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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bawylie" data-source="post: 7296328" data-attributes="member: 6776133">Well, I try to foreshadow that stuff in the setup or just prior to the encounter. Just an easy example, but if I’m going to have ghouls or whatever, I described chewed and gnawed bits littering the area before they get there and maybe some graves that have been bust open from the inside. (I don’t actually know from vegepygmies, so I can’t suggest anything). Remember the ecology entry from AD&D’s Monster Manual? That was always useful to me for this exact reason. ——Now, re the locked door:I’m more forgiving on questions than [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] is, I think. Where a question can reasonably be interpreted as shorthand for an action, I assume the action (of course my players understand this beforehand). So something like “How hurt is that guy?” is reasonably construed to be “Im looking over this person for signs of obvious injury.” Ok? No need to play with proper form there. But when we get to something like “Is the door locked?” I respond with “What do you do to find that out?” Because I generally don’t want to assume player actions, particularly when the consequences might matter. It could be open, locked, trapped, or some ambush on the other side. The player doesn’t know and what they do can affect what happens next. They have to be the actor, so the question “is it locked” isn’t sufficient. Hand in hand with that (players take actions and must live with the consequences), I try to resolve any ambiguities in the players’ favor. If a situation wasn’t clear and led to a bad decision, there’s a pretty good chance I didn’t make it clear enough. Tying it altogether. You run into some burst open graves and some gnawed body parts. Ambushing you with ghouls somewhere down the line is now fair game. You get to a door and ask if it’s locked. Well, ghouls are waiting in ambush on the other side! I won’t assume your question is an action. I ask instead what you do to find out if it’s locked. Anyway, that’s how I try to roll. A lot of the stuff I do works in conjunction with other stuff I do. It’s maybe overthinking it, but it works for me. And it really helps my dungeons. Man people complain about rust monsters! But when you find a couple of tool handles minus the tools, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. -Brad</blockquote>

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