Thaumaturge
Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
I'm a hardcore dog person, and 5th may be my favorite edition yet (not having seen the rest of the core).
I've had a cat or two, but pretty much this.
Thaumaturge.
I'm a hardcore dog person, and 5th may be my favorite edition yet (not having seen the rest of the core).
I'm allergic to cats and I like 5e.It might just come down to some people like firm authoritarian rules in their imagination games and some don't. I wonder if people who prefer the 5e approach are more Cat people than Dog people?
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.
<snip>
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.
I sympathise more with prosfilaes here.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.
A player in a B/X or AD&D game playing a magic-user spends nearly his/her whole time thinking about rules, though - s/he is thinking about spell descriptions, and saving throws, and memorisation slots, etc. It's just that most of this is also packaged into the gameworld fiction, so thinking about the rules is also, to some extent at least, thinking as your character.I absolutely am in favor of rulings over rules, because (unlike with board games) the last thing I want at the table is for my players to be thinking about rules.
For what it's worth, I don't think I'm guilty of the confusion you diagnose - I think I deployed your distinction (or a version of it) in explaining the difference between 4e combat resolution and 4e non-combat resolution.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.
I don't think this is quite right. 5e PCs still scale - stat gains, proficiency bonuses, possible feats and items, etc - so a GM still needs advice on what sorts of DCs can be expected to support what sorts of diffciulty/pacing outcomes.Page 42 was only required due to scaling difficulties. Bounded accuracy means you only need to remember 10/15/20 (maybe 25/30 on the outside), and those DCs will work throughout the life of a character.
I'm a hardcore dog person, and 5th may be my favorite edition yet (not having seen the rest of the core).
It might just come down to some people like firm authoritarian rules in their imagination games and some don't. I wonder if people who prefer the 5e approach are more Cat people than Dog people?
I don't think Mearls is accurately describing 5e's rules for stealth. At least, not the ones in the Basic PDF.Interviewer: "Do you have any other examples of what you think of as the DM’s power and responsibility?"
Mike Mealrs: "Our rules for stealth, which may sound like a funny example.
<snip>>
"So we just came out and said you know what, let the DM decide. We’re going to tell you the mechanic and just say, look DM, does it make sense that a player can hide in this situation? If so, let the player make the check. If not, don’t let him make the check. If maybe, then maybe advantage or disadvantage, that covers the middle ground."
I don't think that is what motivates the desire for clear rules, at least in my case.I think the problem is the idea that sufficiently comprehensive rules can rescue the game from a bad or even a mediocre GM.
I don't understand/disagree with this. Ambiguous rules require rulings. The need for a decision is implied by the non-specificity of the rules. One can detest that style of rules writing, and still appreciate that it accomplishes the intended goal--letting the DM decide.I don't think Mearls is accurately describing 5e's rules for stealth. At least, not the ones in the Basic PDF.
Nowhere do they say "let the DM decide". Rather, they give somewhat convoluted descriptions of when stealth can be activated, and maintained, that at best are ambiguous, at worst contradictory, across a range of nouns and adjectives referring to visbility, obscuremtn and other sensory modes and impediments.
It's not about good or bad GMing, it's about players translating their conception of the ingame fiction into meaningful action declarations for their PCs.
And for that the rules need to be clear, especially in organized play. The last thing we need in organized play is DM1 ruling hide works like this and DM 2 ruling hide works like that. In OP a player needs to be able to go from table to table and have the same rules applying in the same way
I sympathise more with prosfilaes here.
If players get to make choices about what descriptors/abilities are added to their PCs, but the GM has sole control over how those abilities actually translate into resolution at the table, then it seems to me that the players' choices were somewhat illusory.