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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5304406" data-attributes="member: 18280">Gotcha.  But you seemingly ignored every correction, and still continue to do so AFAICT.  That passes beyond "You don't feel that is what you are saying, that's fine. Nonetheless, that is how it came across, to me." and into something else.  What, exactly, I am not sure, but it is no longer simply misreading.And, as I said, in order to draw the conclusions you are drawing, you are adding material to what I am saying.  I tend to call this "reader bias".  I.e., the reader says "If I wrote X, I would mean Y" because the reader has a bias of associations related to X and Y.Rather than give the best possible reading, some readers seem insistent that X means Y no matter how the writer might attempt to correct that misapprension.Okay, now go back and read the post I wrote that in, and the post it was in response to.I didn't say that players should be handed everything on a plate.  I said that, rather than footprinting being trite, or cliched, or boring, it is more effective for the players to actually worry about things they are going to encounter (or even suspect they are going to encounter).I.e., the monster that is built up prior to the encounter is, generally speaking, more effective than the monster that is not.I defend this as true.HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that every monster will be built up in actual play.  Indeed, since I have stated repeatedly that I believe a fundamental tension occurs in the game between what one thinks one knows, and what is actually true, one can easily see (I hope) that it would be impossible that this be so -- it would destroy that fundamental tension!Consider the linked example, where the PCs go chasing a manticore.  The manticore is certainly built up; they are told exactly what it is.  The miller is also a monster, and perhaps a worse monster.  He is footprinted all over the scenario, but it is up to the players to act in order to determine what those footprints mean.  Likewise, the local fey are present, and in some ways dangerous, but exactly what is happening is left for the players to interpret.There is heavy footprinting going on; there is not a lot of "handing it to the PCs on a plate" going on.Assuming that there was nothing else presented, no.  Assuming that it was taken in context of the post, the post it responded to, and the other posts in this thread, very much so.  Define "fault".  I think you are conflating two meanings of the term, and I have already discussed that conflation upthread.Fault as in "Bad player!  Bad!  No cookie for you!"?  No.Fault as in "Your decisions led to this"?  Yep.Likewise, it is the DM's "fault" in that he designed the setting, and determined how the setting was going to work (i.e., "fault" in the sense that "his decisions led to this").  This sort of "fault" has nothing to do with right or wrong, merely with responsibility.If the DM specifically acted so as to prevent the PCs from using their abilities to deal with the problems -- including information-gathering -- involved (frex. if the DM didn't allow divination spells to work just 'cause it changed the way the scenario would play out in his head, when the PCs tried to find out what was in an enemy wizard's spellbook) then the DM is also at fault in the "Bad DM!  Bad!  No cookie for you!" sense.I don't think players can be "at fault" in a "Bad player!  Bad!  No cookie for you!" sense, apart from outright cheating or bad sportsmanship, but I certainly do believe that players can be "at fault" in a "not figuring out the clues" (esp. when they become obvious in hindsight, as has happened to me as a player more than once) or a "not living up to your best potential" sense.As a case of the "not living up to your best potential" sense, a player who exhibits poor tactics in a combat that would otherwise be easy, a player who expends resources foolishly, a player who gives up merely because things seem difficult, or a player who spurns carrying antitoxin when going into the Lair of the Poisonous Things because he doesn't think it necessary.IOW, if players enter a room with a Save or Die Encounter, both the GM and the players are responsible.  It is not one or the other.  The GM created the encounter; the players made the decisions that led to their actually encountering the encounter. RC</blockquote>

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