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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 3041280" data-attributes="member: 22424">Referring to this post, where I wrote:Note: I have edited the above post, replacing the word "McGuffin" with the phrase "<whatever you want to protect>". I have done this because the OP uses the word "McGuffin" to refer to whatever the party went into the dungeon to retrieve, which is not the same thing as lies behind the secret door. Nonetheless, since it is a secret door, something lies behind it, and is being 'protected' by the door. So, the edits are to reduce confusion, but they do not alter the meaning of the post. (And this paragraph is to clarify the changes, so I'm not accused of trying to weasel out of what I said.)The response to which was:You say that, but you haven't named one unfounded assumption. Nor have you (or anyone else) provided a single reason why the original builder of the trap and the secret door would build these devices in the configuration given. I'm not talking about "how can there be no warnings?", or "how do the current inhabitants of the dungeon survive?"What I am asking is why the ORIGINAL builder of the complex would build THAT trap beside THAT door in THAT configuration, without thinking, just once, that it's a really bad idea to place a lever in an otherwise empty room to protect a 'secret' door.I can think of precisely one explanation: the entire complex was designed as some sort of twisted test of adventurers (indeed, the "Fighting Fantasy" gamebook "Deathtrap Dungeon" is about a complex of this very type). However, that can hardly be considered the norm. Surely, the default assumption has to be that a secret door exists to protect something, and you would therefore want to build in such a way as to provide the best possible protection?So, working from the assumption that you actually do want to protect whatever lies behind the secret door (rather than issue some sort of sick test to intruders), why would you believe that that was the best way to go, as opposed to any of the available (or even just the listed) alternatives?</blockquote>

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