Well, Mike Mearls got promoted. Any hope for 5e?

[Winnah]

Seriously? Most folk here are suggesting your penalties have no basis in reality, not that they're too cruel.

I know, that's what makes their argument so retarded. People are saying that they're opposed to it because they don't understand how having your attention focused elsewhere would possibly lower overall awareness.

Probably from the same moronic generation that can't realize that texting while driving is dangerous. But no, they're all 100% aware while doing that too. Doesn't affect their awareness one bit, because looking down doesn't inhibit your ability to see stuff in front of you in any way whatsoever.

Apparently some people here feel like their perceptions are fueled by magic pixie dust that lets them defy all common sense.

Driving while texting is a stupid example. People get comfortable with the routine of driving, despite the potential for danger, so they become complacent and allow themselves to become distracted.

A totally different situation from walking around a hostile area while adrenaline is flowing. Seriously. You can hear the blood flowing through your ears, the minuteae in your surroundings becomes obvious and your perspective of time slows down to a crawl.

If you want to debate reaction times while distracted, then fine, go ahead and do that. But drop the hyperbolic real world examples as justification for game rules.

[RobbyPants]

Is it that "I search for traps"/exploration is inherently un-fun, or is it just poorly suited for D&D?

If the latter, what system is better for gameplay based around overcoming environmental hazards and nullifying traps?

It can be interesting in small doses, but as soon as the DM springs some clever who-would-have-thought-to-look-there sort of trap on the PCs, he incentivizes them to search everything. Once they start searching everything, the whole thing becomes boring and pointless.

Also, reducing the entire thing to a single Search roll followed by a Disable Device roll is also somewhat less interesting than if it were handled more like an encounter, where it took a series of decisions and actions to disable the trap. That sort of thing doesn't port into D&D without additional designing.

[K]

Is it that "I search for traps"/exploration is inherently un-fun, or is it just poorly suited for D&D?

If the latter, what system is better for gameplay based around overcoming environmental hazards and nullifying traps?

It can be interesting in small doses, but as soon as the DM springs some clever who-would-have-thought-to-look-there sort of trap on the PCs, he incentivizes them to search everything. Once they start searching everything, the whole thing becomes boring and pointless.

Also, reducing the entire thing to a single Search roll followed by a Disable Device roll is also somewhat less interesting than if it were handled more like an encounter, where it took a series of decisions and actions to disable the trap. That sort of thing doesn't port into D&D without additional designing.

The whole process also falls apart when you knot-cut.

For example, you send a summoned guy down the hallway and let all the traps to hit it. Then you disintegrate or shatter the traps.

[Swordslinger]

Driving while texting is a stupid example. People get comfortable with the routine of driving, despite the potential for danger, so they become complacent and allow themselves to become distracted.

A totally different situation from walking around a hostile area while adrenaline is flowing. Seriously. You can hear the blood flowing through your ears, the minuteae in your surroundings becomes obvious and your perspective of time slows down to a crawl.

Wow more bullshit. You don't turn into superman in a dangerous situation.

Lets use something with adrenaline: Lets say you're a quarterback in a football game. Do you think you'd be able to read your wristband with the plays on it at the same time that you're trying to read the field, see blitzers and receivers? You think that looking down at your wristband and reading words while trying to watch the field isn't going to impair your awareness at all? It's just as if your head and eyes were facing upwards?

Is that seriously what you're saying?

If it is, then you've just gone beyond pathetic in this argument.

[Wrathzog]

For example, you send a summoned guy down the hallway and let all the traps to hit it. Then you disintegrate or shatter the traps.

So, why can't we accept that as a viable alternative to searching for and disabling traps?

Also, Swordslinger, you seriously need to drop this. You're not going to be able to convince anyone that your idea is a good one.

-e-
Adding quote tags
Respond to Swordslinger

[tzor]

Even before we have the argument that texting and driving is not the same as two kinds of awareness of your surroundings, the mere fact that people successfully text and drive all the time makes your point stupid.

Words fail me (no really writing trans moronic just doesn't have the same effect).

A recently released study by the VirginiaTech Transportation Institute found that truck drivers who were texting were 23 times more at risk of a “crash or near crash event” than “nondistracted driving.” As per talking on a cell phone, the same study found no increased risk for truck drivers and 1.3 times the risk for car drivers. There was considerably more risk associated with dialing while driving. The institute’s Richard Hanowski acknowledges that the numbers are likely to be different with car drivers. As reported by CNET’s Jennifer Guevin, the study also found that “texting took a driver’s focus away from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds–enough time…to travel the length of a football field at 55 mph.”

That's 23 TIMES. But let's read on.

Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent. (Source: Carnegie Mellon)

WTF? This real world DM is a real son of a bitch; you mean you get a penalty to all your INT rolls as well? Yes, that's right.

SO let's recap these numbers

The following statistics come from a study conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI):

• Of all cell phone related tasks – including talking, dialing, or reaching for the phone – texting while driving is the most dangerous.
• Teen drivers are four times more likely than adults to get into car crashes or near crash events directly related to talking on a cell phone or texting.
• A car driver dialing a cell phone is 2.8 times more likely to get into a crash than a non-distracted driver.
• A driver reaching for a cell phone or any other electronic device is 1.4 times more likely to experience a car crash.
• A car driver talking on their phone is 1.3 times more likely to get into an accident.
• A truck driver texting while driving is 23.2 times more likely to get into an accident than a trucker paying full attention to the road.
• A truck driver dialing a cell is 5.9 times more likely to crash.
• A trucker reaching for a phone or other device is 6.7 times more likely to experience a truck accident.
• For every 6 seconds of drive time, a driver sending or receiving a text message spends 4.6 of those seconds with their eyes off the road. This makes texting the most distracting of all cell phone related tasks.

Seriously K if you don't understand the penalties for texting and driving step away from the game design table immediately. That is all.

[RobbyPants]

The whole process also falls apart when you knot-cut.

For example, you send a summoned guy down the hallway and let all the traps to hit it. Then you disintegrate or shatter the traps.

I agree and disagree with you. The current system falls apart when you do this. The current system also falls apart if the group speed runs through most of the traps and blows a quarter of a Wand of Lesser Vigor's charges afterward.

What you described would work pretty nicely in a setup where traps were handled more like encounters. Instead of Disintegrating a monster, you Disintegrate a structural element. Instead of Shattering a weapon, you Shatter a lock. I'm fine with that, and it gives everyone a reason to deal with the trap. It also gets rid of the need to have one guy with Trapfinding written on his character sheet.

[shadzar]

traps are jsut more terrain based obstacles with those nice neat little mechanics people love to get +'s for.

be they roadblocks to get to treasure or further down a hall, they do make sense.

while not often used in real life, they do have sense in being there. most times they are deterrents for the common man, while challenges with rewards for the adventurer.

[violence in the media]

while not often used in real life, they do have sense in being there. most times they are deterrents for the common man, while challenges with rewards for the adventurer.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, if only because I don't understand the mindset behind such logic.

"I don't want anyone to come and take my treasure, save for the first person that can solve the riddle of my ROOM OF DOOM!"

I can see a misanthrope circulating rumors to that effect, only to present applicants with an insurmountable death trap simply to spread woe after they're gone. I can see building a trap that you think will keep out, kill, or deter all treasure seekers, but that an unforseen quality of treasure hunter can overcome. I can see simple retributive traps that curse the treasure or treasure seeker. Test traps however? I totally don't get that.

[Winnah]

double post

[Winnah]

Driving while texting is a stupid example. People get comfortable with the routine of driving, despite the potential for danger, so they become complacent and allow themselves to become distracted.

A totally different situation from walking around a hostile area while adrenaline is flowing. Seriously. You can hear the blood flowing through your ears, the minuteae in your surroundings becomes obvious and your perspective of time slows down to a crawl.

Wow more bullshit. You don't turn into superman in a dangerous situation.

Lets use something with adrenaline: Lets say you're a quarterback in a football game. Do you think you'd be able to read your wristband with the plays on it at the same time that you're trying to read the field, see blitzers and receivers? You think that looking down at your wristband and reading words while trying to watch the field isn't going to impair your awareness at all? It's just as if your head and eyes were facing upwards?

Is that seriously what you're saying?

If it is, then you've just gone beyond pathetic in this argument.

"Acute stress response" was first described by Walter Cannon in the 1920s as a theory that animals react to threats with a general discharge of the sympathetic nervous system. The response was later recognized as the first stage of a general adaptation syndrome that regulates stress responses among vertebrates and other organisms.

The onset of a stress response is associated with specific physiological actions in the sympathetic nervous system, both directly and indirectly through the release of epinephrine and to a lesser extent norepinephrine from the medulla of the adrenal glands. The release is triggered by acetylcholine released from pre-ganglionic sympathetic nerves. These catecholamine hormones facilitate immediate physical reactions by triggering increases in heart rate and breathing, constricting blood vessels in many parts of the body—but not in muscles (vasodilation), brain, lungs, and heart—and tightening muscles. An abundance of catecholamines at neuroreceptor sites facilitates reliance on spontaneous or intuitive behaviors often related to combat or escape.

Normally, when a person is in a serene, unstimulated state, the "firing" of neurons in the locus ceruleus is minimal. A novel stimulus, once perceived, is relayed from the sensory cortex of the brain through the thalamus to the brain stem. That route of signaling increases the rate of noradrenergic activity in the locus ceruleus, and the person becomes alert and attentive to the environment.

If a stimulus is perceived as a threat, a more intense and prolonged discharge of the locus ceruleus activates the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system (Thase & Howland, 1995). The activation of the sympathetic nervous system leads to the release of norepinephrine from nerve endings acting on the heart, blood vessels, respiratory centers, and other sites. The ensuing physiological changes constitute a major part of the acute stress response. The other major player in the acute stress response is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.

Does that clear it up for you? Or perhaps you want to try and use another non combat analogy to try and explain the physical and psychological processes that are altered as a result of deadly threats...Coz' comparing American Football to a warzone is pretty fucking funny.

edit: broke quotes

[Chamomile]

I have actually found a situation wherein it makes sense. Other adventurers who, for whatever reason, cannot complete their quest leave several important quest items in a trap- and monster-infested labyrinth, the idea being that only competent adventurers will be able to retrieve them. Of course, this also requires that any enemies these adventurers have be unable to access this dungeon at all.

[shadzar]

while not often used in real life, they do have sense in being there. most times they are deterrents for the common man, while challenges with rewards for the adventurer.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, if only because I don't understand the mindset behind such logic.

"I don't want anyone to come and take my treasure, save for the first person that can solve the riddle of my ROOM OF DOOM!"

lets use real world "traps" as an example....

electric fences, burglar alarms, speed bumps....

these things are deterrent, and work for the most part and for most people. to many the risk isnt worth the reward of bypassing the purpose of the "trap".

in D&D and RPGs this goes true for the common person where fear of a trap often makes most see the reward as not worth the risk. but for the adventurer, they are all about risk for rewards, so it isnt that much of a deterrent.

small single traps like normal needles form a wall would stop common folk from going further and do some harm, and adventurers they would slow down and use their resources.

for the ROOM OF DOOM. the idea is that the trap is to slow, kill, deter, or expand the resources to weaken the trespassers so that when they get to the destination they are more easily dealt with.

a series of traps, is just a series of ambushes and attacks on the party so that when met they should be in a weaker than top form state to give the trap setter a better chance at winning.

it is tactically sound, such that punji traps did and do still exist, land mines do and did exist, etc.

or in the other example being used, the trap draws focus away from something else, so that it can be overlooked....like a guard sneaking up behind you while you arent paying attention.

[K]

Seriously K if you don't understand the penalties for texting and driving step away from the game design table immediately. That is all.

There are 225 million passenger vehicles in the US, 6 million accidents per year, and 0.4 million are caused by "distracted driving" such as texting(but this number includes all forms of distracted driving like talking to someone in the car). Twenty-four percent of all drivers text and drive once each week.

Texting driving may be dangerous, but it clearly is not too dangerous. In DnD terms, it'd barely qualify as a -1 penalty.

Now, when that's applied to millions of people, that's a large number of people. Individually, it's probably altering your 0.001% chance to a 0.024%.

[Kaelik]

Wow more bullshit. You don't turn into superman in a dangerous situation.

Lets use something with adrenaline: Lets say you're a quarterback in a football game. Do you think you'd be able to read your wristband with the plays on it at the same time that you're trying to read the field, see blitzers and receivers? You think that looking down at your wristband and reading words while trying to watch the field isn't going to impair your awareness at all? It's just as if your head and eyes were facing upwards?

Is that seriously what you're saying?

If it is, then you've just gone beyond pathetic in this argument.

No, but I bet he is saying that if your a quarter back for a football team, and you are reading the plays on your wrist strap, and you suddenly realize that there is a large man charging at you, you are capable of seeing the large man, and then stopping looking at the wrist strap, and go into reading the defense mode just as fast as if you had been standing around looking into space instead of focusing on your wrist strap.

[shadzar]

and here we go.. DM can never do anything right, so they need a shit load of concise rules that make them useless.

D&D has died....lazy brained morons wanting to play and cant put forth the effort cause a bad day at work, and cant say... HEY im just not good enough to play today, MUST BE ABLE TO PLAY D&D AT ANY TIME.

from one irresponsibility to another the game must be for the lowest common denominator rather than set the standards.

D&D used to be about getting together and sharing your imaginations over cooperative tasks, now it is jsut crunch some numbers, because bad DMs cant be reigned in, and idiots still play with bad DMs, instead of kicking them out of D&D since not everyone is capable of playing D&D.

D&D has to be for the jocks since EVERYONE wants to DM, even though only about 20% of the players NEED to, and only 50% of the ones that need to, can do it well enough to make a game run...

the DM advise is not going to happen cause they are going to be too fucking busy trying to tweak the mechanics rather than go ALL the way back to the beginning and give decent advise.

JAmes Wyatt's horseshit about playing with his son and his son deciding part of the story, has NOTHING to do with D&D and the premise it has, but about JAmes Wyatt learning how to be a better father, but no longer dictating to his child what to think or imagine....

D&D however still needs a DM, that was its whole purpose...so there is ONE person that is responsible for the group and to make the game run.

i dont want to play some hippy commune game where everyone is jsut groping each others ass for the next piece of story to be favorable form them from the players....

GET RID OF SO MANY STUPID ASS "RULES" AND GET BACK TO THE GAME.

people that had bad DMs, go see a fucking shrink and get your head fixed to udnerstand your petty insecurities because of a pst experience dont translate to all, and learn to trust the DM in front of you until they begin to fail, and communicate those failing with them in a manner that becomes better for all those at the table.

stop the horseshit pandering to the LCD with more and more mechanics cause of their fear to trust another human fucking being to be able to make something work, or jsut fucking stop playing D&D if you are only there to entertain yourself at the cost of everyone else, on EUITHER side of the screen.

[/pissed off rant]

The Fine Art of Dungeon Mastering

[violence in the media]

lets use real world "traps" as an example....

electric fences, burglar alarms, speed bumps....

these things are deterrent, and work for the most part and for most people. to many the risk isnt worth the reward of bypassing the purpose of the "trap".

in D&D and RPGs this goes true for the common person where fear of a trap often makes most see the reward as not worth the risk. but for the adventurer, they are all about risk for rewards, so it isnt that much of a deterrent.

small single traps like normal needles form a wall would stop common folk from going further and do some harm, and adventurers they would slow down and use their resources.

for the ROOM OF DOOM. the idea is that the trap is to slow, kill, deter, or expand the resources to weaken the trespassers so that when they get to the destination they are more easily dealt with.

a series of traps, is just a series of ambushes and attacks on the party so that when met they should be in a weaker than top form state to give the trap setter a better chance at winning.

it is tactically sound, such that punji traps did and do still exist, land mines do and did exist, etc.

or in the other example being used, the trap draws focus away from something else, so that it can be overlooked....like a guard sneaking up behind you while you arent paying attention.

None of those things you mentioned are put in place with the idea that the trapsetter will say "Jolly good show!" to the dude that that makes it through and absconds with his valuables.

Punji traps and minefields don't exist with the intention of letting anyone through. At least not while still in possession of their legs. "Sir! The company of light-footed acrobats made it through the minefield without casualties and are heading towards our field command!" "Do them no harm, Sergeant, we will welcome such capable opponents with a feast in their honor and let them peruse our documents!"

[tzor]

There are 225 million passenger vehicles in the US, 6 million accidents per year, and 0.4 million are caused by "distracted driving" such as texting(but this number includes all forms of distracted driving like talking to someone in the car). Twenty-four percent of all drivers text and drive once each week.

Oh crap and bullshit. If you want to compare apples you need to compare apples to apples. It's like talking about spot checks for things that aren't there. So if you are distracted and nothing happens it is the exact same thing as though you were not distracted and nothing happens. BUT THAT DOESN'T EQUATE TO ANYTING GAME REALTED. You don't make a million checks every round where nothing happens either way, you make a check when SOMETHING MAY HAPPEN.

It gets muddled down in the fat that the literature discusses general averages. (If you make 4,800 spot checks the course of your adventuring day and you are texting for 600 of those spot checks then you chance of seeing the ogre while texting is ...) However it is clear that the "penalty" for any given roll is significant.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Ok, for all the shadzar haters, here's something hilarious:

Mearls latest article is all about supporting his "DM>rules" bullshit.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... l/20110906

Well, shadzar posted the link. Thing is, I disagree with him.

So yeah. The entire thing is "some DMs are bad. But we shouldn't do anything about it in the rules because it might hurt creativity." He specifically lists things like setting skill DCs to perform tasks in the rules as bad because it hurts the "fuck you, you will spend 3 hours searching the floor for traps" style of game. No, he doesn't give reasons for this, he just spends time going on about the reason that the DM shouldn't be encumbered by rules, even though he lists the reasons why they should, and then spends a whole bunch of time going on about "advice".

Look, Mearls, we all know your advice is going to be around the lines of "fuck up the player abilities if it damages your SUPA-COOL narrative where the BBEG is really the father of one of the PCs," (4e DMG) and "squash the munchkins in the name of God, because how dare people know the fucking rules and use them?".

Look, most of the things I've seen from all the people who decry that the DM's story should ignore petty things like rules in the name of the STORY couldn't provide decent characterization to save their own asses. I doubt most of these idiots could get a novel published if their parents owned a publishing company. Look, morons, you are not George R.R. Martin, Tolkien, Brandon Sanderson, or someone who can actually write. You're more like Terry Goodkind and his retarded army of EVUL PACIFISTS and THE UNHOLY DOOM CHICKEN, but without any prose or command of the English language. Or shit, your custom setting reminds me of Shannara - I've seen all this shit before, there is nothing interesting or new about the setting besides maybe one detail, the plot is a band of fucking cliches, your NPCs are retards who don't understand the world they live in, treat us like shit, and expect not to get murderized. Also, you don't know the rules and it's expressed in the way that none of your plots make sense in the gameworld, and, no, it doesn't make me feel better that none of your bullshit plots allow me to use Contact Other Plane to confirm that the black-robed dude in the goatee besides the king is the evil chancellor. So go suck a barrel of cocks.

WoTC, fire this man.

[tzor]

No, but I bet he is saying that if your a quarter back for a football team, and you are reading the plays on your wrist strap, and you suddenly realize that there is a large man charging at you, you are capable of seeing the large man, and then stopping looking at the wrist strap, and go into reading the defense mode just as fast as if you had been standing around looking into space instead of focusing on your wrist strap.

Counter claim. I will bet that if you are looking on your wrist strap while at the same worrying about some large man charging towards you at the same time, you will probably miss one or more of the plays on that wriststrap, because your attention is divided. Either way, something is going to suffer.

More importantly, you are ignoring a whole lot of timing considerations. You have to detect that threat; you have to recognize that threat; you have to determine the response to that threat; you have to send messages to your body to react to that threat; you have to have your body react to that threat.

Heck, we can make it even easier. You odds of a successful pass are diminished when someone is charging straight at you. That's why the blitz works, even though you remove pressure from the reciver becasue there is not as many people chargine him when he is trying to catch the ball.

[Kaelik]

Counter claim. I will bet that if you are looking on your wrist strap while at the same worrying about some large man charging towards you at the same time, you will probably miss one or more of the plays on that wriststrap, because your attention is divided. Either way, something is going to suffer.

You don't worry about people charging at you while reading your plays. You just notice when they do. Because it takes exactly zero of your attention to notice a fast moving blur in your vision, and stop looking at plays.

More importantly, you are ignoring a whole lot of timing considerations. You have to detect that threat; you have to recognize that threat; you have to determine the response to that threat; you have to send messages to your body to react to that threat; you have to have your body react to that threat.

You are making up a bunch of shit. The only thing you have to do is immediately on seeing a blur in your peripheral vision, drop into your instinctual ready mode. You respond to stimuli before you recognize the threat, before you determine the response, but you trained the correct response to the threat into your body, so it happens before you know it.

If you stab someone with a pin, they jump before they realize they were stabbed. If you charge a QB, they start dropping back ready to throw before they realize that you are trying to tackle them, and if you charge a Rogue they start throwing Acid Flasks at your face before they realize what you are.

[tzor]

You don't worry about people charging at you while reading your plays. You just notice when they do. Because it takes exactly zero of your attention to notice a fast moving blur in your vision, and stop looking at plays.

What field of vision? If he is reading his play book on his play arm he doesn't move his arm, he moves his head. That means he is looking straight down and generally focused on that one area. So not only is his field of vision significantly narrowed (checking out the entire field of vision would require massive refocusing of the eyes from short to long range) it's also significantly reduced because he is looking down in teh first place. He might have (at best) a two yard field of view. Now let's see, a linebacker can do the 40 yard dash in 4.56 seconds so that's a 1/5 of a second before the 1600 pound of tackling force slams into the unprepared and unprotected quarterback.

Here is a popular mechanics discussion of football impacts. It doesn't even go into the case where someone is literally distracted by looking closely at a playbook.

[Chamomile]

Again, this only applies if no one else could shout a warning in those 4.56 seconds, because it would take about half of one of them for the quarterback to be ready to act. It probably won't matter whether his peripheral vision catches the incoming attacker, because he is not storming this dungeon alone.

[Psychic Robot]

are you queers seriously arguing about whether texting while driving is dangerous.

on-topic:

The cost of insulating the game against one type of bad DM through rules, in my opinion, is too high. Instead, it’s up to the designers to provide good DMing advice, easy to understand methods that beginners can learn, and flexible rules that help DMs build great campaigns and compelling adventures. Treating the rules as padding against a bad DM is attacking the problem from the wrong angle. Bad DMs, or inexperienced DMs who could go bad, need good advice and clear instruction on how to get started. To my mind, it’s like blaming a bad writer’s keyboard rather than his or her lack of experience or exposure to skilled teachers and good, instructive texts.

mearls takes aim against the design philosophy of 4e.

[fectin]

Has anyone here actually played football at all? What about actually quarterbacked?

If not, why are we even using that example?