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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7054610" data-attributes="member: 42582">I find this example strange.The GM has, somehow or other (eg by way of dungeon design; by way of rolling on a random table; etc), framed the PCs into a situation in which there is a "rotating, rusting mechanical portal". However, the GM hasn't told the players that entering into the portal will be fatal. One of the players now declares that his/her PC sticks his/her head into it - presumably by way of investigation. But the GM is expected to somehow be hesitant in responding to that action declaration?If the GM didn't want PCs to die investigating the portal, then it seems a mistake to have set up the situation in the first place.Fairly recently, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?510873-Played-AD-amp-D-yesterday-(using-Appendix-A-for-a-random-dungeon)" target="_blank">I ran an AD&D session</a>, and (as a result of the random dungeon generation table I was using) had to place a "trick" in an otherwise empty room. So I described a magical glowing portal in the ceiling. The players decided that their PCs would ignore it. I don't recall, now, what idea I had in mind for it if they did play around with it - but I certainly wouldn't have had them die. Equally certainly, I wouldn't have (i) decided that it is a death trap, and then (ii) tried to discourage the PCs from investigating it in a fashion that risked their death.Gygax addresses as similar issue on page 9 of his DMG:The final word, then, is the game. Read how and why the system is as if is, follow the parameters, and then cut portions as needed to maintain excitement. For example, the rules call for wandering monsters, but these can be not only irritating - if not deadly - but the appearance of such can actually spoil a game by interfering with an orderly expedition. . . . [T]he group has worked hard to supply themselves with everything by way of information and equipment they will need. . . . But lo!, everytime you throw the "monster die" a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party's strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. Spells expended, battered and wounded, the characters trek back to their base. Expectations have been dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die. No, don’t allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game.Using slightly more technical terminology, Gygax is advising the GM to carefully manage the introduction of content into the shared fiction. Don't put stuff in that won't conduce to a fun game. And he also says that it would be contrary to the major precepts of the game to first put stuff in, but then manipulate outcomes so that it doesn't cause problems.I think this is good advice, and applicable in playstyles that are otherwise quite different from the sort of classic dungeoneering that Gygax had in mind.Well, the classic sandbox was a dungeon, which has levels that segregate monsters by degree of power; and wandering monster tables that do a similar thing for random encounters.Also, in the classic dungeon there is generally no assumption that creatures encountered are automatically hostile. There are reaction tables, and racial or alignment-based conflict penalises reactions but (with some exceptions for specific creatures) doesn't dictate it.So the general idea is that, in a dungeon, the players will feel the full consequences of their actions, but these will be (more-or-less) level appropriate. And if the 2nd level PCs venture to the 4th dungeon level in pursuit of richer treasures, well then the players have taken onto themselves the risk of stirring up more than they can handle.Once it becomes common to play the game in less contrived settings than those classic dungeons - with populated lands, rulers with armies at their command, etc - then the idea of splitting the setting, and hence the consequences, into level-appropriate chunks becomes trickier. It can be done - eg     [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] did this in his 4e-based sandbox game. And because there were no dungeon levels to send the signals, he just told his players what level different areas were, so they could choose how much risk they wanted to take with their PCs.But some of the difficulties of combining sandbox precepts with a level-based game set in a non-contrived world help explain why, from the early-to-mid 80s, the mainstream of D&D play shifted from Gygax amd Moldvay-style dungeon/sandbox to more GM-driven Dragonlance "high adventure" style. 2nd ed A&D then cemented this shift, making the  Dragonlance-style GM-driven game the clear default.It's also not a coincidence that other late-70s games that are aimed (at least in part) at sandbox play - like RQ and Traveller - aren't level based, and so don't feel the need to send signals about what is or is not a viable opponent quite so clearly as D&D requires. And those games also have other devices - eg world law levels in Traveller; social connections that are part of PC building and development in RQ - that mitigate against the PCs just wandering the land upsetting enemies who can then destroy them without fear of retribution. (Which is not to deny that those systems have their own issues, the main one being lethality of combat in games that - via both rules for PC building and rules for action resolution - seem to envisage combat being a major part of the game.)</blockquote>

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