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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 5235959" data-attributes="member: 55271">I choose to believe that Finch is slightly hyperbolistic in order to make his point. But for the most part, Finch is <a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/rules-rulings.html" target="_blank">kinda full of it</a>.I tend to believe that the optimal approach is a balance: Player skill can be used to replace or augment the die roll through the use of pre-description. (Pouring water on the floor? +5 bonus to your Search check for detecting a trap door. Rolling some marbles down the hall? You'll automatically detect the illusionary floor.) Conversely, there's nothing wrong with falling back onto the character's skill through a purely mechanical approach. ("I search the hall.") We do it all the time in combat. But in such circumstances it's valuable if the DM makes that skill use concrete through the use of post-description. ("I got a 23 on my Search check." "Okay, you pull out a couple ball bearings and roll 'em down the hall. They disappear through an illusionary floor.")Post-description will tend to encourage pre-description, and vice versa. There's no "one true way" to be found here. It's a matter of what works best at the table and in that moment.One of the interesting things about running in the style of Gygax and Arneson is that you have more than one shot at using the same material: Rooms will be re-visited on subsequent forays into the dungeon. Different players and/or different characters will come the same way.Running a game in this style can be quite liberating: You suddenly don't feel any pressure to "make sure they see the cool stuff". They missed the secret door? No problem. Either they'll find it later or somebody else will find it. (And when they do, the fact that they missed it the first time will make it even cooler.)Besides, players like to think they've pulled one over on the DM even when they haven't.</blockquote>

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