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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5305524" data-attributes="member: 18280">You seem fixated on the idea that your interpretations are the rules, and others are house rules.Let's read the first line of Gaze Attacks in the 3e DMG, shall we?The medusa looks around, throwing dangerous glances everywhere, and focusing its eyes on specific victims.If you don't see "any indication...in the rules" that "it requires both eyes to actively meet and acknowledge the presence of the other" you are simply failing to read the rules.Lidda closes her eyes and tries to aim her arrows by ear.  Jozan averts his eyes but tries to watch the creature with peripheral vision so he knows where to project his searing light spell.  Tordek trusts fate and looks the thing in the eye as he swings his mighty axe.  Magic washes through him and he shrugs it off.  Jozan, however, accidently catches the thing's eye, and he's not strong enough to resist.  His body hardens and turns to stone.So, according to the book, when are the characters potentially affected?  When Tordek looks the thing in the eye; when Jozan accidently catches the thing's eye.  I.e., their eyes meet.What is the medusa doing?  Looking around and focusing its gaze on specific victims.I.e., she is trying to make thier eyes meet.How does this apply to our bodak discussion?  Well, if one believes that you can meet the eyes of someone you don't know is there, it doesn't.  On the other hand, I don't think its the only interpretation - you can houserule if you like.I would argue that this would be a pretty weird discussion:RC:  Watch out for that assassin! MM:  What assassin? RC:  What do you mean what assassin!  You're staring right into his eyes! MM:  Sorry, I don't see any assassin!Pleased to provide quotes for you.Making eye contact, IMHO and IME, is pretty much the end of any successful attempt to hide.  If you can focus on me as a particular victim, you can see my eyes, and you are looking me in the eye, any interpretation that also includes I am successfully hiding from you is .... well, pretty strange from my point of view.I have to ask, are you claiming to have ever, or to know of anyone who has ever, successfully hidden from someone while making eye contact with them?   Is there anyone here who would make such a claim?I pointed differences out upthread.Sure I do.  I even wrote quite a bit about the same over the course of the thread.Now, that actually is true, depending upon what the "certain types of challenges" are.As discussed waaaayyyyyy upthread, more danger doesn't necessarily make for a better game, nor does more randomness.  There is a tension between levels of randomness/danger and narrative control, and everyone has their own sweet spot somewhere between absolute randomness (no context) and absolute narrative control (no consequence).When I said, not far aboveYes, a lack of coherent self-reference can cause problems, and if you are playing a game without coherent self-reference the encounters themselves should probably have extra layers of padding, because neither the game world nor the adventure will provide it.you might have noted that it implies that the game world or adventure will provide a form of padding as well.  I don't think that anyone wants to play in a (serious or semi-serious) game that has "wandering damage" charts, or anvils falling out of the sky on a 1 in 6 every round.But, when you note a difference between "having informed decision points in combat vs uninformed information gathering outside of combat", I note that the discussion really seems to revolve more about "informed decision points" vs "uninformed information gathering".Universally (or nearly so) folks have agreed here that it would be fair to introduce a SoD monster with informed decision points prior to the combat, so the "in combat" vs "outside of combat" seems to be a bit of a red herring.And "informed decision points" vs "uninformed information gathering" are two different games.  One is more padded than the other simply due to the shift in information-management responsibility.  Playing a game with "uninformed information gathering" clearly requires a greater willingness to accept risk than playing a game where "informed decision points" must occur prior to any actual gamble being made.And, for the manyth time in this thread alone, there is a tension between levels of randomness/danger and narrative control, and everyone has their own sweet spot somewhere between absolute randomness (no context) and absolute narrative control (no consequence).  Whatever floats your boat in terms of that tension is what you should seek out.  Just don't try to tell me that you are not seeking out greater narrative control while doing so, or that what you are doing offers the same level of risk.  Embrace what you want in a game, and I will support your right to have the game you want.  Just so long as, in order to do so, you are not trying to change the game I play into that thing, and just so long as you are honest about what you are doing.RC</blockquote>

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