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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8936159" data-attributes="member: 82106">To kind of proceed from where [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] left off, there are some pretty typical ways that Map &amp; Key dungeon crawling can break down. The most common case is where the players end up 'pixel bitching' the environment. This is often a result of the GM who mistakenly believes that 'skilled play' demands a mercilessly unforgiving environment in which the players rapidly assume a defensive posture of exhaustively examining every rock, flagstone, patch of moss, etc. It can be avoided by logically placing the dangers in areas where they most make sense (IE you generally put traps at doors or choke points) and perhaps giving some clues or indications without the players need to intervene.An example of this was how used to play back in the early days in low level play. Really early on myself and a couple other players developed a routine which we called &quot;Sniff and Listen.&quot; At first this was just applied at doors, and literally consisted of listening and smelling and looking for traps. Later, as GMs insisted on punishing us with ear seekers and such nonsense, and trying to make nastier less obvious traps it was actually written down and became an elaborate procedure. It also got versions that applied to other situations besides doors. So at the start of a new game with a new GM we would HAND THE GM a couple page explanation of what the term Sniff and Listen entailed, including all the different safeguards, devices, and whatnot that would be used. Needless to say many DMs were fairly displeased by this development.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8936159, member: 82106"] To kind of proceed from where [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] left off, there are some pretty typical ways that Map & Key dungeon crawling can break down. The most common case is where the players end up 'pixel bitching' the environment. This is often a result of the GM who mistakenly believes that 'skilled play' demands a mercilessly unforgiving environment in which the players rapidly assume a defensive posture of exhaustively examining every rock, flagstone, patch of moss, etc. It can be avoided by logically placing the dangers in areas where they most make sense (IE you generally put traps at doors or choke points) and perhaps giving some clues or indications without the players need to intervene. An example of this was how used to play back in the early days in low level play. Really early on myself and a couple other players developed a routine which we called "Sniff and Listen." At first this was just applied at doors, and literally consisted of listening and smelling and looking for traps. Later, as GMs insisted on punishing us with ear seekers and such nonsense, and trying to make nastier less obvious traps it was actually written down and became an elaborate procedure. It also got versions that applied to other situations besides doors. So at the start of a new game with a new GM we would HAND THE GM a couple page explanation of what the term Sniff and Listen entailed, including all the different safeguards, devices, and whatnot that would be used. Needless to say many DMs were fairly displeased by this development. [/QUOTE]

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