Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7124346" data-attributes="member: 7006">To me, that's the feature, not the bug.They're adventurers.  Risking death is the entire point.  Big risk for big rewards.  If at any point a group of PCs can go la-la-la-ing across the landscape for treasure and not feel any risk of failure or death, then I personally think that takes away more dramatic tension than anything having to do with time-related dice pools (going up or down).The way I look at it... if a group of players are getting their ass handed to them where they feel like they need to rest often just to survive... then they probably shouldn't also spend 30 minutes at a time in every chamber in a dungeon looking for secret doors and looting bodies.  They need to be wiser that.  They need to know that rather than stopping for these more meaningless tasks ("meaningless" in this instance being in terms of surviving the dungeon, not in terms of what you might get out of it) that their time is better spent hustling through and either completing the task so they can rest without fear, or find a place prior to the end where they can rest with a lessened amount of fear.But to think as a DM you are inhibiting group's decisions because you are making it explicit that (for example) you let that goblin escape your grasp back into the dungeon, but you still then stop to loot every pile of bodies you come across or search every single corridor for a trap or a secret door, or take a breather for an hour after every fight, to me is kind of silly.  You as the DM are not inhibiting their decisions... you're merely pointing out that their decisions probably aren't very smart.  They can still take them... they just need to know that they had consequences.  Real, tangible consequences.  And a dice pool does that.  Especially when that dice pool eventually rolls and it comes up with a '1'.But again... we've been making it a point to say that this particular mechanic is not necessary for all DMs nor for all groups.  And for some groups, yes a 'carrot' might be more preferential to a 'stick'.  To me personally though that's the last thing I'd want to give them, because it's the antithesis of what is happening.  In these cases, a party has to make the best choice for them out of a myriad of potentially bad options-- wasting time doing one thing versus wasting time doing something else.  But to reward them for making that choice, seems to me counter-intuitive.  Yeah, it might make them feel a little better along the way until the hammer eventually does fall... but I don't see that as adding tension to what they are doing.Adventuring is inherently dangerous, the risks are always there, and even more importantly to me, the threat of risks should always be there.  So any way to keep that threat overhanging the group to remind them that this isn't just some walk in the park to grab a whole bunch of gold and magic items but indeed they are risking their lives to undertake it... is exactly the sort of feeling they always all should have.  And it's the measure of an adventurer's strength of character that has them push through that fear to do what needs to be done.</blockquote>

Verification