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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3228154" data-attributes="member: 42582">Mallus, I like your points. The play preferences of different groups obviously will differ, but I can't see any in-principle objection to challenges that aren't about resource management/application.Nor is this contrary to D&D tradition - the 1st Ed DMG emphasised this sort of thing frequently, and you can see it in the Starship Warden campaign logs in the early Dragon magazines.I think this contrast between "resource use" and "guessing games" leaves some things out. For example, what if the "guessing game" has been seeded by earlier clues given, or has an answer which is a natural (or plausible) inference from earlier events in the campaign, or from known facts of the campaign world?Having a quick look over Lost Temple of Tharizdun, it doesn't seem outrageous. First, the robes are magic (radiating Abjuration); second, as others have said, the cold is that radiated by a being of utter entropy and destruction - it is perhaps not even a real cold, but more like the chilling touch of the Undead or negative energy; third, the idea of a magical effect or trap having a key or password that gets around it is hardly non-standard - in this case, the "password" is the ceremonial robes.Moving from rules logic to play logic, what is the point of a game that encourages players to have their characters don Tharizdun's robes if they are to safely enter his temple? On the roleplaying front, it forces them (especially clerics and paladins) to make a choice about how far they are prepared to go in becoming like the enemy they are there to combat. On the flavour front, it gives the GM a lot of scope to talk up the eeriness of the robes, the rustling they create in the temple, the way temple inhabitants respond to them, etc. This may reinforce the roleplaying challenge, or just be fun in its own right.Whatever the overall merits of WG4 - and I know a lot of people think of it as mediocre rather than great - to characterise this sort of adventure design as simply "guessing games" or "rail-roading" is unfair. It ignores the real contributions to the play experience - at least for some groups, who are looking for that sort of experience - that can result from it.</blockquote>

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