Quote from: JimLotFP;1008413The best reason to not spell out ways to avoid the bad things in the adventures (beyond perfunctory examples to show how the things work) is because the whole entire bloody point of publishing them is so they happen in actual play in actual games.

Following up on James' point, there something I think I need to make clear:

I ran DFD 2nd Ed., which has a creature by an altar that sings a song in the same spot where the vine creature was in the 1st Ed. If the creature stops singing all the undead in the Duvan'Ku shrine rise, as in 1st Ed.

When my players' PCs went into Death Frost Doom I had no expectation that they would circumvent the creature at the alter, only that they could.

This is important. I have spent several posts pointing out that Players can come up with ingenious ways to get around the troubles waiting for them in LotFP modules. But, in fact, the PCs have triggered terrible things in the modules as often as they have avoided them.

So I want to make it clear that when the PCs went into the Duvan'Ku shrine I had no idea what would happen. I had no expectations, I didn't weight how I ran the adventure with one result or another anticipated. I played to find out what would happen. My job as a Referee was to listen to what the PCs did, look at my notes to determine my best guess at results, adjudicate accordingly, and use random die rolls when I was unsure.

This means that when we started playing the module I knew they could have caused all the dead in the crypts of the shrine to rise. This was a strong and real possibility. Hundreds upon hundreds of undead could have risen from the dead.

And you know what would have happened then?

I don't know.

And neither do you.

None of us knows what would have happened next. Because, as I've pointed out upthread, my players are very resourceful and clever.

There are ways of avoiding the undead in the shrine if they rise. There are potential allies waiting on the other side of the vine creature/unrisen-god-thing (depending on the edition) that can help deal with the undead. There are means of escaping the shrine very close to where the PCs would be when the dead rose.

For all I know -- and I would have put money on this -- most or all of the PCs would have escaped death at the hands of the undead. There are plenty of "levers" for the PCs to grab and pull to help them survive right in the module.

That said, hundreds upon hundreds of undead would have been unleashed upon a village at the base of the Swiss Alps (which is where I set my adventure). They would have infected countless others. I was prepared to unleash an undead plague across Europe and the Duvan'Ku cult would have risen in power. I was prepared to do this is if this is how the adventure went.

And then what would have have happened? I really have no idea. I'd follow the PCs and see what choices they made, what solutions they came up with. They might have just fled. They might have looked for a cure. I really don't know. But I made a choice early on in setting up the campaign that I would simply see where the PCs went next with their decisions.

Which is all to say: There are terrible things that can happen in LotFP modules, and I'm more than willing to unleash them on my players if circumstances warrant. But I will also expect the the the players will work hard to avoid such disasters. They've learned there's lots of horribleness in the world their PCs are traveling, so they are on the lookout for such disasters. They try to outsmart and outwit what terribleness that they can.

I certainly agree that it's getting ridiculous.

First, it's ridiculous in assuming that somehow the designer's whole idea and goal was for the adventure NOT to generally end up resulting in the PCs raising the thousands of undead. Like that the point was for the PCs to be super clever and the dungeon to be gotten through without raising anyone rather than the 'gimmick' of having the PCs suddenly having to deal with an overwhelming horde.

Second, it's ridiculous in the idea that proper PC play would be for them to deduct that the plant is somehow the key to preventing the raising of thousands of undead when there is NO INDICATION AT ALL in the adventure that this will be what happens if they destroy the plant. There's no clues, hints or warnings at all that the plants' destruction would result in that.  There's a whistling noise, and this noise is related to the plant, but there's nothing that suggests that this is the only thing that's stopping the enormous army of living dead from awakening.

So you're suggesting that it should be standard operating procedure for the PCs to think that absolutely anything at any time might have inconceivably disastrous results.  I mean, by that logic, shouldn't they be worried about every pebble? Every cp they find might be horribly cursed? Should they be casting Contact Outer Plane every time they find a gem just in case that this gem which has no sign of being anything other than a gem might actually be something that causes a nuclear explosion when nudged?

Just fucking admit that the plant is a trap that is MEANT TO BE SPRUNG. It's not designed to be avoided, which is why it's set up so that the natural instinct of any group who isn't acting out of meta-gaming in assuming the absurd would do what is the most natural and obvious thing to do and destroy what should be, if they are not imagining themselves in a negadungeon, to be a mildly-dangerous obstacle to further dungeon exploration.

But you don't want to admit that, because if you did so you'd have to admit that it's a negadungeon. So instead, you make ridiculous and disingenuous attempts to explain that PCs should somehow assume that an animated plant might cause a zombie apocalypse and react with extreme paranoia to the point of stopping this quest to go out to fucking lands unknown in search of a scroll of speak with plants just in case.

"You're afraid to admit that green beans are actually classified as a mineral, because if you did so you'd have to admit that they taste like crêpe paper!" is about how much sense this conversation is making to me.

Yes, the trap is meant to be sprung.

Why this is a bad thing, or how that creates a negadungeon situation, or why a negadungeon situation is even a bad thing to begin with, I don't understand.

What the fuck are you all on about?

To me the idea that the players should be so careful in the dungeon suggests that it is written for experienced players of D&D and RPGs who would read all the indications that this is more a CoC environment rather than the 'typical' D&D environment. For them to pick up on the plant trap actually relies on kind of knowledge based on genre tropes and RPG meta-thinking. Not saying it is a bad thing, just noting that it is a dungeon designed to work against the expectations of experienced D&D players that those new to D&D may not pick-up on.

BTW I think that the trap is much less likely to be sprung in the rewritten version.

Quote from: JimLotFP;1008730What the fuck are you all on about?

To bring the thread a bit morr OT, any news on the next releases from LotFP besides the very cool news about Tweet?

Quote from: JimLotFP;1008413The best reason to not spell out ways to avoid the bad things in the adventures (beyond perfunctory examples to show how the things work) is because the whole entire bloody point of publishing them is so they happen in actual play in actual games.

I feel that the author should briefly write up a summary of what happened when he ran the adventure in his playtests.

Quote from: estar;1008750I feel that the author should briefly write up a summary of what happened when he ran the adventure in his playtests.

Would you pay extra money for that?

Quote from: Cave Bear;1008756Would you pay extra money for that?

I did just that with Scourge of the Demon Wolf. Doesn't take up extra space if you plan it as part of your writing. The point is to show how the adventure worked in actual play. When a adventure us written there what could happen and then there what actually happen.  The latter is particularly valuable as the point isn't to read the text for entertainment but to use it to create something that players can experience and interact with.

But like anything incorporating this require thought and planning. Nobody wants to read a blow by blow account. Nor does every section warrants an illustration of actual play or further comment. I ran Scourge a dozen times before publishing it and took notes. Some of the notes warranted a paragraph or two in the final manuscript. Some of the notes were woven in the description of the location, NPC or encounter. And some I deemed as not being needed.

An example I pulled this out of Scourge. This encounter turned out to be the part of adventure where things diverged for the different groups.

The Slain Tinker
Halfway between Kensla and Denison's Crossing the party will encounter an overturned cart. There is a body next to the cart with several stab wounds in the front and three parallel bloody gashes on his back. The gashes appear to be been made by a large claw. An observant party member will see that the stab wounds in the front appear to be made by a weapon. The site of the attack is about 2 miles from Dension's Crossing and 3 miles from Kensla in the midst of a forest.

The body is of Anvald, a local tinker. He makes a circuit covering the villages of the Barony of Westtower. He peddles pots, pans, and trinkets. He visits Kensla once every month or two. There is nothing left of his stock, only a few trinkets (worth 10d) lie scattered on the ground.

There is no sign of the animal that was pulling the cart. A tracking check at +5[+25%] will determine it was a mule. A tracking check will uncover several large clawed footprints leading north. They disappear about 200 yards into the woods. A tracking check at –5[-25%] will uncover normal man size tracks that circle around the site of the attack. These tracks can be followed a quarter of a mile to an escarpment where the bandit cave can be spotted.

===========================================
Rob's Note: Half of the groups failed to find the bandit tracks. They either blew their roll or just plain didn't check. Most parties noticed the difference between the stab wounds in the front and the claws in the back. This led some to conclude that werewolves were involved. Remember the bandit encounters are optional and not critical to the resolution of the adventure. One party repaired the cart to return the body of the tinker to the village.
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Quote from: Cave Bear;1008438This thread is gold.

It's most insightful into different referee and design philosophies.

I'm glad you're finding this to be the case! It's the reason I've written responses at length.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1008720Some nonsense...

I can guarantee you that of all the things I could be "afraid" of these days, my stance on an encounter in a D&D module is not one of them.

I can lay heavy odds that my players would have puzzled out the vines if they had encountered them.

And yes, if they thought Speak to Plants would have been the best way forward with the Spell Research rules clearly laid out in the rulebook they would have gone off to come back with the spell. It isn't that big a deal. It is, as I stated, exactly like going back to get more supplies or rest up hit points.

James may have expected every party to trigger the rising of the dead (which would be awesome!) but I think my players would disappoint him. That's the way the cookie crumbles when you have actual people enter a pre-written scenario. I mean, we all realize this, I'm sure. That is why I can appreciate ester's idea above... but also see it limited in value. Recounting how a few playtests diverged will most likely serve only to remind a GM that "Things happen you didn't expect!" Which will calm a few GMs. But we're never going to cram all the forking paths of how PCs run through a module. Simply can't be done. (I'll grant that some people find this last point controversial. I don't. Full stop.)

Finally, Pundit, you are doing that idiotic thing you do where you think you can read the minds of strangers via the internet, sussing out their true motivations and thoughts, and determining what secrets they are hiding and their true intents. I guarantee you, you are failing in this effort once more. There's been no deception or self-deception on my part; no secret agenda I am too terrified to reveal. What I have typed is truly what I believe. You disagree... awesome. But  -- spoilers -- you really don't know what I'm thinking. That would seem to be too obvious a point to have to make... but here we are.

So, I've said my peace on these matters. My players have had blast in the LotFP modules, have successfully leveled up, and I can't wait to run the next session for them.

I thank James for his terrific clone of B/X rules and the LotFP modules. Whether or not my Players would meet his expectations of how the modules would turn out, they've having a blast with them. Honestly, I don't know what to say more than that, or what could matter more than that.

DFD is still a creepy/fun adventure even if you do not set off the zomb-pocalypse.

As it is, the creepy singing/music getting stronger all the way until you find the source is a good signpost that that source is something important that you should maybe take a moment to examine/think over... and by then you've probably discovered that the place is loaded to the gills with corpses. I wouldn't expect many to figure out exactly what is up... but the set-up certainly seems ominous.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1008788IThat is why I can appreciate ester's idea above... but also see it limited in value. Recounting how a few playtests diverged will most likely serve only to remind a GM that "Things happen you didn't expect!" Which will calm a few GMs. But we're never going to cram all the forking paths of how PCs run through a module. Simply can't be done. (I'll grant that some people find this last point controversial. I don't. Full stop.)

All I can say that running the same adventure a dozen times strong and weak patterns emerge. The strong patterns are worth mentioning because it isn't always obvious what always occurs.

Do surprises occur? Sure. I wrote the module, released it, and then a year later ran it again for 5th edition to see how it worked out. And the party found a path to resolving the adventure that bypassed the village completely. Went, Tinker->Bandit->Wandering Beggar Clan (their fences)->Finding the Summoning Ritual Site->To the Mages->Final Confrontation. Normally it the village that supplying the PCs with information about the region. This time it was the beggars.

The difference is that prior to this group, when the a group finds the bandits, the pattern has been to go to the village with the information even if they discovered that the Beggars are the fences.

I ran it again a fourteenth time (5e) and a fifteenth time (last weekend, Adventures in Middle Earth). And both times the group discovered the bandit, found out about the Beggar clan being the fence, and went to the village with the information and the body of the Tinker. One time out of 15 the party opted to do something different. To me that useful data to mention both the 15 times and the one time something very different occurred.

And I will stress not every part of an adventure will warrant commentary. What important is that you run it multiple times and see what happens. If there a consistent pattern comment on it. If there isn't then all you need a short paragraph basically saying be prepared because I ran 15 groups that came up with 15 different ways of dealing with the adventures.

However my bet that there will be a least a handful of things that happen over and over again worth commenting on.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1008445Which is all to say: There are terrible things that can happen in LotFP modules, and I'm more than willing to unleash them on my players if circumstances warrant. But I will also expect the the the players will work hard to avoid such disasters. They've learned there's lots of horribleness in the world their PCs are traveling, so they are on the lookout for such disasters. They try to outsmart and outwit what terribleness that they can.

Seconded:).

Quote from: RPGPundit;1008720I certainly agree that it's getting ridiculous.

First, it's ridiculous in assuming that somehow the designer's whole idea and goal was for the adventure NOT to generally end up resulting in the PCs raising the thousands of undead. Like that the point was for the PCs to be super clever and the dungeon to be gotten through without raising anyone rather than the 'gimmick' of having the PCs suddenly having to deal with an overwhelming horde.

If the designer has a goal in how the adventure should end, I call the whole adventure "lacking".

If and when I get to reading DFD, I'd probably remember to post my opinion on whether it's lacking in this sense.

QuoteSecond, it's ridiculous in the idea that proper PC play would be for them to deduct that the plant is somehow the key to preventing the raising of thousands of undead when there is NO INDICATION AT ALL in the adventure that this will be what happens if they destroy the plant.

Pundit, are your players sorry if they leave a single living monster in the dungeon? Because, you know, I'm starting to suspect that. I've seen it in players elsewhere...and such players are known coloquially in my games as "the first to fall".
In other words: the players don't need to fucking know WHAT THE DAMN PLANT IS DOING, it's enough to suspect that interrupting it might have nasty consequences.

QuoteThere's no clues, hints or warnings at all that the plants' destruction would result in that.  There's a whistling noise, and this noise is related to the plant, but there's nothing that suggests that this is the only thing that's stopping the enormous army of living dead from awakening.

Where are the undead? Can the players find the crypt? (If so, they really should check the area better).
Also, see above.

QuoteSo you're suggesting that it should be standard operating procedure for the PCs to think that absolutely anything at any time might have inconceivably disastrous results.

No.
Any time you start violence against a creature with non-hostile intentions, however, it might have disastrous results. Experience should have taught any players as much. If not, I wonder what their Referee was running!
The plant isn't hostile. Why in hell are they attacking it? Suffering from acute "completism" and having to have a part of all monsters in the dungeon? If so: too bad, there's monsters in my dungeons that aren't meant to be attacked. They are, usually, not attacking, either (or rather, they've usually got a positive reaction modifier - if I write it, I usually write that as "+3 on the Reaction table, Maximum result of 10").

QuoteI mean, by that logic, shouldn't they be worried about every pebble? Every cp they find might be horribly cursed? Should they be casting Contact Outer Plane every time they find a gem just in case that this gem which has no sign of being anything other than a gem might actually be something that causes a nuclear explosion when nudged?

And that's your usual hyperbole.

QuoteJust fucking admit that the plant is a trap that is MEANT TO BE SPRUNG. It's not designed to be avoided, which is why it's set up so that the natural instinct of any group who isn't acting out of meta-gaming in assuming the absurd would do what is the most natural and obvious thing to do and destroy what should be, if they are not imagining themselves in a negadungeon, to be a mildly-dangerous obstacle to further dungeon exploration.

There's no "should" in my dungeons. I'm proud of it, too.

Quote from: JimLotFP;1008730Yes, the trap is meant to be sprung.

All traps are meant to be sprung. Players have a reason to deny them their meaning:D!

QuoteWhat the fuck are you all on about?

We're discussing whether the trap was "too unfair", and whether such a thing is even possible in a dungeon:p. Me, Cristopher Kubasik and others are saying it's not, Pundit disagrees.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1008788I can lay heavy odds that my players would have puzzled out the vines if they had encountered them.

Yeah, me too;).

QuoteFinally, Pundit, you are doing that idiotic thing you do where you think you can read the minds of strangers via the internet, sussing out their true motivations and thoughts, and determining what secrets they are hiding and their true intents. I guarantee you, you are failing in this effort once more. There's been no deception or self-deception on my part; no secret agenda I am too terrified to reveal. What I have typed is truly what I believe. You disagree... awesome. But  -- spoilers -- you really don't know what I'm thinking. That would seem to be too obvious a point to have to make... but here we are.

Seconding this part, too:D!

QuoteI thank James for his terrific clone of B/X rules and the LotFP modules. Whether or not my Players would meet his expectations of how the modules would turn out, they've having a blast with them. Honestly, I don't know what to say more than that, or what could matter more than that.

Nothing matters more than that, of course! I'm pretty sure that Jim expects exactly that, too, since he has customers;).

Quote from: JimLotFP;1008730Yes, the trap is meant to be sprung.

Thank you.

QuoteWhy this is a bad thing, or how that creates a negadungeon situation, or why a negadungeon situation is even a bad thing to begin with, I don't understand.

What the fuck are you all on about?

To answer the first: because it takes something that's normal PC behavior and turns it into a negative consequence.

As to the second: is the negadungeon in and of itself 'a bad thing'? Not exactly.  DFD was at least a kind of innovation, and that in and of itself gives it some value.
But it when ideas like this become the Universal, the idea that "this is how the OSR is supposed to be played!" and that if you don't do it this way, if you don't have players punished for doing things that make sense for their characters to do, if you don't have dungeons that are always meant to screw around with you, if you don't have such bloodbaths and screw-ups that it's almost impossible to get up in level and have a regular campaign (because shit, who'd want to play high-level, right? That's so lame...), then that's where the problem comes in.

DFD has some virtues as an adventure. One or two other negadungeons might too.

But Negadungeons as a genre? They're a FAD.

And a fad of a group of people who wanted to pretend that a way hardly anyone ever played back in the old-school days is the One True Oldschool way to do D&D.

You guys are pissed now that other people are getting tired of the fad, I get that. But negadungeons, while fun once or twice at a con, get really fucking tired really fucking fast, and are no way to do a campaign. So they're going back to their natural place in the OSR hierarchy: as a rare and occasional side-show. The revolution's over, comrade.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1008788James may have expected every party to trigger the rising of the dead

It's not a 'may', he already made it clear, because he's not disingenuous, that the whole point is for the trap to get triggered. That's why there's no clues or hints or warnings that destroying the plant will raise thousands of undead.

As for you and your players, maybe you run your game very different than mine. In mine, inside the game there's usually not an easy access of 'ye olde magic shoppes' where they can just pick up a scroll.  And outside the game, I would take a dim view of players jumping out of immersion to get into metagaming that they would be paranoid as all fuck about one thing in one place in the dungeon, but not of everything else in the dungeon, out of a literary conceit.

Why aren't your players going back first to get a "speak with dead"? Why aren't they examining every stone with magic (and going back to obtain the necessary magic if they don't have it) just in case stepping on a random stone will awaken a horde of demons or something?
Answer: because they're meta-gaming, and you're encouraging them to do so in how you GM.