prevent the party from getting the McGuffin, and

(2) The assumption that, when the lever was pulled, the monk's death was the only thing that happened.

Neither one of these assumptions can be rationally inferred from the original post.

You are also guilty of Argumentum ad hominem, literally "argument directed at the man,"

If you refuse to accept a statement, and justify your refusal by criticizing the person who made the statement, then you are guilty of abusive argumentum ad hominem.

This is a fallacy because the truth of an assertion doesn't depend on the virtues of the person asserting it.

It's not always invalid to refer to the circumstances of an individual who is making a claim. If someone is a known perjurer or liar, that fact will reduce their credibility as a witness. It won't, however, prove that their testimony is false in this case. It also won't alter the soundness of any logical arguments they may make.​

and shifting the burden of proof.

The burden of proof is always on the person asserting something. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise.​

The assertation is that the trap is unfair, made long before I posted. I simply deny the assertation, and point out the flaws with the "proofs" thus far offered.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

The quality of your arguments have descended from presumption built upon subjective personal opinion and pure speculation...to utter gibberish.

So it is the old One True Way of gaming argument, not merely because your style is better, but because it is objectively correct.

Argumentum ad hominem, literally "argument directed at the man,"

If you refuse to accept a statement, and justify your refusal by criticizing the person who made the statement, then you are guilty of abusive argumentum ad hominem.

This is a fallacy because the truth of an assertion doesn't depend on the virtues of the person asserting it.

It's not always invalid to refer to the circumstances of an individual who is making a claim. If someone is a known perjurer or liar, that fact will reduce their credibility as a witness. It won't, however, prove that their testimony is false in this case. It also won't alter the soundness of any logical arguments they may make.​