D&D 5E JC Tweets: How Close to official rulings do you consider them to be?

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Let's see, they say 5E is "rulings not rules", so these official rulings by the guy in charge of making rulings carry more weight than in previous editions of the game. Also, so long as there is an official organized play element to the game, these rulings will be more important. They are also important in that they let us see potential changes/clarifications/errata/etc to future printings of the core books.

The part that annoys me is that this update to the Sage Advice pdf is the first one in, what, over a year now? Longer? All the rulings Crawford has been making in between updates have either been on Twitter or on the weekly twitch show that has the Sage Advice segment. I feel that the podcast episodes carry less weight than his tweets because I do not know if he is even taking time to think about what he answers there. With Twitter, he may at least be sitting there for a few minutes, thinking about the proper reply before typing.

Also, for official or not, or how official, it has been stated before by them that Crawford's answers override everyone else's at WotC when there is a conflict in answers, even with what Mearls might say.

 

[TheSword]

Rules as Intended is always helpful to know what the designed was thinking when a rule was written (or in the absence of a rule as was often the case).

I never really got the rules lawyering that happens so often in some cases. My gods you should have seen the paizo boards in th first 5 or 6 years of Pathfinder.

I’m also chuckling a little at the responses saying WotC rules aren’t even slightly worth reading and don’t make the game better. You’re playing 5e so they have probably had some influence on your game!

 

[FrogReaver]

For those that chose option #2 "They are between nearly official and meaningless unless they match or contradict sage advice."

If JC's tweets aren't the next closest thing to Official wotc Rulings then what are?

 

[cmad1977]

They’re advice.

 

[FrogReaver]

They’re advice.

In my question above, I'm not asking what JC's tweets are, I'm asking for you to identify what the next closes thing to official wotc rulings are if it's not his tweets?

 

[Yunru]

If JC's tweets aren't the next closest thing to Official wotc Rulings then what are?

Nothing. There's no "50 shades of canon"

 

[Zardnaar]

Tell me more of this "tweet" invention.

 

[77IM]

I think the terminology is confusing the question. There is no such thing as "official." There are only the rules my table agrees on, and the sources that informs them. The core books are a source, but so are supplements, 3rdparty stuff, discussions on ENWorld, Sage Advice, designer tweets, and conversations I have around the FLGS. These are all sources of rules that my table might adopt.

I think the better question is: how influential are Crawford's tweets, as a source? At my table, they have about as much weight as conversations I have with random people at my FLGS. So I chose the third poll option, "no closer to official than something a bum off the street would say," because that seemed like the closest option. Although to be fair to the people to the people at my FLGS, I don't think any of them are actual bums.

The most influential source, by far, are the core books. Not because they are "official" but because they are so widely read that they make a really great starting-point for a set of rules for my table to agree upon. Most people don't read the tweets, the Sage Advice, ENWorld, or even the "official" supplements, and I don't think it's fair to expect people to agree upon rules they haven't read and might not have access to. (The DMG and the MM are in a weird place here: many players haven't read them, but agree to trust the DM to run the game by these rules, anyway.)

 

[Morrus]

I think the terminology is confusing the question. There is no such thing as "official."

‘Tis a silly word.

 

[Mistwell]

Let's see, they say 5E is "rulings not rules", so these official rulings by the guy in charge of making rulings carry more weight than in previous editions of the game. Also, so long as there is an official organized play element to the game, these rulings will be more important. They are also important in that they let us see potential changes/clarifications/errata/etc to future printings of the core books.

The part that annoys me is that this update to the Sage Advice pdf is the first one in, what, over a year now? Longer? All the rulings Crawford has been making in between updates have either been on Twitter or on the weekly twitch show that has the Sage Advice segment. I feel that the podcast episodes carry less weight than his tweets because I do not know if he is even taking time to think about what he answers there. With Twitter, he may at least be sitting there for a few minutes, thinking about the proper reply before typing.

Also, for official or not, or how official, it has been stated before by them that Crawford's answers override everyone else's at WotC when there is a conflict in answers, even with what Mearls might say.

I mean, they JUST made it clear in the official Sage Advice that twitter posts, from anyone including Crawford, are not official. "The public statements of the D&D team, or anyone else at Wizards of the Coast, are not official rulings;"