When Adventure Designers Cheat

[Vigilance]

White Plume Mountain is the poster child for this kind of thing. Nearly every single encounter in that module had such a designer “cheat”. Tomb of Horrors is another such offender.

Designers should make challenges that force the PCs to use their resources, or challenges that allow them to use their resources, not challenges that prevent them from using their resources.

Quasqueton

Funny though, WPM is a beloved adventure module, at least in the circles I run in.

It actually made you think and I've PCs come up with some great outside the box answers to the module's challenges.

But if you just want a module to let you use a spell to get by a hazard, then no, it's not that good.

Chuck

 

[Celebrim]

Why did NPC orcs in 1E have hitpoints? Why not just let the DM use his "judgement and experience" in deciding when the orc dies? In fact, why do PCs have hitpoints? If the DM is such a "Master" of the game, why not just decide when a PC is dead?...

gizmo33, strawman.

Strawman, gizmo33.

Shake hands and come out fighting.

I hope you two have fun together. Personally, I get little enjoyment from setting up a strawman and then beating it up, but to each thier own.

 

[gizmo33]

Until we know what the goals of D&D play are, I don't see how we can work out what counts as good or poor module design. But D&D has a tendency to fudge this issue - it asserts that any of a wide range of play styles is supported, but I suspect, and many of the posts on this thread (including the paragraph quoted above) suggest that in fact it supports primarily a resource acquisition/management style of play.

Does DnD assert this? I think the core rule books (or really any of the rule books) largely ignore the issues of play style - at least explicitly. The only explicit treatment of playstyle that I've ever seen in the literature has been very superficial. IMO DnD's philosophy on playstyle has to be inferred, and while I think it strongly points to a certain conclusion, I can't be sure that is intentional on the part of Gygax, TSR, WotC, or any of the other custodians of the rules over the years. I've never seen a chapter in a core DnD game book entitled "when to use an unkillable NPC for plot purposes".

 

[Darklone]

My humble 2 cc:

If the author of an adventure is not able to do something by the rules then he should do something else.

Cheating is only an excuse.

 

[Nightfall]

I voted for:

It's a good thing. Designers should create new rules to challenge the players.

But I really wanted another option between that and neutral. I think it's fine if used in moderation and not taken to ridiculous lengths.

Such is the fact of all gaming. Moderation and fun are more important than "extremes".

*thinks he'll side with PC since his module has proven the best so far for all* Well at least John Cooper and I think so.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Yes, WPM is the worst one I'm aware of for this stuff. The frictionless room with super-tetanus pits is one of those that will make your players want to kill you (and playing through it with a magic-user in one of my earliest module experiences was very frustrating). Put a challenge in from of them and then specifically negate most of the ways that they can deal with the challenge. And then make experimenting with entering the area very, very lethal.

When I plan to run WPM, I'm changing the ultra-wrongstupid disease into a decent poison. Not amazing, but good. Maybe a mix of poison and disease, two saves. But not "hope the cleric prepped Remove Disease for all his 3rd level slots...or TPK" situation.


As for me, that kind of stuff is just stupid. It shows the designer was lazy and uncreative. You should work within the rules, not around them.

Except that EGG has a really good passage in the 1st edition DMG (one of the better ones) where he explains that special circumstances should always trump the rules whenever it makes sense within the game. I'm thinking of the passage in which he describes the PC's in a temple and the party is attacked by giant apes (IIRC) and one of the players has his character fall onto the feet of the goddesses statue and begin blubbering like a baby and begging for mercy. In truly extraordinary cases, I think EGG would have broke his own absolutes.

What? Where's that from? I don't remember that from the 1e DMG, and I have had it for five years. Read every page. Or so I thought. That exact scenario is an example of improvisation in GURPS: Campaigns 4th edition. Where is it in the 1e DMG?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I've always found divinations to be useless. Normally the DM just gives a cryptic answer that is no help at all, or information that is just plot exposition.

Divinations are one of the reasons that Dungeon Mastering remains an art form rather than a science.

I like to aim at the 'Cryptic until you figure it out' target, I know I have hit it when a while later one of the players yells 'Oh HECK!' (Preferably just in time to do something with it. Players figuring it outjust a minute too late is not nearly as much fun.)

But it is a difficult goal to achieve sometimes. (My favorites seem to involve 'speak with dead' as often as not....)

The Auld Grump

 

[Nightfall]

Divinations are supposed to be cryptic. If everyone knew the answer to everything, all adventurers would do is sit around and wait for the "chosen one" to go finish it off.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Thats generally my beef with adventures (particularly mysteries) that are written where divinations are useless. Now and then, it can be ok, but its like they couldnt be bothered to actually write an adventure for a fantasy setting, and instead just wrote it fro 1200 AD England. Lazy, lazy writing.

There was a "mystery" "D&D" adventure in an old Dungeon or Dragon I have.
The PCs are supposed to be "police" and so can't use divinations on just anyone...and there's a mayoral candidate with a bizarre bias against magic, work of the devil, corrupt, etc.. There's no reason the module couldn't be done with a bomb instead of a fireball spell and transport the whole thing to the 18th or 19th century.

If the PCs could use magic, the adventure would be done in 15 minutes.

 

[Nightfall]

Exactly and what would be the point of all that time spent feeding them cheetos, Virgil?