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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4984371" data-attributes="member: 80487">As a DM, one ought to expect secret doors not to be found. Not that one should make everything depend on players not finding one, either, which would also be foolish.&quot;Monty Haul&quot; is an issue with DMs who make things too easy, predicated on the assumption that players want challenges commensurate with rewards. The ideal (presumed to be shared by players who really understood the situation) was &quot;The Price is Right&quot; (a la Goldilocks<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />&nbsp; -- Monty HALL hosted &quot;Let's Make a Deal&quot;). If players quite honestly view D&amp;D not as a test of skill but as the story of &quot;my awesome character getting always more awesome&quot;, then the only trouble with an old-style &quot;give-away&quot; game is that it's too hard! The new scheme is not a little boost of &quot;something for nothing&quot; -- more accurately too much for too little -- but everything as entitlement.See how it's not &quot;just a matter of degree&quot; but a fundamentally different conception of the purpose of the undertaking? I recall no evidence of such a conception up to the 1990s at least. Even in Candy Land (which involves no decision-making at all), one can get stuck (losing turns) or sent backwards.I suppose some players in the 1970s might seriously have entertained the notion under false pretenses; today, it's &quot;out of the closet&quot;. Indeed, its expectations seem to carry about as much weight in &quot;official&quot; circles as the traditional expectations of a well-run D&amp;D game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 4984371, member: 80487"] As a DM, one ought to [B]expect[/B] secret doors not to be found. Not that one should make everything depend on players [I]not[/I] finding one, either, which would also be foolish. "Monty Haul" is an issue with DMs who make things too easy, predicated on the assumption that players [B]want[/B] challenges commensurate with rewards. The ideal (presumed to be shared by players who really understood the situation) was "The Price is Right" (a la Goldilocks;) -- Monty HALL hosted "Let's Make a Deal"). If players quite honestly view D&D not as a test of skill but as the story of "my awesome character getting always more awesome", then the only trouble with an old-style "give-away" game is that it's too hard! The new scheme is not a little boost of "something for nothing" -- more accurately too much for too little -- but [I]everything[/I] as entitlement. See how it's not "just a matter of degree" but a fundamentally different conception of the purpose of the undertaking? I recall no evidence of such a conception up to the 1990s at least. Even in Candy Land (which involves no decision-making at all), one can get stuck (losing turns) or sent backwards. I suppose some players in the 1970s might seriously have entertained the notion under false pretenses; today, it's "out of the closet". Indeed, its expectations seem to carry about as much weight in "official" circles as the traditional expectations of a well-run D&D game. [/QUOTE]

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