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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5303114" data-attributes="member: 18280">I am looking forward to finding out how you drew that conclusion. Specific examples aside, because they could be argued back and forth until the InterWeb crashes down around us, would you or would you not agree that, often some clue is available (even if not discovered, or not properly understood)?  What I mean here is that, although some times, what is most reasonable is that the footprints will be impossible or nigh-impossible, that "impossible or nigh-impossible" itself is a corner-case?Both your and Hussar's examples seem to come from 3.x, and I am certainly willing to agree that many changes in 3.x were not for the better.  Indeed, the more I examine WotC-D&D, the more I conclude that the designers don't really understand Gygaxian D&D.As I discussed upthread, there is always tension between random elements and narrative control.  The more narrative control you want, the more you must eliminate randomness to achieve it.In the Gygaxian model of normal campaign play, the players set goals and attempt to achieve them.  The use of divination, seeking rumours, scouting, etc., both in formulating and achieving goals is part of what the players do.  Rather than writing a novel for the players to play through, the DM creates the backdrop, runs the NPCs, runs the monsters, and adjudicates the results.  The GM is a world designer, or a setting designer if you prefer -- he is not a frustrated novelist!The elements of the earlier games are designed to facilitate this style of play.  It doesn't matter if Character A is balanced against Character B, so long as the players involved get to decide whether or not A and B are going on expeditions together.  Likewise, it is not incumbent upon the DM to tell the players that there is a medusa on Level 7 with a glowing neon sign.  All the DM must do is ensure that the medusa being there makes sense.....and well over 90% of the time, "makes sense" means "potentially predictable".It is the tension between what is known, and what is unknown -- trying to predict, and then seeing how one's predictions bear out -- that offers one of the primary driving forces behind Gygaxian D&D.  If you really have no idea how this is intended to work from the player's side of the screen, I highly recommend reading Gygax's advice to players in the 1e PHB.In the case of SoD, the problems caused by the 3e ruleset are twofold:1.  DragonLance was very successful, but it was not the standard model of a 1e adventure series.  By 2e, the idea that the DM was "telling a story" (essentially, preselecting the goals of the players, and hence the encounters they would have while pursuing those goals) had crystalized.When the DM chooses the encounters the PCs will have, he is no longer merely creating a fair and impartial environment in which any potential PC may operate -- he is designing encounters to be fair in relation to the particular PCs he envisions playing.  Where, previously, a TPK was either bad luck or poor planning on the part of the players, suddenly a TPK...possibly even a single character death....becomes poor planning on the part of the DM.  It might also be "unfair".  Moreover, it throws off the balance of his other carefully prepared encounters, so that each becomes increasingly likely to exhibit "poor planning" or "unfairness" on the part of the DM.Not surprisingly, under this paradigms, DMs like SoD far less than players do.2.  The designers of 3e wanted to make levelling matter more than it did in previous editions, and so created a much steeper power curve.  Not only did this mean that slight variations in encounter design could have profound, unexpected consequences in actual play, but it fostered an "arms race mentality" between various players as well as between players and DM.This compounds with (1) because, under the previous paradigm, players would seek the greatest rewards they might succeed at attaining, thus naturally "upping the ante" to more dangerous locations as they became more powerful.  The DM had merely to create a region that could support many levels of play, and the PCs would naturally seek out the play level that fit them best. No more.  Now the DM must challenge the PCs.  Doing so requires giving the monsters more advantages -- foreshadowing becomes counterintuitive (even if it is still the best decision).3.  Combat becomes increasingly grid-based from 3e to 3.5e to 4e, resulting in ever-longer encounters, with a resultant pressure to make every encounter "count".  "Lead up" encounters, scene-setting encounters, wandering monsters, etc., go by the wayside.  With the loss of wanderers, time pressure all but disappears, leading to the 15-minute adventuring day.  Now the DM must challenge the party at full strength with every encounter.  At the same time, the DM wants to prevent the players from knowing what is coming up (thus making sure that the encounter has maximum effect).Worse, though, with long combats and long character creation times, dying has become more of a punishment than it once was.  Often, it is the DM who feels bad about Johnny sitting out more than Johnny himself does.  After all, Johnny probably needs the hour + to tweak his next character!4.  As Ariosto pointed out, the power curve affects the monsters in 3e as well, so that, rather than any given SoD becoming less deadly as the PCs become more powerful, they are either equally deadly at all levels, or bizarrely more deadly because of changes in how gaze attacks, etc., work.----As a result, if you want to argue that SoD is problematic in WotC-D&D, I will be happy to agree with you, provisionally.  But blaming the problems caused by WotC-D&D on the earlier mechanic is, IMHO and IME, simply wrong.Accepted.  That was another "interpretation of my point" that I am happy to put to rest.Ah.  I see.Every SSSoD perforce contains a SoD moment.  No matter how you slice it, every game in which D is a possibility has a last moment at which a single roll (or move) results either in D or not-D.Likewise, every SoD (unless the game begins with a bodak jumping out of the closet) has a number of "moves" or "rolls" prior to the final die-rolling moment.  This is true whether or not "every monster has a distinct footprint which the PCs could respond to".  Entering Dungeon Level 7, where you know CR 7 creatures are likely to lurk, is something that the players can react to, whether or not they know specifically which creatures they will encounter.  My point is that, if one argues "All SoD is bad" then one must also agree (if one is to be consistent) that SSSoD is also bad, because it contains within it SoD.  Otherwise, one is left with the argument "SoD can be bad", which is hardly contentious.  The argument was made that, unlike SSSoD, SoD came out of the blue.  I made the counter-argument that this isn't necessarily so.....and is very, very often not so, if the GM is creating a game environment that is consistent.Yes, the DM can set the players up so that they have no chance.  But this is not the fault of the SoD mechanic.....unless it is also the fault of having far more powerful monsters in the game than the party can handle at the moment.  In an actual "Players vs. DM" situation, the DM wins.  You don't need SoD for that, and SSSoD won't help you, either.I mean, spiders and snakes were raised as a real concern with SoD, about which the party could do nothing to prepare, in a game that contains anti-toxin and the possibility of using a Heal check to "reroll" a failed save!  Really, if we are going to discuss on the basis of "But the DM could screw the players over!" then all game mechanics are bad.  If we are going to argue that SoD is bad because of problems with the WotC-D&D implementation of them, then I am equally sure that I can find problems with someone's implementation of any mechanic.Ariosto already gave a pretty clear idea of how WotC-D&D's mechanics could be reverted back to those of an earlier edition, causing most (if not all) of the problems raised in this thread to disappear.AFAICT, IMHO, and IME, the problem isn't SoD.  RC</blockquote>

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