D&D General What wastes time at your table?

[CleverNickName]

Messin' With Your Players, DOOR Edition:

Ordinary DM: the door is locked, Dexterity DC 20 to pick the lock.

Cruel DM: ...and the door is barred from the other side (still needs Strength DC 20 to bash).

Ruthless DM: ...and the handle is coated in contact poison (Constitution DC 15), and the door has been scribed with a glyph of warding.

Evil DM: ...and the rug in front of the door is a mimic.

Rat Bastard DM: ...and the door leads to an empty closet.

 

[CleverNickName]

Still describing "skilled play" to me. Correction: "skilled Gygaxian play."

While it does exist, this type of play seems to have largely fallin' out of style due to being obnoxious.

Gygax ran a very different style of game back then, for sure...very adversarial compared to today's "shared storytelling" games. It's hard to look at something like "The Tomb of Horrors" and think that Gary was aiming for a rich roleplaying experience for his players.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I don't believe any term is needed to understand what I was talking about is not what you're talking about.

Not closely related really; only in the sense that they share the same general idea of doing everything possible to reduce the chance of failure to zero.

 

[iserith]

Not closely related really; only in the sense that they share the same general idea of doing everything possible to reduce the chance of failure to zero.

One is skillfully playing the game though and the other is avoiding the game in hopes of gaining a benefit.

 

[Lanefan]

Whether the door is obviously locked will have been in my description of the environment up front, since it's a good idea to highlight the basic scope of options.

How can you tell if a typical door is locked just by looking at it?

You can tell if it has a lock, sure, but if it's a typical key-lock that's about it until you actually try to open the door. (a poorly-fitted door might have a gap through which you could see an engaged deadbolt perhaps, but that'd be fairly uncommon I think)

 

[Lanefan]

Gygax ran a very different style of game back then, for sure...very adversarial compared to today's "shared storytelling" games. It's hard to look at something like "The Tomb of Horrors" and think that Gary was aiming for a rich roleplaying experience for his players.

Yet from all I can tell they found that experience anyway, which might say something.

 

[Lanefan]

One is skillfully playing the game though and the other is avoiding the game in hopes of gaining a benefit.

Or, put more bluntly, one is done in good faith and one in bad faith; even if unintentionally.

 

[Lanefan]

Messin' With Your Players, DOOR Edition:

Ordinary DM: the door is locked, Dexterity DC 20 to pick the lock.

Cruel DM: ...and the door is barred from the other side (still needs Strength DC 20 to bash).

Ruthless DM: ...and the handle is coated in contact poison (Constitution DC 15), and the door has been scribed with a glyph of warding.

Evil DM: ...and the rug in front of the door is a mimic.

Rat Bastard DM: ...and the door leads to an empty closet.

Rat bastard DM or rat bastard module writer?

We had one of these last weekend: a door (which had only a blank wall behind it) at the end of a straight 100' corridor. On opening the door, gravity in the corridor flipped 90 degrees such that the door end became "up" and anyone in the corridor fell to the far end. We mostly got away with it, through two of us having featherfall devices and some sheer good luck, and flying up to the door and closing it reset gravity to normal.

The telegraphing was that no tracks went down this corridor; but that never stops us!

 

[Azuresun]

My turn again already?

Oh wait, I'm after CleverNickName?

Um.....right, how many hobgoblins are there?
Do any of them look hurt?
Do any of them look like they might be a leader or a wizard?
What sort of armour have they got on?
Is that a boulder on the map, or a coffee stain?
If I put the spell right here, does that get all four of them?
Mike, how many HP have you got?
Uh-huh. And what's your movement speed?
Okay, okay...
What sort of armour did you say they had on?
And none of them are holding a rubber chicken?
Hmm.....

....I dunno. I'll just hit whichever one's closest, I guess.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Players who are paralyzed to inaction by fear.

Every group needs one of those players who gets bored easily and says 'Screw it, I bash down the door' as soon as the conversation drags on too long.