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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RFisher" data-source="post: 3758775" data-attributes="member: 3608">Ever seen a DM refuse to even give hints at what the DC of a task might be even though the PC should have an inkling? Ever seen a DM enjoy smacking a PC whose player doesn't grasp the AoO rules with an AoO?An adversarial style is a mistake I've made in lots of different systems. GURPS didn't prevent me from doing it. Rolemaster didn't prevent me from doing it. Hârnmaster didn't prevent me from doing it. Hero didn't prevent me from doing it.3e didn't prevent me from doing it.They didn't even significantly counteract the amount by which I was killing the fun.It's something I had to learn to avoid. Whether it's warning a player up front that an action will provoke an AoO or giving players fair warning that they are entering save-or-die territory.Oddly enough, that trap was an integral part of one story I've heard about success against the Tomb of Horrors.No.Think of it like a text adventure (or Interactive Fiction if you prefer). Seldom does solving a puzzle in such an adventure require deep knowledge of any real-world subject. But with a TRPG, you don't have the "guess the verb" problem.(Although things like the "no fair warning" are perhaps analogs to the "guess the verb" problem.)An aside: You know, the opposite of this is what really disappointed me about the Carmen Sandiego games. I thought they'd have puzzles that required using the reference book that came with them to learn about the real-world. That would have been awesome. Instead, the reference book was just a lame copy-protection scheme.Back to the topic: In my experience, the persistant player is going to "win" 99.9% of the time anyway. We tend to heavily skew the odds in the PC's favor & just try to make it look otherwise. Heck, how often do you not even have to be very persistent?Yep. There it is again. I'd much rather address the "no fair warning" (or "too prevalent lack of fair warnings") problem itself than to accept it & adjust the rest of the game accordingly.(O_O)Personally, I'd rather convince everyone that openess makes the game better so that we don't need a deterrant. I prefer we discuss the how to resolve the situation rather than to mechanically apply written rules in the name of absolute fairness. I prefer it to people trying to score rules-knowledge victories.Yep. These issues are never as cut-&-dried as we'd like them to be. Trying to boil it down to "rule X is good" or "rule X is bad"--or even consensus on what "rule X" is ends up leaving out lots of important details.The reason these threads of yours are so good, Q, is that they get us figuring out what those details are. When we start to understand these things, it makes the game better no matter what system we're playing. At least, they do for me.</blockquote>

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