D&D 5E I for one hope we don't get "clarification" on many things.

[prosfilaes]

Funny thing here is, I have two answers to your (probably rhetorical) question. If the DM made the call in my home group... I'd roll with it without concern. There's something going on that I, as a player, don't know and I trust the DM to run a good story regardless.

The story is that your halfling doesn't get to use daggers against dragons because it's realistically ludicrous that someone 3 feet tall with a sharp knife could do a noticeable amount of damage to a dragon. There's nothing going on that you don't know.

I personally don't find it fun in the least to be told my character can't do what I built my character to do. Clarified rules mean it's more likely that I'm on the same page as my DM as to what my skill in Diplomacy means.

 

[Gargoyle]

RPG rules aren't perfectly clarified or non-existent, they're always somewhere in between. 3e and 4e took big steps towards clarifying everything. This hurt some tables, and helped others. Some DM's and players obviously prefer clear rules for everything and some prefer an approach more open to interpretation.

What I like about 5e, is that while it won't please everyone, it appears the pendulum is swinging the other way, yet they aren't abandoning player agency. The DM is getting more of a say about how their game runs, yet there is still more room for player choice. There are more player character choices in this PHB than ever in the classes and background selections, yet how the game runs appears more up to the DM. Tactical options are just that, options. Feats and multiclassing are options. I expect we will see a lot more options in the DMG. But whether your rogue can attempt to hide or not in a given situation, or exactly how polymorph works, or whether your get advantage for swinging on that chandelier, that's up to the DM, so I sort of see the OP's point; errata or clarifications may be needed, but I'm not sure I want too much of it either.

Give what is the DM's to the DM (how the game runs) and to the player what is the players' (strategic choices for their characters). Seems like a win win to me.

That said, some tables aren't going to be comfortable with the DM having more freedom because there are bad DM's out there, and there are bad players who will try to exploit DM agency. IMO that makes for a bad experience regardless of edition, and the rule set isn't the issue at those tables anyway.

Finally, I don't care about organized play, so I admit that this edition may not work best in such an environment and those with concerns about it may have a point; I just don't know enough about it. If you approach D&D as a tournament that you win, or simply look forward to an experience that is standardized, I can see why less standardized gameplay with more DM rulings would annoy you. But since organized play can add additional rules as needed, I don't see this as a long term issue. It should be able to adapt; I think it may take some time though, but again as far as organized play, I'm just speculating, I don't know.

 

[Uchawi]

I have the exact opposite opinion. The rules should be as clear and concise as possible with as little room for interpretation as possible.

Why? because it provides a consistent experience across all the tables, it makes organized play easier and well more organized, it keeps published adventures on the same expected difficulty, but most of all the rules provide our shared language as people who want to talk about the game.

The job of the game designer is to you know design a game, if they can't bother to make clear rules with some balance in them, and when stuff comes up the default answer is just let the DM fix it that is just bad.

I agree. The rules should be as clear as possible, since the most important thing about rules is bringing consistency to the game. I see these arguments as similar to system mastery design theory with 3E, i.e. we put trap options into the game intentionally, because players like to sort it all out.

The benefit of 5E is you have hindsight and experience when developing the game to consider problem areas, to ignore that or to make rules vague by intent, is poor design in my book.

With the above stated, you can never completely remove language problems or ambiguity from rules, but a good DM can rise above that or even make changes to rules they do not like, without needing the ambiguity to back up their decisions because the rules are not clear.

If you are a DM and want things run a certain way then make that decision and let your players know.

 

[Dausuul]

There are two issues being confused here. One is the scope of the rules: How much of the game is codified versus being left to DM discretion? The other is clarity of the rules: How clear and easy to understand are they?

These are very different things. I like that 5E has limited the scope of the rules. Injecting a small amount of DM discretion can do wonders, with stealth being a good example*. But limiting scope should not come with sacrificing clarity. Take Empowered Evocation with magic missile. We shouldn't have to debate how that spell interacts with that ability. Spell damage is very much within scope, and DM discretion has no value to add here--it's just making the DM do extra work for no reason.

[size=-2]*Though stealth is also an example of lack of clarity, driven in this case by wretched choice of terminology. The use of "hidden" to mean "successfully stealthed" is monstrously confusing; it makes people think the Stealth check is about visual concealment when it's almost entirely about non-visual senses.[/size]

 

[fjw70]

I think rules need to be as detailed as needed. 4e combat had a lot of moving parts so a high level of precision was needed. 5e hiding doesn't have a lot of moving parts so it needs less precision, but it is still pretty clear IMO.

 

[Mouseferatu]

There are two issues being confused here. One is the scope of the rules: How much of the game is codified versus being left to DM discretion? The other is clarity of the rules: How clear and easy to understand are they?

These are very different things.

Very nice--and useful--distinction/analysis. I like.

 

[Jester David]

I have the exact opposite opinion. The rules should be as clear and concise as possible with as little room for interpretation as possible.

Why? because it provides a consistent experience across all the tables, it makes organized play easier and well more organized, it keeps published adventures on the same expected difficulty, but most of all the rules provide our shared language as people who want to talk about the game.

The job of the game designer is to you know design a game, if they can't bother to make clear rules with some balance in them, and when stuff comes up the default answer is just let the DM fix it that is just bad.

I've played a lot of organized play, both Pathfinder Society and Living Greyhawk. I've seem something close to fourty different DMs. And even with the firm rules of 3e every simple DM playe differently. Some went straight by the rusk, some bent the rules, some went RAW, some went RAI, some were imaginative, some were literal, some knew th rules, and some relied on the players.
But, in general, I had a better time when the DM wasn't struggling with the rules. A comfortable DM is a good DM.

Consistant play experiences never happen. Even in Organized Play.
But especially when home games come into play, with their myriad of potential house rules.
Organized Play is neat, but it's also not the norm. We shouldn't pretend it is.

 

[drjones]

I agree with the OP. I like the rules to be inspirational and open ended, the ref (and players good sportsmanship) is there to get things back on the rails if an unusual interpretation or misunderstanding sneaks in.

What I am not so sure about is that there is a huge debate over some of these things. We played several sessions of the starter set using the basic rules and had no problems with stealth.

I work in software and have been an RPG and computer gamer since the 80s. There is something in us nerds that likes to break systems, find the cracks in the logic puzzle and break them apart so we can get that Aha! moment of satisfaction over outsmarting the system and a bit of smug superiority vs. the designer. The stronger some people feel these revealed flaws are the more they need to find public areas to discuss them as Serious Issues. But we are talking about a super slim sampling of the absolute most involved players here, I have not seen a huge debate yet only minor discussions among a handful of people who want something to shoot the breeze about.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Consistant play experiences never happen. Even in Organized Play.
But especially when home games come into play, with their myriad of potential house rules.
Organized Play is neat, but it's also not the norm. We shouldn't pretend it is.

I think one of the issues for the last couple of editions is that WotC thought Organized Play either was the norm or should be.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Mistwell]

even an Ikea furniture has a clear and fix manual how to put it together and it's not just a couple or random boards and screws and a piece of paper saying "whatever you like"

If only this were true. I mean seriously, they're known for having unclear instructions, with few to zero words, and really sketchy vague diagrams supposedly showing movement of pieces in awkward ways. Daily Mail even did an entire joke article headline on it.