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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8048406" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>Rewarding a behaviour you want to encourage is fine only until the reward becomes automatic, and thus expected.</p><p></p><p>Ideally, an exploration action could have one or more of three outcomes: reward (treasure, info, shortcut), punishment (trap, monster, misdirection), or nothing. Finding nothing is not a punishment.</p><p></p><p>You've had different players than I, then. Here, I could put every discouragement known to DMs on a door and they'd still try to find a way through it. (then again, how do the players know whether they're 'suppoesed' to open a door or not, until after they've already done it?)</p><p></p><p>In part you answered your first question with your second sentence: in part perhaps it is there to confuse, misdirect, or delay. As for the second question, the only way to find out is to go through it and look.</p><p></p><p>As the party, busy exploring deep in an old castle, opens a door and looks in I lay out the scene: "<em>Behind the door is a round room about 30' across. An open-grid metal spiral staircase leads upward from the middle and passes through a hole in the ceiling. An open archway across from you seems to exit directly into another room, on your left and right are closed wooden doors. A bright torch in a sconce above each exit provides light. The only furniture is three sets of shelves, curved to match the room's walls, standing one between each pair of doors except to your immediate left. On the shelves are an assortment of knick-knacks, a few books and papers, and - as you can see even from here - quite a lot of dust.</em>"</p><p></p><p>So you've got four known exits other than the door you're coming in: ahead, left, right, and up. What comes next?</p><p></p><p></p><p>Exploring and describing the 'nothing' is every bit as much a part of playing the game as talking with the King or putting a sword through a Giant. In the description I give above, how do you know whether it's 'nothing' until you interact with it? How do you know if any of the exits go anywhere useful until you check 'em all out?</p><p></p><p>Yeah, we're coming from completely different backgrounds here I think: I can't imagine a party <strong>not</strong> searching a room unless I describe it as four bare walls, a bare floor and a ceiling - and even that'd make 'em suspicious!</p><p></p><p>What always both amazes and pleases me is that what on paper are a complete bunch of mooks can give a party fits yet that same party can turn around and knock off foes that in theory have them completely outgunned. I like this, in that I prefer a flatter power curve where low-grade monsters remain a threat further into the game, and at the same time low-level parties can take on major foes with at least a non-zero chance of success.</p><p></p><p>I'm not running 5e so I've yet to deal with the joys of bounded accuracy. That said, I like a mix of fights and opponents - some where the PCs can't really miss and others where they have a very hard time hitting, with most being in the middle somewhere.</p><p></p><p>Agreed. However, one has to be careful not to overdo this.</p><p></p><p>And again, mixing it up is fun too. Sometimes I'll leave amazing treasure just lying there unguarded by anything*. Other times I'll have traps and monsters guarding nothing, or nothing of value. The minute they start to be able to predict what comes next, I know I'm doing it wrong.</p><p></p><p>* - in an adventure I wrote and ran a few years back there was a secret passage - just a shortcut between two otherwise-very-explorable areas, which they found and explored no problem - and lying on the floor of this passage was a Ring of Three Wishes, completely undefended by anything other than the passage being hard to find. The idea was that if they used this passage some PC might have a Bilbo moment and find the ring...so of course they never found the passage at all. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 8048406, member: 29398"] Rewarding a behaviour you want to encourage is fine only until the reward becomes automatic, and thus expected. Ideally, an exploration action could have one or more of three outcomes: reward (treasure, info, shortcut), punishment (trap, monster, misdirection), or nothing. Finding nothing is not a punishment. You've had different players than I, then. Here, I could put every discouragement known to DMs on a door and they'd still try to find a way through it. (then again, how do the players know whether they're 'suppoesed' to open a door or not, until after they've already done it?) In part you answered your first question with your second sentence: in part perhaps it is there to confuse, misdirect, or delay. As for the second question, the only way to find out is to go through it and look. As the party, busy exploring deep in an old castle, opens a door and looks in I lay out the scene: "[I]Behind the door is a round room about 30' across. An open-grid metal spiral staircase leads upward from the middle and passes through a hole in the ceiling. An open archway across from you seems to exit directly into another room, on your left and right are closed wooden doors. A bright torch in a sconce above each exit provides light. The only furniture is three sets of shelves, curved to match the room's walls, standing one between each pair of doors except to your immediate left. On the shelves are an assortment of knick-knacks, a few books and papers, and - as you can see even from here - quite a lot of dust.[/I]" So you've got four known exits other than the door you're coming in: ahead, left, right, and up. What comes next? Exploring and describing the 'nothing' is every bit as much a part of playing the game as talking with the King or putting a sword through a Giant. In the description I give above, how do you know whether it's 'nothing' until you interact with it? How do you know if any of the exits go anywhere useful until you check 'em all out? Yeah, we're coming from completely different backgrounds here I think: I can't imagine a party [B]not[/B] searching a room unless I describe it as four bare walls, a bare floor and a ceiling - and even that'd make 'em suspicious! What always both amazes and pleases me is that what on paper are a complete bunch of mooks can give a party fits yet that same party can turn around and knock off foes that in theory have them completely outgunned. I like this, in that I prefer a flatter power curve where low-grade monsters remain a threat further into the game, and at the same time low-level parties can take on major foes with at least a non-zero chance of success. I'm not running 5e so I've yet to deal with the joys of bounded accuracy. That said, I like a mix of fights and opponents - some where the PCs can't really miss and others where they have a very hard time hitting, with most being in the middle somewhere. Agreed. However, one has to be careful not to overdo this. And again, mixing it up is fun too. Sometimes I'll leave amazing treasure just lying there unguarded by anything*. Other times I'll have traps and monsters guarding nothing, or nothing of value. The minute they start to be able to predict what comes next, I know I'm doing it wrong. * - in an adventure I wrote and ran a few years back there was a secret passage - just a shortcut between two otherwise-very-explorable areas, which they found and explored no problem - and lying on the floor of this passage was a Ring of Three Wishes, completely undefended by anything other than the passage being hard to find. The idea was that if they used this passage some PC might have a Bilbo moment and find the ring...so of course they never found the passage at all. :) [/QUOTE]
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