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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imagicka" data-source="post: 3229444" data-attributes="member: 4621">This is probably was irks me the most.  I hate it when someone plays the Deus Ex Machina card, and then expect me to enjoy the ride.  Now, if your designing something for public consumption, then yeah... I think you should be working as close to the RAW as possible.  If your going to go out of the books and create new monsters, new spells, and new situations. Then just as anyone would expect you to define what these new monsters and new spells are... then you should explain to me why you have these new situations.  Even if your going to write something for just the GM to read so it makes sense to him... then, that's fine.Whenever I spend money on my gaming products, instead of spending an afternoon in a drug-induced haze watching clouds float by, or drug-induced haze surfing the internet to steal ideals from other... I want those gaming products to be tight.  To be well thought out, and worth the money I spent on it.  No holes of logic anywhere.  I don't want players coming back to me asking: "So, you have a chimera in this sealed room, for what? A few hundred years?  How did the thing breath? Where did it get it's food and water?  Why is it even here?"  But I'm a big proponent of making everything logical.  Why are there even frictionless-corridors in this underground complex anyway?  Even if you explain it away with 'the world's dungeons were built by insane drunken dwarves who thought it would be fun to build confusing random rooms and tunnels, fill it with traps and monsters... just so they could store their gold in because they don't trust banks!' -- It may be silly, but it's still an answer.Exactly... if you have some door that the players need a key for, then don't say 'it's magical' or it's unbreakable (especially if it isn't magical) ... or pull out the Deus Ex Machina card and deal with it that way.  It just shows me that you don't know the game well enough to come up with a suitable explaination as to why things are the way you want them... and that were just too lazy to do a little research.  By all means... if you want to say that the door is unbreakable because it's been magically reenforced... great... that it's been made out of a super-strong material... super.  But you know that players are always going to find a way around your DM-designed problems.  That's the point of the game... Whenever I've designed puzzles/traps/problems I've always measured it against *What would I do?*  I work on the system, if I can think of a couple of ways to tackle the problem...it's an easy problem  If I design it so that I can only think of a way to solve it... then I consider it hard... and... If I design it so even I can't think of a way to solve it... I consider it near-impossible.  But not impossible.  -- Because the players will always think of some way to derail your plot.  To come up with a solution to your problem that you never thought of.  The secret is to expect it, and roll with it.  Personally, I cherish these moments.But I hate it when it's obvious that the DM is denying solutions just because they didn't think about it.  Like someone said before... if I wanted to play a game where I had to guess the only right solution to a problem, without being creative.  I'll play one of those early Sierra computer games.Does coming up off-the-table ideas add to the game?  Sure it does.  It makes the game that much more interesting and imaginative.  But I don't think we should ever be restrictive about the solutions that the players should be allowed to apply.  The problem with leaving plot/design holes all over the place is that players pick up on them real quick, and start picking at them thinking they are there for a reason.  Ahh... think about what he's designing?  Don't just think about what looks good on paper, but think about how players are going to tackle these situations, and for heaven's sake... Playtest it!  (and get it proof read)Only if there is a key plot point to be gained by it.  Can't teleport around the dungeon, explain it!  As soon as you say 'you can't do this...' you better explain to me why.Never!  If you want to think of a few RAW-solutions... great... but players are going to think of ingenious ways to solve their problem, and it makes the game that much better if you let them succeed.  Yeah, you design too much that is Deux Ex Machina, relying too much on 'off the table' solutions that exclude in-game mechanics... then I'm just going to lose respect for you as a designer, a writer, a gamer and will probably never even waste my time considering reading anything else you designed, let alone pay money for it.Hey, if your game is good where you don't concern yourself if the players have enough rope, torches, oil and spikes... hey... that's your game.  But I don't think it's too much to ask the players to come up with a list of resources, and say the simple phrase 'I'm going to replenish my resources whenever possible.'  The same goes for magical resources.  If you throw monster-X against the players, and forgot that the rogue has a dagger-of-monster-X-slaying, who fault is it when you were expecting the characters to run?</blockquote>

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