When Adventure Designers Cheat

[delericho]

I seem to recall there being a good reason about why the reviewer was wrong about the adventure so far as True Seeing was concerned,

That I don't doubt. I'm generally wary about reviews, unless I know where the reviewer's tastes lie (and, ideally, the biases he carries into his reviews) for precisely the reason you stated.

It's just that that True Seeing thing caught my eye, and once I'd looked it up to see what the book actually said (since it didn't sound right, but I couldn't be sure), I felt the need to post so the effort wasn't wasted.

 

[jdrakeh]

It's just that that True Seeing thing caught my eye, and once I'd looked it up to see what the book actually said (since it didn't sound right, but I couldn't be sure), I felt the need to post so the effort wasn't wasted.

No, no -- thanks for pointing that out (it gives me something to read up on this afternoon).

 

[GQuail]

I don't have my books with me, but I seem to recall it in the section on artifacts. However, even if I'm wrong it doesn't effect my larger point. I was merely providing one of the many possible explanations for why the cloaks worked by wouldn't be detected as magic. I can provide others, for example that the cold effect is triggered in much the same way that magic mouths are triggered. Thus, it doesn't matter that the cloaks aren't magical, they protect because the magical 'trap' doesn't go off except when approached by beings not wearing the appropriate regalia.

I believe the OPs problem was that the damage was irresistable without the cloak, though: so rather than have a trap triggered by the absence of the cloaks, it's a trap that hurts anyone regardless of spells, racial resistances etc. (at least, that's how I understood it)

Sometimes these things aren't obvious to players: as you note, a trap which goes off without holding an item could also be a trap that the item provides the power to resist. But I think that when you explicitly write it in the example given, you run into a problem where it's clearly a "neener neener" ability, as the kids say these days.

(See also: John Cooper's review of Cityscape that tears strips out of the metamagic feat that makes something deal "city" damage, which basically amounts to normal, unresistable damage but with a fancy name that might as well be called "zq4qqbatmansymbol" damage .)

Which is precisely the point. Sometimes its perfectly appropriate to cut off a path completely. A magically reinforced door with X hardness and Y hit points can always be busted down, unless you set an arbitrarly high hardness in which case you've effectively said the same thing.

As my fellow Scot pointed out (and I explicitly called out in my original post, in fact) the difference is one that can come out if the players revisit, or if you roll the adventure up to a higher level. It's effectively the same thing at the time, of course, but the ethos behind the two is greatly different. (For one thing, the door may be just about doable with lucky rolls froma certain spell, inw hich case you make the option available but hard - and players who almost succeed there will likely be happier than those who are told that it doesn't happen because it was decreed impossible to make things harder.)

IYou don't know that. The door could be opened by the application of a successful dispel magic which dispels its magical lock (or its magical fortification), by a cleric expending a turn check, by a few more ranks of open lock, by a specifically mentioned vunerability (for example, Holy Word, Disentigrate, etc.), or it could be bypassed by etherealness, or by going into gaseous form, or a clue to how to open it could be discovered through appropriate divination, or by the Bard recalling a snippet of ancient lore in the form of a riddle - all of which are alternative paths which will become easier as the characters advance in level. Perhaps its the DM's intention to leave that mysterious unopenable door thier for several sessions, thus to increase the drama and intrigue and hense the delight when the door is finally opened.

Indeed, as I note above, player observation is sometimes skewed in this regard: sometimes the DM can't explain something that makes sense, but to PCs missing the vital clue it's arbitrary... but then, we aren't talking about that, are we? We're talking about a door that's being held fast by the power of plot as a Tomb Of Horrors-esque test of the PCs.

Specifically in a game like D&D 3.x which has so many rules for desigining traps, and stats for the comparable hardness of various materials and spells which adjust tht, I don't think it's unfair to brand people who ignore those rules and make up their own as "cheating": at least, within the context of a pre-made adventure that does it purely as a railroading device. If nothing else, it's certainly rather poor writing, and making excuses for it doesn't change that.

IBut allow me to suggest a player that enjoys bashing down doors probably doesn't enjoy solving puzzles, and a player that gets upset because he isn't allowed to solve the puzzle by simply bashing down the door REALLY doesn't like solving puzzles.

That's not unfair: though I would like to add again that declaring people who don't like the example given as people who "get upset becuase they can't bash down the door" is rather coldly brushing off people who don't agree with a certain style of play.

IQuite the contrary. The fundamental limitation of publishes adventures is limited space. There isn't room for lengthy listing of all the possibilities. You can either choose to list a few approved methods, or list a few disapproved methods. But you don't have space to deal with all the possibilities. The assumption is that the DM will feel in the details appropriately.

There is that: but again, the difference to me is between the quantifiable and the non. The whole point of the original whinge was in "breaking the rules" to do this rather than operating within the tools given. (Though as the example appears to be a 1E adventure, one could argue that it was a lot more tolerated then than it is now - the 3.x influx of 3rd party adventure design is a different world to the era of waiting for Gygax to write T2.)

IIrrelevant

...

So what.

...

Then my point is proven. /quote]

I think this is entirely missing the point, of course, but lets just leave it and move on. This post is big enough as it is without the two of us rambling on about this. ;-)

IMaybe. Maybe not. No one likes to die. You might as well complain about Dragon's though, which is often the last thing some characters see. Context is everything here.

Absolutely right on the context part: adventures with these "one way out" traps played can be perfectly fun, and players may not necesarilly notice depending on their spell selection or initial thoughts. The problems creep in, IMHO, if players discover that they suffered player death or sessions "wasted" trapped behind a problem because the GM or adventure writer simply decided to, without a rules backup, cut off a solution: whereas most combat encounter have elements of chance built into them and most players will roll with a death as "luck of the draw", a sealed off crushing chamber or fire trap that isn't fire might bring about some more bitter thoughts.

IRailroading isn't always bad. It's just something that's very easy to overdo. But every adventure railroads to a certain extent.

This is true: adventures which don't tend to be pretty lousy adventures. Clearly we just have different thresholds of when it is and isn't permissable,w hich is fair enough.

 

[Celebrim]

I believe the OPs problem was that the damage was irresistable without the cloak, though: so rather than have a trap triggered by the absence of the cloaks, it's a trap that hurts anyone regardless of spells, racial resistances etc. (at least, that's how I understood it)

But now we've moved on back to the original question, whether its possible for the trap to do unresistable damage. And the answer ought to be, obviously, "Yes." And it doesn't even have to deal 'city' damage. The point is that there are (basically) unresistable sorts of damage.

Sometimes these things aren't obvious to players: as you note, a trap which goes off without holding an item could also be a trap that the item provides the power to resist.

There is a fine line between making something so obvious it provides no challange, and making something so inobvious that no one will get it except at random. In my experience, with skilled players, you can trust them to figure things out (even things you didn't plan on having them figure out). The problem comes when inexperienced players faces challanges intended for experienced ones - say Forgotten Tomb of Thardizun or Temple of Horrors.

(I've also discovered that any ammount of 3rd edition adventuring doesn't seem to produce the hardened savvy players that I'm used to from the 1st edition days, but that's another topic.)

As my fellow Scot pointed out (and I explicitly called out in my original post, in fact) the difference is one that can come out if the players revisit, or if you roll the adventure up to a higher level. It's effectively the same thing at the time, of course, but the ethos behind the two is greatly different.

First of all, no it is not. If I write in the text, the door has 200 hardness and 1000 hitpoints, then I'm effectively making the decision to make that path inaccessible just as if I had said, "Nothing short of salient divine strength abilities can bash this door down." And in either case, what I wrote in my description is not the business of the players. For all that they are concerned, I could have wrote either. All they know is that based on the feedback I'm giving them, bashing the door down is not a path accessible to them. In either case, the doors durability is based on the power of plot.

If on the other hand I wrote that the door has 30 hardness and 400 hitpoints, then I'm making the decision to allow the door to be bashed down by any party that has sufficient determination and the minimal ability to do so. And that too is a decision based on the plot. The problem comes when your too inexperience to realize that 30 hardness and 400 hitpoints represents no real obstacle under the rules as written.

Specifically in a game like D&D 3.x which has so many rules for desigining traps, and stats for the comparable hardness of various materials and spells which adjust tht, I don't think it's unfair to brand people who ignore those rules and make up their own as "cheating": at least, within the context of a pre-made adventure that does it purely as a railroading device. If nothing else, it's certainly rather poor writing, and making excuses for it doesn't change that.

Oh balarky. No. No. No. Anyone that thinks that the D&D rules for object damage are sufficient and workable has bloody little experience as a DM. Sorry. That's just absurd. The object damage rules rank right up thier with the diplomacy rules as one of the remaining glaring deficiencies in the game. A decision to ignore these rules because they are unworkable is not necessarily in the least poor writing, and often quite the contary.

One of the main reasons to make a door unbashable is just to avoid dealing with the highly flawed object damage rules so as to avoid getting the game sidetracked by some stinking rules lawyer who doesn't want to let the DM DM because his idea of a good time is telling the DM what he's going to do and then telling the DM what happened when he did it, and all he wants from the DM is a captive audience to set their and stroke his ego. That's every bit as bad as DM that wants to play the player's character's for them.

The problem with relying too heavily on the object damage rules is that they aren't designed for any sort of complex situation, but rather simply to give a quick and dirty resolution system when the problem comes up. The result is that if you follow them exactly as written with no additions of any sort, they get ridiculous. A mid level barbarian with power attack and a wooden great club can bash through a foot thick adamantium door using the rules as written. That's absurd. I can't even begin to list all the problems the rules have with dealing damage to inanimate objects, but heres just a few off the top of my head:

1) The rules don't categorize the weapons well with respect to thier effect on inanimate objects. A longsword simply shouldn't be very effective at bashing down anything, or hewing through wooden doors, or anything of the such. Under the rules as written, all lethal weapons work equally well.
2) Under the rules as written, if you hit a hardness 30 object with anything, the object you hit takes damage, but the object you use to do the bashing does not.. The result is that, unless the DM 'cheats', a 20th level barbarian with power attack can bash through an adamantium door with a wine glass. What really should happen is that if you hit a hardness 30 object sufficiently hard to damage it, the object you hit it with should take 30 damage. Thus, realisticly, if you try to bash down a wall with a wooden club, very quickly you should end up with a broken club.
3) That doesn't even begin to deal with the fact that eventually even 'soft' objects (like wood) will damage hard objects (like steel) if you do enough pounding with them. If you go trying to break down a door with battleaxe, sooner or latter you end up with a dull and dented battleaxe. Normally, the rules hand wave away all this stuff as not worth the book keeping, but when the PC's try to abuse the rules as written (bashing through the stone door with thier long swords) the DM is well in his rights to bring rule zero into play.
4) The rules as written assume that the hardness of an object depends only on the material that it is made of and that the hitpoints depend on the size. In fact, both the hardness of an object and its hitpoints scale up with thickness. Six inch thick glass will resist a much harder blow without any damage than 1/4" glass. A 2" in plank may have a hardness of 8, but a 18" wall of planks and timbers has a hardness closer to 18 (cannonballs might well bounce off it without damaging it). And yet, because of the properties of wood, you can take an wood awl and bore a hole into wood of just about any thickness with (comparitively) little force. Is this because an awl does a tremendous ammount of damage? No, this is because tools that are designed to 'do damage' to inanimate objects are designed very differently than most weapons.

And so forth.

That's not unfair: though I would like to add again that declaring people who don't like the example given as people who "get upset becuase they can't bash down the door" is rather coldly brushing off people who don't agree with a certain style of play.

Yes it is. Believe me, I would give them a rather hot brush off if I had such an idiot at my table trying to rules lawyer me on how I run my game. I've got very little patience for players who expect me to do all the work, but for them to be in control of the game or who actually don't want be challenged, just validated.

There is that: but again, the difference to me is between the quantifiable and the non.

I think that's an argument based on semantics that ultimately signifies nothing. As I continue to point out, I can set the objects hardness arbitrarily high and its the same thing as saying, "No."

...problems creep in, IMHO, if players discover that they suffered player death or sessions "wasted" trapped behind a problem because the GM or adventure writer simply decided to, without a rules backup, cut off a solution:

People have a very strange idea of what constitutes 'rules' these days, but I've already gone there. The point you make here is, tangentally, the point I've been trying to make all along. The real complaint here has nothing to do with what is being (so misleadingly) called 'cheating', but rather with arbitrarily taking away the players character. Arbitrarily taking away the players character is in general, bad DMing (especially if this isn't a one shot but an on going campaign). But a DM can do that with or without 'cheating'. It's just that most players don't notice that that is the problem unless they feel that the DM 'cheated' in some way. I can easily design traps that are invariably lethal and yet within the rules. But if I did that, I really would be going 'neener neener'. The DM proves nothing by 'beating' the players. He's the DM. Of course he can beat the players.

But breaking the rules - or as is more likely, noting the rules are incomplete and extending them oso that they better cover some situation that the rules don't cover so well - has nothing to do with going 'neener neener'. As I said, the player would almost certainly have no problem with an unbreakable sword being given to him, even though that is by this (really dumb) definition 'cheating'.

Clearly we just have different thresholds of when it is and isn't permissable,w hich is fair enough.

I doubt that we do have that different of standards. I think instead that you've been misled by this thread into blaming the wrong thing.

 

[GQuail]

I doubt that we do have that different of standards. I think instead that you've been misled by this thread into blaming the wrong thing.

Let me assure you that your post has verified for me that we very much do. ;-)

 

[Celebrim]

Let me assure you that your post has verified for me that we very much do. ;-)

Without citing an example, I can't help but this is disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing.

For example, do you think it is reasonable to allow a barbarian to break down a door with a wine glass? If a DM doesn't allow it, and instead suggests that the wine glass shatters on the first blow, is the DM 'cheating'?

If you don't think so, I'm not sure where you see our actual point of disagreement.

 

[Graf]

If I write in the text, the door has 200 hardness and 1000 hitpoints, then I'm effectively making the decision to make that path inaccessible just as if I had said, "Nothing short of salient divine strength abilities can bash this door down."

Your statement is true.
They are both equally poor ways of doing something.

In both cases you voilated the implicit and explict rules of the game. One by having gods showing up to make players lives difficult and in other by creating some item that is powers of magnitude more dense than adamantine.

Both because the designer/DM wants the players to run around and jump through hoops, doing things exactly the way they've decided.

This is why most people feel that this sort of thing is the sign of weak design.

You seem to feel that "hardened players" is a good thing, but it sounds like you want a bunch of yes men who just do what the DM wants.

 

[Celebrim]

In both cases you voilated the implicit and explict rules of the game.

I have? Where?

One by having gods showing up to make players lives difficult and in other by creating some item that is powers of magnitude more dense than adamantine.

Which of these is an explicit rule? Is it written somewhere, "There shalt be nothing in the game stronger than adamantium." Show me the page. Is it written somewhere, "The gods shalt not make players lives difficult?" Show me the page.

You can't. Because I've broken no explicit rule. Your the worst sort of rules lawyer. Not only would you have me obey the rules as written even when makes no sense, but you'd have me obey the rules that aren't written but which exist only in your head!!

But, perhaps I'm breaking an implicit rule. Perhaps it can be understood from the games history that there is no such thing as an unbreakable substance, no such thing as a door that cannot be broken down by brute force.

But if that was the case, we wouldn't be having this thread because we can point to all sorts of cases where the most widely recognized names in the game - Gary Gygax, Tracy Hickman, Monte Cook - did that very sort of thing. There are all sorts of things in the game which aren't ammendable to destruction by brute force, every major artifact being a case in point. So no, there is no implicit rule that something can't be unbreakable. None. Nowhere. There is no implicit social contract that says the DM can't have doors that are unbreakable or energy damage which cannot be resisted or darkness which cannot be dispelled or whatever; how can there be when so many of the examples and mentors of the game most clearly show otherwise?

You are making this stuff up.

There is no implicit rule of the game which says, "The gods can't make players lives difficult." Where would half the modules and campaigns ever written be if the gods couldn't make players lives difficult? Forgotten Tomb of Thardizun? Queen of the Demonweb Pits? Pharoah (from the desert of desolation campaign)? The Dragonlance campaign? The time of troubles? Axe of the Dwarven Lords? Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil? Age of Wurms adventure path?? Red Hand of Doom??? Where do you get the idea that the gods can't make players live difficult? Show me how that is implied by the history of dungeons and dragons? How can it be implied when half the famous adventures in D&D's history consist of thwarting one dark god or another, or dealing with the works of some god or another, or cleaning up the messes the gods make. Of course the gods can show up to make characters lives difficult. If they can't, it would hardly be D&D you were playing.

This is why most people feel that this sort of thing is the sign of weak design.

Gygax? Hickman? Cook? Weak design? You are damning probably 40 or so of the 50 most loved modules ever printed as weak design. Somehow I don't think your standards count for very much, nor do I think that word 'most' means what you think it does.

You seem to feel that "hardened players" is a good thing, but it sounds like you want a bunch of yes men who just do what the DM wants.

You can think whatever you want. I don't hold your opinion in enough esteem to bother to try to care whether you know the difference between showing a DM respect and letting a DM walk all over you. I'll simply say that when I play at someone else's table, I strive to be the sort of player that I would want sitting at my table. I don't quarrel with the DM. I don't whine. I don't treat the DM as an enemy. I don't interrupt sessions. I try not to metagame. If I think the DM ruled poorly, I wait until after the session in private to try to make my point. I try to entertain the DM as much as he tries to entertain me, and because I'm a DM I respect the effort that goes into pulling off a good session. And I do this not because I'm an arrogant SOB (although I am), but because after 25+ years of RPing (sheesh has it been that long) I've sat through enough wasted sessions where some player didn't act like that and didn't treat the DM with respect that I promised myself I'd never be that sort of player.

 

[prosfilaes]

Oh balarky. No. No. No. Anyone that thinks that the D&D rules for object damage are sufficient and workable has bloody little experience as a DM. Sorry. That's just absurd. The object damage rules rank right up thier with the diplomacy rules as one of the remaining glaring deficiencies in the game. A decision to ignore these rules because they are unworkable is not necessarily in the least poor writing, and often quite the contary.

I disagree. A lot of these problems are the exact same things you could get in fighting animate objects. A long sword is designed to hurt things that leak, like humanoids; oozes should be near invulnerable to swords. Also, an iron golem should do as much damage to a sword as an iron door would.

as to avoid getting the game sidetracked by some stinking rules lawyer who doesn't want to let the DM DM because his idea of a good time is telling the DM what he's going to do and then telling the DM what happened when he did it, and all he wants from the DM is a captive audience to set their and stroke his ego. That's every bit as bad as DM that wants to play the player's character's for them.

That seems a little extreme for players who want their characters to beat down doors. It's a slow loud action which means the DM has a lot of options to deal with it other than just saying that, no, the door can't be beat down. That strikes me as the DM wanting to play the character to me.

The result is that if you follow them exactly as written with no additions of any sort, they get ridiculous. A mid level barbarian with power attack and a wooden great club can bash through a foot thick adamantium door using the rules as written. That's absurd.

Why is it any more absurd than the same barbarian bashing down an iron golem?

unless the DM 'cheats', a 20th level barbarian with power attack can bash through an adamantium door with a wine glass.

He can also kill a giant with it, so this has nothing to do with the rules for inanimate objects. This also has nothing to do with reality; a 20th level barbarian is going to be pounding on that door with a weapon, likely adamantine and/or highly magical.

No, this is because tools that are designed to 'do damage' to inanimate objects are designed very differently than most weapons.

I've seen characters carry around sledgehammers. If the issue is the choice of tools, many players would have little problem adding pickaxes and sledgehammers to their character's equipment lists.

As I said, the player would almost certainly have no problem with an unbreakable sword being given to him, even though that is by this (really dumb) definition 'cheating'.

People get more annoyed by people who cheat against them than for them.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Doesn't bother me at all. Sometimes the rules don't cover everything. And in a magical fantasy place I don't mind things being done differently. However, it should not be done that often and writers should stick to the raw as much as possible.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Additionally, if the "rules break" is explained with a NICE piece of fluff, I actually like that kind of thing. Example: the darkness. Make it out as a piece of elemental Darkness that was trapped in that room from times just before the gods created the world. It's far too old and too powerful to be affected by any magic wrought by a mortal, and the only thing that can shed some light into it is a sliver of the Gem of Creation, because the Darkness shies away from it, essentially allowing it to shine light on the surroundings. The last sliver of that Gem the adventurers happened upon sat in the eye of the idol two dungeons back, and if they got it out, they have a source of light, and if not...well, good luck with the other four senses.