Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7596939" data-attributes="member: 4937">Most challenges can't be neatly separated into challenges to player or to character, because they involve a combination of choices by the player (that don't involve dice rolling) and some amount of dice rolling (such as passive saving throws or damage that attacks a hit point buffer).&nbsp;&nbsp; So I wouldn't be too surprised when you gave more details, that we'd find that the answer to the question was, &quot;A bit of both.&quot;But, to be very precise, you've not given enough details for us to answer your question, because we don't have enough of a description to understand the process of play.&nbsp;&nbsp; You've described the fiction, but not the process you will use to filter, validate, and resolve player propositions.&nbsp;&nbsp; For all the reader knows, everything in that fiction will be resolved by dice rolls or none of it will.My strong suspicion is that what you've described is a mix, but that it leans strongly toward &quot;challenge to the player&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; This is because what you've described can I think be resolved without any recourse to character abilities.&nbsp; In theory a party of first level characters can evade the traps here regardless of the 'challenge' that the traps represent in terms of difficult to detect or damage that they cause, even if they don't have any skill in finding or disarming traps, merely by application of caution and by describing their characters interacting with the environment in detail.&nbsp; The pressure plates can be located, triggered, marked, and evaded without any recourse to die rolling, provided you as the GM are willing to accept those propositions as valid propositions and give the players the agency to perform them.&nbsp;&nbsp; The scenario can be entirely &quot;challenge to the player&quot; if for each event the mechanics are absolute - the spikes always hit and push, the pits always swallow, the grinding traps always grind.&nbsp;&nbsp; If no saving throws are allowed and the trap once sprung is always lethal regardless of reflex saves or hit points, then this is pure challenge to player.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7596939, member: 4937"] Most challenges can't be neatly separated into challenges to player or to character, because they involve a combination of choices by the player (that don't involve dice rolling) and some amount of dice rolling (such as passive saving throws or damage that attacks a hit point buffer). So I wouldn't be too surprised when you gave more details, that we'd find that the answer to the question was, "A bit of both." But, to be very precise, you've not given enough details for us to answer your question, because we don't have enough of a description to understand the process of play. You've described the fiction, but not the process you will use to filter, validate, and resolve player propositions. For all the reader knows, everything in that fiction will be resolved by dice rolls or none of it will. My strong suspicion is that what you've described is a mix, but that it leans strongly toward "challenge to the player". This is because what you've described can I think be resolved without any recourse to character abilities. In theory a party of first level characters can evade the traps here regardless of the 'challenge' that the traps represent in terms of difficult to detect or damage that they cause, even if they don't have any skill in finding or disarming traps, merely by application of caution and by describing their characters interacting with the environment in detail. The pressure plates can be located, triggered, marked, and evaded without any recourse to die rolling, provided you as the GM are willing to accept those propositions as valid propositions and give the players the agency to perform them. The scenario can be entirely "challenge to the player" if for each event the mechanics are absolute - the spikes always hit and push, the pits always swallow, the grinding traps always grind. If no saving throws are allowed and the trap once sprung is always lethal regardless of reflex saves or hit points, then this is pure challenge to player. [/QUOTE]

Verification