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Real tale of Old School feel?
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<blockquote data-quote="Andre" data-source="post: 2450739" data-attributes="member: 25930"><p>Agreed. That said, I see two issues a GM has to consider in this regard.</p><p></p><p>One, the game still has to be fun. The example of drinking the brandy, failing a save, and losing the character is an example of "un-fun", IMO. There was too little information available to the characters to make a reasonable choice, other than to abstain completely from the food and drink - which wouldn't be much fun either. A GM in my group ran an very similar encounter for us (insane wizard, wizard's tower that was alive, and so on). The food and drink also did strange things, but nothing permanent. When a couple characters changed gender, one grew a foot taller, another changed color...it was a blast. All the effects also wore off in a day. If the GM had permanently killed off a couple characters that way, he'd (rightly) have had a revolt on his hands.</p><p></p><p>Two, the players still have to be able to make reasonable choices. Note, I say players, not characters. D&D is a game for players. If things "just happen", even if the GM knows exactly what's going on, players can quickly feel disconnected from the game. The easier it is for players to grasp the rules of the GM's world, the easier it is for the characters to be played well. The more divorced the GM's world is from our own expectations, the more arbitrary it feels, the more difficult it is for players to make intelligent choices. </p><p></p><p>Let me be clear: I'm *not* saying worlds shouldn't have a sense of wonder to them, that everything has to make sense, that there should be no mystery. Quite the opposite. All of those elements should be present. But just like eating nothing but dessert grows old, a good module/campaign is mostly meat-n-potatoes, with just enough wonder, whimsy, and imagination to be special.</p><p></p><p>Of course, if the GM is running a one-shot adventure, all bets are off. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Andre, post: 2450739, member: 25930"] Agreed. That said, I see two issues a GM has to consider in this regard. One, the game still has to be fun. The example of drinking the brandy, failing a save, and losing the character is an example of "un-fun", IMO. There was too little information available to the characters to make a reasonable choice, other than to abstain completely from the food and drink - which wouldn't be much fun either. A GM in my group ran an very similar encounter for us (insane wizard, wizard's tower that was alive, and so on). The food and drink also did strange things, but nothing permanent. When a couple characters changed gender, one grew a foot taller, another changed color...it was a blast. All the effects also wore off in a day. If the GM had permanently killed off a couple characters that way, he'd (rightly) have had a revolt on his hands. Two, the players still have to be able to make reasonable choices. Note, I say players, not characters. D&D is a game for players. If things "just happen", even if the GM knows exactly what's going on, players can quickly feel disconnected from the game. The easier it is for players to grasp the rules of the GM's world, the easier it is for the characters to be played well. The more divorced the GM's world is from our own expectations, the more arbitrary it feels, the more difficult it is for players to make intelligent choices. Let me be clear: I'm *not* saying worlds shouldn't have a sense of wonder to them, that everything has to make sense, that there should be no mystery. Quite the opposite. All of those elements should be present. But just like eating nothing but dessert grows old, a good module/campaign is mostly meat-n-potatoes, with just enough wonder, whimsy, and imagination to be special. Of course, if the GM is running a one-shot adventure, all bets are off. :) [/QUOTE]
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