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I'll freely admit to bias as my degree is in geography, but without the "what is where" piece the other type of exploration can at best be ephemeral: relying on memory just isn't good enough. I make no such assumption, based on real-world experience. It comes down to the same rationale as to...

A non-rectangular room would also be a pain. :) Cool idea, though.

I don't remember anything about having to roll 50 or under but I'm fairly sure there's a rule that says they can't breathe in consecutive rounds; maybe the 50-or-under idea is someone's houserule variant on that?

It doesn't add to the game. Rather, it subtracts from the game in that there's less challenge for the PCs, and by extension the players. Frustration at being unable to move forward is in itself a challenge to be overcome. Thing is, it always matters. It's the butterfly effect: something...

Depending on how one writes one's adventures, the PCs could easily hit 50 traps over the course of their careers. If the expected casualty rate due specifically to traps is an aggregate 33% over that time, if the party averages six PCs that means over the long run traps will kill two of them...

Exploration is about both "what is here" (knowledge) and "where is what" (geography). The latter is where mapping comes in. There's no use finding the Lost Temple of Jiggyriggy in the deep jungle if, on returning to town to recruit a proper excavation team, you can't then find your way back to...

Agreed. However, even in a medieval points-of-light setting there is still an important means of long-distance info exchange: the adventurers themselves. Unless your PCs are the only adventurers in the setting, there will be others; and adventurers tend to be or become quite widely-travelled -...

Or delay, divert, distract, and disperse. Not all traps need to be damaging but IMO they all need a good in-fiction reason to be there. That they then become gameplay elements is merely a side effect.

The thread title drew me in but I wasn't expecting the OP to focus so closely on species-based lore and differences. On that front I agree with the OP in that I too am happy to stick with just the Tolkein basics as far as PC-playable species goes, and while the species have their own lore in my...

Because playing to your stats is a way in which the rules to some extent - and with justification - tell you how to play your character. Denying yourself some avenues of play is a choice you-as-player proactively make when you assign that low stat in the first place. Want to play a suave...

While I agree with this in theory, in practice it leads the DM straight into a stupid amount of work redesigning or reinventing a large chunk of the Monster Manual before starting the campaign. One trick I tried (to varying success) is simply renaming some common monsters while leaving...

A big ol' Gold can get by with targeting anywhere in the Wizard's general neighbourhood, the Wiz is still going down. :) That's the biggest danger of some Dragon breath attacks - not the damage they do per se, but that they do that damage to everything in a fairly big area; and in 1e, "breath...

I take it as a given that the DM has a map; a few DMs might be good enough to wing an entire complex on the fly and have it remain geographically consistent but I ain't one of them and I don't know any who are, and so a GM-side map is assumed. In a small complex or a linear dungeon with few or...

The DM giving them an accurate map one room at a time is far easier on a VTT than it is in person because the VTT very neatly preserves the map afterwards. In person, the map the DM provides a room at a time will very likely be drawn on a reusable surface (whiteboard, chalkboard, etc.) and then...

You answered your own question with the bolded words. It doesn't matter that the expert lockpicker will eventually open most locks. The only thing that matters is whether said lockpicker can open this lock, right now, and that's what the roll is for. All those other riders are separate issues...

You seem to be talking about DM-side mapping here, while designing the adventure. The rest of us are, I think, talking about player-side mapping while exploring said adventure.

That would make a difference, yes. Most dungeons I run are in the 30-50 area (or room) range, as Jacquaysed as I can get 'em, and occasionally I'll throw in an actual maze (yes, little twisty passages might be there too!) and-or teleporters; which means that it's quite possible to get lost or...

All true, and that's just how I like it. Those hazards you note re Poly Other were an excellent deterrent to casting it on your allies, and it's the removal of that deterrent that broke Polymorph. The price for this high degree of potential effectivesness is that in 1e there's no at-wills and...

Thanks to this, sooner or later Jethro the Troll is going to appear in my game. :)

To me the bolded is two different objectives concatenated into one: --- pick the lock --- be quiet about it And thus there should be two rolls, with four possible aggregate outcomes (or one roll on a sliding scale, perhaps): --- lock is picked quietly --- lock is picked noisily --- lock is...