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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3034635" data-attributes="member: 2067">While both accurate, this boils into the metagame consideration of what kind of characters you want to encourage.If their deaths can come out of left field, undetectable and unsurvivable (or virutally so), you breed paranoid characters who will use elaborate survival tactics on seemingly inoccuous things as well as on truly dangerous things because they cannot reliably tell the difference.If they can reliably detect and/or survive traps, you breed characters for whom traps are a threat but not a game-breaking one. They will take chances based on their information, and those chances may pay off or they may not, but they feel confident in taking those chances.When faced with an adventure, I would much rather my PC's GO ADVENTURE than stay on the dirt farm for another year.When faced with a challence, I would much rather my PC's ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE than shy away from it.When faced with a lever, I would much rather my PC'S PULL THE LEVER than leave it alone.Because that is part of what hereos do, and I feel that it very much encourages a heroic game when the PC's go on adventures, face challenges, and pull levers. That's why their heroes and adventurers and not dirt farmers. That's why they're a cut above the NPC's. This doesn't mean that they will always win their adventures, succeed in their challenges, or not activate traps by pulling levers, but it does mean that they won't fear defeat from every adventure, every challenge, or every lever -- they will BRAVE the unknown, not FEAR it. And to me, that is a very strong way to support a heroic game. I'm under the impression that most D&D games strive for a heroic feel (hence the d20 mechanic and alignment and feats and 4d6-drop-the-lowest ability score generation and level advancement), rather than a feel of constant fear and suspicion. While it is not safe to assume that what you can't see is not there or won't kill you, the descision to face the fear anyway is what makes D&D worth playing to me, and, I would argue, to the majority of players (given the way the game's rules encourage it). Thus, punishing someone for being a brave hero by killing them and calling them rash and roll-playing and proposing that they want to steamroll the BBEG seems unfair in most circumstances.It also comes to the "absurdly paranoid of invisible pink unicorns" scenario. Fear of invisible pink unicorns is no more rational than fear of levers, but you can easily make PC's deathly affraid of both by making them undetectable and deadly.Once again the PC's in the above scenario DID take precautions against the trap.These precautions were just ineffective.Like scentless, SI-immune deadly pink unicorns.</blockquote>

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