Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kabouter Games" data-source="post: 6749579" data-attributes="member: 6788812">I agree, except with the last bit. Choices are irrelevant, and suspense impossible, unless something is at stake. Resources - healing potions, yadda yadda yadda - are an excellent stake. Now we're going off the rails.I see this attitude all the time here, and I couldn't disagree more strongly. You don't demand a fighter describe in detail the techniques she uses when she's trying to hit. You don't give her better chances to hit - or worse, hit automatically - depending on how engagingly or creatively she describes her action. Nope. The player says, "I attack the creature with my axe," and rolls a d20. In this instance the suspense comes from the place where the outcome is determined by a random die roll against a CR. If I as a DM decide the outcome is certain, I actually cheat the players out of suspense, except insofar as them waiting for me to arbitrarily decide if their metagaming is good enough to wave off the random determination. A DM's arbitrary decision whether or not the player's narrative was sufficiently engaging is also suspense, but the situations are not mutually exclusive, neither is devoid of suspense, and neither is devoid of meaning.I'll give players a bonus for creative narrative interaction with the world. That's what Advantage is FOR. But there's a die roll involved, A., because die rolling is how you determine outcome in D&D; and B., because it's the only fair. Many people ask, "Well, what happens when you describe a great plan then roll a 1?" What happens? Suckage. Weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. But you know something? The best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley, as the poet says. In less Scots terms, "feces occurs." That's why it's suspenseful! You can plan the invasion of Normandy to a fare-thee-well, but all it takes is one German sentry to be extra awake on Pegasus Bridge and it all comes unglued and suddenly you're trying to swim back to Devon.Here's an excellent example: There once was a fellow searching an ancient dungeon. He came upon a shiny golden monkey statue. He carefully searched for traps and triggers and didn't appear to find any. Just in case there was a pressure plate under the statue, he filled a pouch with sand to approximately the same weight as the statue, then quickly swapped bag for statue. There was an ominous "click," the pressure plate sank into the pedestal, and the giant stone ball rolled down a ramp. Hilarity ensued.In game terms, Indy's player described what he was doing and where he was searching, and the Investigation roll made him think there were no traps. Just in case, because DMs are evil and any idiot will know there's a pressure plate under the "OOOCOMETAKEME" golden monkey statue, he came up with a plan (the sandbag). Alas, he still rolled below the CR needed to disable the trap, so the trap was sprung.Dig me?This is something I touch on in con panels. Too many GMs treat encounters as number pools - pools of HP for the PCs to take away, and pools of HP to take away from the PCs. The die rolls only determine where the numbers go. That's a very dissatisfying approach. Intelligent creatures are just that - intelligent. If you treat your monsters and encounters as numerical entities (even though they really are, SHHH!), you do your game a disservice.Traps are awesome. Traps are fun. Traps make sense in terms of intelligent foes. Traps are an intelligent foe who isn't even there. He could be dead these past thousand years. But when the players pinch that golden monkey, his treasure is still protected.</blockquote>

Verification