NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jan van Leyden" data-source="post: 5275492" data-attributes="member: 20307">So, in the Dreaded D&D Dungeon you should know better than to touch anything, because experience teaches you to expect 0.37 deadly traps per room and your 1st level thief has only a 10% chance to detect/disarm any trap? The result is more like paranoia than suspense.The Perseus/Medusa example doesn't work as an analogy, imho. As far as I know the story, Pallas Athene took action, gave Perseus the valuable shield and instructed him. That's not what I'd call "character ingenuity", it's railroading with the help of a powerful NPC. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devil.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":devil:" title="Devil    :devil:" data-shortname=":devil:" />I think we all want some method to increase suspense apart from the very lenient D&D system of whittling away HPs.The SoD method works if the players know the rules governing the effect (petrification by looking at the monster, InstaDeath by a spell) and get hints about the threat so they can prepare their characters for it. Any error they make may result in character death(s).This isn't the sort of suspense I like, if only because of the meta-game component: the players are forced to work on a meta-game level, they are playing some Dungeon Chess against the GM, not a roleplaying game.For me, some system like the 4e Medusa works much better. As soon as one character falls victim to the monster's gaze, the pressure on the other characters - and thus the players - mount as they not only have to kill, chase away, or somehow get rid of the creature, they also have to save their comrade by quickly applying some effect to her.</blockquote>

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