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Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.
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<blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6995331" data-attributes="member: 6778044"><p>Oh, but they do. And if that became a benefit for players in the game it would be documented, promoted, and defended as something that the DM should be allowing because it's RAW.</p><p></p><p>One of the things that I (don't) get, is that certain people play the game specifically by the rules. That is, not only do they use the rules to help adjudicate the action within the world, but they define the action within the world by those rules, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. The way I see it, they define the game as a <em>game</em>, which it is, but I think it's missing the point. The game is the activity in the fiction, and the rules are their to support that fiction. Whereas treating the rules <em>as</em> the game means that the rules define the fiction, and altering the rules alters the fiction. Sometimes you want that. For example, without rules for magic, there is no magic in the world. </p><p></p><p>Rules Lawyers thrive on finding those loopholes. So I get it, but I don't <em>get</em> it.</p><p></p><p>For example, this thread (in which I have not engaged, just came across it):</p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?468737-The-Grappler-s-Manual-(2-0)-Grappling-in-5th-Edition" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?468737-The-Grappler-s-Manual-(2-0)-Grappling-in-5th-Edition</a></p><p></p><p>Here's the sort of thing that bugs me because of the way it alters the fiction of the world and how the fictional world works:</p><p></p><p>Under the Strengths and Weaknesses section:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A few paragraphs later, when getting into 5e grappling specifically:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Further down, he reinforces this position under Intermediate Grappling Moves:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>From my perspective, this is one of the things that started the progression toward 4e. OD&D was very simple with the rules. The assumption in part (confirmed in later interviews) is that DMs are intelligent and could resolve things without more complex rules. However, it turned out to be the biggest "weakness" in that the most common type of letter they would receive at the time were for rules clarifications. This led, in part, to AD&D which attempted to reconcile and clarify things, among other goals. Since it was early in RPG design, you could argue that it was only partially successful.</p><p></p><p>The progression becomes more evident when you compare the spell descriptions in OD&D, AD&D, and 2e, as they have become longer, with lists of restrictions, and sometimes changes, presumably to clarify, but it's pretty evident that most of the time it was to prevent certain abuses. This continues into 3rd edition, and in 4th edition was rendered largely moot since they were all converted to very narrow abilities with very stringent mechanics around them at this point.</p><p></p><p>One of the main problems with this approach, though, is that no matter how you try to reword the ability to eliminate the loopholes and potential for abuse, people will always find new ones to exploit (like our legal and political systems).</p><p></p><p>5e went the other direction, re-empowering the DM to adjudicate the situation, with a stripped down, yet more coherent set of rules to support them than AD&D had. In general, it works well, but they still have to fend off the folks like this that want to game the system to their advantage. In fact, other than the changes in the game itself (class abilities, etc.) it's really close to being AD&D 3e the more I look at it.</p><p></p><p>Over the years I've had to address these sorts of players from time-to-time, and it can be a real challenge at points. So my approach now is to look at what we are trying to model with the rules, and if we need to tweak it, fine, or if simple adjudication works (sorry, you can't grapple two creatures), that's fine too.</p><p></p><p>But the problem is that the way rules usually work, is the rules are, well, the rules. And it's difficult to change that behavior and say that in D&D (or RPGs) that it's a little different. The rules are the rules, but in some ways they are more like guidelines, and the DM has to make a judgement call to interpret them. For folks like me, this works exactly as I'd expect. But there are sizable groups of players where this is a real challenge. That any DM interpretation is bad, just like illusionism is bad, and fudging is bad, and anything else that alters the relationship between me (the player) and the RAW, because that is taking away my player agency.</p><p></p><p>None of these approaches is wrong, mind you. This is totally personal preference on my part, and my interpretation of what D&D <em>is</em> is both colored by my preferences, and my preferences are colored by my interpretation of the game going back to what I learned in the beginning.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ilbranteloth, post: 6995331, member: 6778044"] Oh, but they do. And if that became a benefit for players in the game it would be documented, promoted, and defended as something that the DM should be allowing because it's RAW. One of the things that I (don't) get, is that certain people play the game specifically by the rules. That is, not only do they use the rules to help adjudicate the action within the world, but they define the action within the world by those rules, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. The way I see it, they define the game as a [I]game[/I], which it is, but I think it's missing the point. The game is the activity in the fiction, and the rules are their to support that fiction. Whereas treating the rules [I]as[/I] the game means that the rules define the fiction, and altering the rules alters the fiction. Sometimes you want that. For example, without rules for magic, there is no magic in the world. Rules Lawyers thrive on finding those loopholes. So I get it, but I don't [I]get[/I] it. For example, this thread (in which I have not engaged, just came across it): [URL]http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?468737-The-Grappler-s-Manual-(2-0)-Grappling-in-5th-Edition[/URL] Here's the sort of thing that bugs me because of the way it alters the fiction of the world and how the fictional world works: Under the Strengths and Weaknesses section: A few paragraphs later, when getting into 5e grappling specifically: Further down, he reinforces this position under Intermediate Grappling Moves: From my perspective, this is one of the things that started the progression toward 4e. OD&D was very simple with the rules. The assumption in part (confirmed in later interviews) is that DMs are intelligent and could resolve things without more complex rules. However, it turned out to be the biggest "weakness" in that the most common type of letter they would receive at the time were for rules clarifications. This led, in part, to AD&D which attempted to reconcile and clarify things, among other goals. Since it was early in RPG design, you could argue that it was only partially successful. The progression becomes more evident when you compare the spell descriptions in OD&D, AD&D, and 2e, as they have become longer, with lists of restrictions, and sometimes changes, presumably to clarify, but it's pretty evident that most of the time it was to prevent certain abuses. This continues into 3rd edition, and in 4th edition was rendered largely moot since they were all converted to very narrow abilities with very stringent mechanics around them at this point. One of the main problems with this approach, though, is that no matter how you try to reword the ability to eliminate the loopholes and potential for abuse, people will always find new ones to exploit (like our legal and political systems). 5e went the other direction, re-empowering the DM to adjudicate the situation, with a stripped down, yet more coherent set of rules to support them than AD&D had. In general, it works well, but they still have to fend off the folks like this that want to game the system to their advantage. In fact, other than the changes in the game itself (class abilities, etc.) it's really close to being AD&D 3e the more I look at it. Over the years I've had to address these sorts of players from time-to-time, and it can be a real challenge at points. So my approach now is to look at what we are trying to model with the rules, and if we need to tweak it, fine, or if simple adjudication works (sorry, you can't grapple two creatures), that's fine too. But the problem is that the way rules usually work, is the rules are, well, the rules. And it's difficult to change that behavior and say that in D&D (or RPGs) that it's a little different. The rules are the rules, but in some ways they are more like guidelines, and the DM has to make a judgement call to interpret them. For folks like me, this works exactly as I'd expect. But there are sizable groups of players where this is a real challenge. That any DM interpretation is bad, just like illusionism is bad, and fudging is bad, and anything else that alters the relationship between me (the player) and the RAW, because that is taking away my player agency. None of these approaches is wrong, mind you. This is totally personal preference on my part, and my interpretation of what D&D [I]is[/I] is both colored by my preferences, and my preferences are colored by my interpretation of the game going back to what I learned in the beginning. [/QUOTE]
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