Blindness and movement, DMs thoughts?

[Stubs McKenzie]

When either an NPC or a PC is blinded, through any means, it seems like folks act like its pretty much difficult terrain at worst as far as movement. Every time a spell is cast that would cause an AoE "blindness" effect (stinking cloud, deeper darkness, etc) both DMs and PCs tend to move out of the area of effect via the shortest route (how do they determine that route from inside the aoe?), or through it to their previously decided on destination without issue, especially when there is battle going on all around, so a simple "follow the sound of my voice" won't do anything but confuse matters. I don't really like the idea of having a completely random roll determine which direction they will travel, especially if they are familiar with the area, but I don't like leaving it up to PCs (or the DM) when they don't treat it like the characters are actually blind. Thoughts?

[brassbaboon]

I see this a lot too. In fact I was part of a TPK that was entirely because the GM metagamed moving in blindness while the party tried to play it straight. Was very frustrating.

I try to play it as realistic as I can. If my character is in a familiar location then I play them as more aware and mobile than if they are in a totally unknown area. I sometimes will do a quick int check to see if my character remembers the area, and if so I play them as being more mobile than if they fail the check.

If my character is totally blind and wants to move, I roll a d8 and let the dice say what direction I'm going. If my character is blind but has some awareness of the direction I pick a direction and roll a d4 to see how close they get to that direction. If I move at full speed and hit a wall, I might even take damage.

When I GM I play my NPCs this way.

If there is something to orient a character, like "follow my voice" I will do listen checks to see how well the character can determine the direction and then do something similar to the above.

A lot of this is a quick SWAG for the check DCs, but it seems to work OK.

[Magnu123]

I don't find issue with them leaving the AoE with reasonable efficiency. They weren't spun around ten times after coming into the stinking cloud so they should still have a general idea of their surroundings. (roll and INT or WIS check ....if you must) After that, the PC's should at least give some reason why they want to go a particular direction over others. "That's the way I was already going", "The caster was that way." and "I remember a wall on this side." are all valid and they get the game speed out of the sludge (or solid fog as the case may be)

[thenovalord]

all adventuring parties should pay for a 'danger room'

in it they would around blindfold, or gagged or anything else to deprive senses
it should have a pool with a lid for them to practise in
they should be bits where they get entangled and fight from the floor

should cast obscuring mists etc at each to practise for the real thing

that way when it happens they have a good chance of having a plan

its called traning and all armed types should do it, whether real life, super or fantasy heros