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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 3789837" data-attributes="member: 22424">Two things:1) If a new player joins an existing 'old school' group, then the rest of the group can bring him up to speed on the style they use. If a new player joins a new group, surely it doesn't matter whether the game impresses on them the importance of iron spikes - they'll develop their own style natually, and if they're having fun why does it matter?2) I don't get why iron spikes are so essential to having an 'old school' style, and yet you've mentioned them three times? Note that I haven't read the 1st Edition books (I went from BD&D -> 2nd Ed -> 3e), but the DCC and Necromancer modules I've seen don't put undue emphasis on them. Is there something I've missed?You're right. My mistake.The best of the new modules should do that also. Although I'm inclined to think that the clues should tell you where to check, and maybe a bonus, rather than give automatic success. If the players fail to specify they're checking, the clues should also be obvious in hindsight - a trap generally shouldn't 'come out of nowhere'.Okay...But, to put not too fine a point on it: isn't that a valid question? The players aren't supposed to know the contents of the various Monster Manuals (for 'sense of wonder' reasons), so how are they to know there even are such things as ear creepers, lurkers above, and so forth?And so, I would argue that those ranks in Knowledge: Dungeoneering should be used for precisely that: the DM should inform the players in question of some of the likely hazards, with brief synopses, and then let them determine their responses accordingly. And, of course, the completeness of the information should depend on the quality of the roll - perhaps a marginal success only gives incomplete information, or gives a lot of 'false positive' results.And, in fact, that's entirely the intent of the skill: you might know about these things, but that doesn't necessarily imply that you actually apply that knowledge!As I noted above, I would think a new player joining an 'old school' group would be brought up to speed by the existing players. They won't fit in right away... but they wouldn't in 1e either, most likely.I'm with you on this one, to an extent. My prediction, though, is that these mechanics will not get used very often. Instead, we'll see what we've seen in every edition thus far: the DM's good buddy Al, who is playing the Cha 5 Half-orc Barbarian, will use his own natural charm and way with words, and his relationship with the DM, to work through every 'social challenge' encounter in the game.My prediction here is the opposite: that the inclusion of these mechanics will make it easier for the DM to include these effects, but that it will still be incumbent on the players to come up with solutions. And, barring standard effects (tilting floors, pit traps, teleport squares), Knowledge: Dungeoneering will be of little to no use. And, really, it should work on the standard stuff, since we've all seen it hundreds of times, so so will the adventurers of the world. It's time to come up with new stuff.It will significantly change them, but I'm not sure about reduce. At present, it's all too common to see the party expend all their resources on one big encounter, then break for the day. And then repeat. There's no resource management there at all.The new edition will shift some of that, so that the spellcasters are never truly out of resources, so there is motivation to continue the adventure. Which in turn gives them incentive to not blow everything on that first encounter. Which would be nice.Or, we'll see absolutely no change: the party will exhaust their "per day" resources in the first encounter, and then break for the day. Which would not surprise me in the least, and which I would find frankly hilarious.Hopefully, the mechanics for the rest of the system will be considerably better than anything that has gone before. If they are not, then I agree entirely with your point - might as well stick with what you know, since it works.</blockquote>

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