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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 3791405" data-attributes="member: 22424">Yeah, but wait a second...Group #1 goes into the dungeon. No-one prepares for ear creepers. Someone dies. The party henceforth prepares for them.When the replacement character joins the party, he prepares for ear creepers. Why? Out-of-character, because his player knows they exist. In-character, it is because the survivors tell the new character to beware.So far, so good.But, suppose the player of the dead character left the group (for whatever reason), and a new player joined. In this case, the new character still prepares for ear creepers. Why? Well, because out-of-character the existing players tell the new character to prepare. In-character, it's because the experienced characters tell the new character to beware.This all still makes sense.Now, suppose at some later point there is a TPK. The party starts over at 1st level, with new characters.Group #2 enters the dungeon. The characters all prepare for ear creepers. Why? Well, out-of-character, it's because the players know they exist. In-character it's because...?Two possibilities exist. The first is that the group metagames, because running through the cycle of "we lose a PC to ear creepers so the rest of us can learn the lesson" is a pointless waste of time. The second, and more sane, approach is "we heard about ear creepers from a retired ex-adventurer/some buddy in the army/around the campfire".Which is great... except that we then raise the question: why exactly did the original party not have the same priviledge? They, too, must have been trained somewhere.From a world-building point of view, it only makes sense that skilled experts in the field would talk. Common hazards would become known to those in the trade, and those who want to join the trade would be briefed on them by the masters with whom they train. In effect, Knowledge(dungeoneering) would exist, and it makes far more sense from a world-building point of view that it exists than that it does not.And then there's the sanity check: if a person wants to go climb a mountain, he doesn't just pull on a coat and go climb it. Instead, he prepares himself: he speaks to people who climb mountains (and, ideally, have climbed that mountain). He makes sure he has prepared himself mentally and physically. He then goes and acquires the right equipment for the job. He potentially hires a local guide. And so on. In effect, he gains ranks in Knowledge(mountaineering).So, if dungeoneering is at least as dangerous, why on earth would a novice character not do the same?Now, you could go through the process of requiring the players to do all this. They have to travel the taverns of the world, and make extensive enquiries about dungeon dangers, the relative merits of Everlast and Holdfast iron spikes, the best way to shield a lantern from detection, and so on....or you could just handwave it, stick a couple of ranks in Knowledge(dungeoneering), and actually get and play the game. When about to enter the dungeon, you make the roll, the DM lists a handful of possible hazards (some or all of which may be present... and the list may not be complete), and then you decide how your character is going to protect himself.Frankly, the latter seems like a far more elegant solution, not to mention one that's going to be more fun.No, of course.There's some truth in that. The way the system should work is that solutions exist, but it is for the players to determine which ones to try. Once they have selected a course of action, though, there absolutely should be some mechanical means for resolving that attempt. In effect, the players choose which dice rolls to attempt.I'll certainly agree that the existing Search and Disable Device rolls for handling traps are a poor mechanic. In effect, it doesn't matter if the trap is a black bolt of disintegration, a poisoned needle in a lock, or whirling blades of death - the Rogue searches, then he disables the trap, and we're done.But then, Wizards have already noted this weakness, in their Design & Development column, and the "encounter traps" from Dungeonscape. This would suggest, therefore, that they're actually doing more to support old school gaming than the existing edition, at least in this one respect.Basically, I take the view that the "old school" style of play should be about how the rules for these things should be applied, and not about either omitting or nerfing those rules. Search checks really should reveal any and all traps (subject to the DC being set appropriately), but it is for the players to determine where and when to Search, and then to determine what they'll do about the trap.In principle, I agree that this is the way the game should be. But once again, we hit a sanity check issue.If you were a would-be adventurer, and were heading into the dungeon with a limited set of resouces that renewed each day, and assuming you had no fixed time limit for your explorations, would you not take things extremely slowly, extremely carefully, and in effect do precisely what groups now do: that is, expend almost all of your resources on a small number of encounters (probably one), whether in the form of buffs, fireballs, or healing, and then retreat and rest to prepare for the next section of your quest?After all, you've brought along your iron spikes, so you can fasten doors shut from the inside, and hole up reasonably well...Okay, understood. I was just wondering if I was missing some key insight.That makes a lot of sense, actually. Although I'm curious how long the interest in that could be sustained before the party develops a set of standard operating procedures which they mostly follow thereafter. I fear it may not be too much fun for them to rattle off the same list of precautions they've used every time thus far, once they're on the hundredth or so iteration.I guess a good game (old school or not) will keep mixing up the challenges, so those SOP should only be part of the play...True. There are some (mostly low-level) dungeons in Dungeon magazine that support that sort of thing. Mostly, though, the game has moved to objective-based adventures, where dungeons are small, and the details of the crawl are considered routine.So, old school is no longer the default style. But it is available if you want it, IMO. And, yes, I think some of the DCCs and Necromancer modules are better in this regard, from the old school point of view.There are two reasons for this:1) The rules really don't need to legislate for player skill. The advice in the 1st Edition PHB is all well and good, but for players who've been around for a while, it could be ripped out of the book entirely and the game would play the same.2) Character build options sell books.I'll certainly agree with you that the closer one stays to the core rules in 3.x, the easier it is to do "old school".If that genuinely were the case, I would have to say: that game sucks!However, other proponents of the old school style have been quick to point out that the Wizard shouldn't ever actually be 'doing nothing' - he should be sniping with his crossbow, moving for position, or guiding the tactical situation so that the enemy are placed perfectly for his nova action to end the encounter.And I'll agree that some of that has been lost with 3.x, and it looks like some more will be lost for 4e. How much remains to be seen.Again, understood. I do quite often feel it would be nice to get a chance to play in (rather than DM) an old school game. Unfortunately, every time I sit down with a DM who claims to run in that style, it seems to devolve into them running a random deathtrap, and bypassing or ignoring the rules, because it's just so much easier to screw players over than it is to run a thoughtful and well put together game.</blockquote>

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