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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 8106393" data-attributes="member: 12731">That's far too simplistic and dismissive IMHO. The Alexandrian puts far too much weight behind individual paragraphs, and he's not alone.In reality we have &quot;show, don't tell&quot;.Early adventures for a game line have a FAR higher impact on people's perception of how to run that game, than anything written in the rulebook. He puts far too high faith in a DM guideline shaping the game. Many DMs don't change their games just because one sentence out of a thousand seems to indicate they should.What Alexandrian does is tantamount to cherry picking. I'm sure I could find a rules passage that counteracts his arguments. Plus, he reads a lot more out of that passage that what's necessarily there. (Hint: That the advice is telling you that heroes can take on more low-level encounters than high-level encounters is NOT a clear mandate to include lots of trivial encounters!)The bigger point is that: if the rules were so unequivocal and clear, how did the adventures become so different? The obvious answer, of course, is that it isn't hard at all to understand how adventures did not &quot;respect&quot; his quoted passage.Challenging combats is more fun than trivial ones.Being forced to trudge onward while vulnerable and exposed is far less fun than striding proudly forth, whole of mind and body.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 8106393, member: 12731"] That's far too simplistic and dismissive IMHO. The Alexandrian puts far too much weight behind individual paragraphs, and he's not alone. In reality we have "show, don't tell". Early adventures for a game line have a FAR higher impact on people's perception of how to run that game, than anything written in the rulebook. He puts far too high faith in a DM guideline shaping the game. Many DMs don't change their games just because one sentence out of a thousand seems to indicate they should. What Alexandrian does is tantamount to cherry picking. I'm sure I could find a rules passage that counteracts his arguments. Plus, he reads a lot more out of that passage that what's necessarily there. (Hint: That the advice is telling you that heroes can take on more low-level encounters than high-level encounters is NOT a clear mandate to include lots of trivial encounters!) The bigger point is that: if the rules were so unequivocal and clear, how did the adventures become so different? The obvious answer, of course, is that it isn't hard at all to understand how adventures did not "respect" his quoted passage. [B][I]Challenging combats is more fun than trivial ones. Being forced to trudge onward while vulnerable and exposed is far less fun than striding proudly forth, whole of mind and body.[/I][/B] [/QUOTE]

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