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Is this fair? -- your personal opinion
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<blockquote data-quote="Ourph" data-source="post: 3023010" data-attributes="member: 20239"><p>I wouldn't say it's player vs. <u>dm logic</u>, but it's definitely challenging the player to think about the world his character lives in. If there's a 99.999% chance that the lever doesn't have an instant death trap on it (i.e. 1 out of 100,000 levers in the world WILL have an instant death trap on it), does that mean you pull the lever with no precautions or does that mean you treat the 99,999 other levers the same way you would treat the 1 that's trapped with an instant death trap? Players who choose the former route shouldn't complain when their characters turn to a pile of dust. Especially when this particular trap is easily avoided by a number of easily accessible means, even at low level.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>What is the stat check, skill roll or saving throw for cleverness? As far as I know, the game doesn't have a mechanic that allows you to determine your characters <u>every action</u> based on a number on their character sheet or a dice roll. Do you roll an Int check for your character every time there's a choice to be made in game (do we go left or right at the intersection, do we fight the monster or run away, do we decide to sneak around the guards or fight them directly or attempt to bribe our way past them, do we pull the lever or let a summoned monster do it or just walk away) and allow the DM to decide for you based on whether you roll well or poorly? Unless you are doing exactly that you ARE pitting YOUR cleverness (not your character's) against the challenges the DM has set up.</p><p></p><p>There is no difference between all those decision you make for your character in every single game and the decisions the players were faced with in this scenario. The only difference is that, in some people's opinion, the consequences of making the wrong choice were too harsh.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>How is the game outlined by the scenario non-standard (except perhaps for the high Save DC of the trap)? The books seem to assume that characters can and will die during game play. They assume the PCs will occasionally meet challenges which are beyond their ability to defeat or circumvent. They assume that traps are a natural part of the game. They also seem to assume that choices such as "do we pull the lever" are something decided by the players and not by a roll of the dice or some other game mechanic. It seems to me that a game that eliminates the chance of dying because it's not heroic or fantastical (if we assume, for the moment that your assertion is true) is more nonstandard than the game described in Quasqueton's scenario.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The real strawman here is that the decision is arbitrary and doesn't involve skill. If you read through the thread you can see at least half a dozen ways the PC could (even at low level) find out what happens when you pull the lever without exposing themselves to any risk. The decision to pull the lever or not pull the lever or to have a PC pull the lever or move the lever in some other (safer) way is not arbitrary, it's part of the challenge of that particular trap. No one was forced to pull the lever. In fact, no one was even <u>encouraged</u> to pull the lever. The PCs made some unsupported assumptions about the relationship between the lever and the door and faced the consequences. You're not saying the danger should be fair, you're saying that the most obvious assumptions about a situation should always be the correct ones because that's "heroic". Not only do I disagree with your definition of "heroic", I also disagree with the assumption that obvious always equates to correct makes for a fun game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ourph, post: 3023010, member: 20239"] I wouldn't say it's player vs. [u]dm logic[/u], but it's definitely challenging the player to think about the world his character lives in. If there's a 99.999% chance that the lever doesn't have an instant death trap on it (i.e. 1 out of 100,000 levers in the world WILL have an instant death trap on it), does that mean you pull the lever with no precautions or does that mean you treat the 99,999 other levers the same way you would treat the 1 that's trapped with an instant death trap? Players who choose the former route shouldn't complain when their characters turn to a pile of dust. Especially when this particular trap is easily avoided by a number of easily accessible means, even at low level. What is the stat check, skill roll or saving throw for cleverness? As far as I know, the game doesn't have a mechanic that allows you to determine your characters [u]every action[/u] based on a number on their character sheet or a dice roll. Do you roll an Int check for your character every time there's a choice to be made in game (do we go left or right at the intersection, do we fight the monster or run away, do we decide to sneak around the guards or fight them directly or attempt to bribe our way past them, do we pull the lever or let a summoned monster do it or just walk away) and allow the DM to decide for you based on whether you roll well or poorly? Unless you are doing exactly that you ARE pitting YOUR cleverness (not your character's) against the challenges the DM has set up. There is no difference between all those decision you make for your character in every single game and the decisions the players were faced with in this scenario. The only difference is that, in some people's opinion, the consequences of making the wrong choice were too harsh. How is the game outlined by the scenario non-standard (except perhaps for the high Save DC of the trap)? The books seem to assume that characters can and will die during game play. They assume the PCs will occasionally meet challenges which are beyond their ability to defeat or circumvent. They assume that traps are a natural part of the game. They also seem to assume that choices such as "do we pull the lever" are something decided by the players and not by a roll of the dice or some other game mechanic. It seems to me that a game that eliminates the chance of dying because it's not heroic or fantastical (if we assume, for the moment that your assertion is true) is more nonstandard than the game described in Quasqueton's scenario. The real strawman here is that the decision is arbitrary and doesn't involve skill. If you read through the thread you can see at least half a dozen ways the PC could (even at low level) find out what happens when you pull the lever without exposing themselves to any risk. The decision to pull the lever or not pull the lever or to have a PC pull the lever or move the lever in some other (safer) way is not arbitrary, it's part of the challenge of that particular trap. No one was forced to pull the lever. In fact, no one was even [u]encouraged[/u] to pull the lever. The PCs made some unsupported assumptions about the relationship between the lever and the door and faced the consequences. You're not saying the danger should be fair, you're saying that the most obvious assumptions about a situation should always be the correct ones because that's "heroic". Not only do I disagree with your definition of "heroic", I also disagree with the assumption that obvious always equates to correct makes for a fun game. [/QUOTE]
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