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On Skilled Play: D&D as a Game
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<blockquote data-quote="DemoMonkey" data-source="post: 8274093" data-attributes="member: 6803203"><p><em>I think things like the following are fun:</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Player "I go up and poke the chest in the otherwise empty room with my spear because its probably a mimic. If its not I will check the chest carefully for traps before opening it."</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>DM "OK, when you go up you trigger the concealed pit in front of the chest."</em></p><p></p><p>Ok, think that through. What are they going to do the time after that?</p><p></p><p>And when the pressure plate in from of the chest triggers the spear trap in the ceiling, what are they going to do after THAT?</p><p></p><p>All you are doing in that case is starting an arms race. This will result in one of two things; Paranoid timid pixel-bitching players, or (to borrow the apt term above) the Leroy Jenkins Effect. Where players just assume you are going to GOTCHA! them no matter what you do, so fine, just bring it and lets move on.</p><p></p><p>Skilled play needs to be meaningful; you need to assume at a certain point that they do all the obvious things, <strong>and</strong> that doing the obvious things works most of the time, and that non-obvious challenges are where you need to test them. And in order to test them, there has to be some element of the environment that you describe that would allow them to make a smart play (or not) or some circumstance that means they CAN'T do the SOP.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DemoMonkey, post: 8274093, member: 6803203"] [I]I think things like the following are fun: Player "I go up and poke the chest in the otherwise empty room with my spear because its probably a mimic. If its not I will check the chest carefully for traps before opening it." DM "OK, when you go up you trigger the concealed pit in front of the chest."[/I] Ok, think that through. What are they going to do the time after that? And when the pressure plate in from of the chest triggers the spear trap in the ceiling, what are they going to do after THAT? All you are doing in that case is starting an arms race. This will result in one of two things; Paranoid timid pixel-bitching players, or (to borrow the apt term above) the Leroy Jenkins Effect. Where players just assume you are going to GOTCHA! them no matter what you do, so fine, just bring it and lets move on. Skilled play needs to be meaningful; you need to assume at a certain point that they do all the obvious things, [B]and[/B] that doing the obvious things works most of the time, and that non-obvious challenges are where you need to test them. And in order to test them, there has to be some element of the environment that you describe that would allow them to make a smart play (or not) or some circumstance that means they CAN'T do the SOP. [/QUOTE]
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