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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7483239" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>When I say "<em>Probably the designers intended DMs to choose a difficulty class</em>" I am thinking about the location of the mention of stunts and unusually long distances in Athletics, under Ability Checks, in the same chapter where Difficulty Classes are detailed, below the words "<em>The Athletics skill reflects aptitude in certain kinds of Strength checks</em>". I think one can say for sure that the designers intended a check to be made against DCs guided by those listed on the table, for jumping unusually long distances. Or to put it another way, if that's not what they intended, they took the most remarkable steps to obfuscate their meaning.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The Using Ability Scores section goes to a lot of trouble to lay out an approach. It's a method that is at the heart of 5e. "<em>An ability check tests a character's or monster's innate talent and training in an effort to overcome a challenge. The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results. For every ability check, the DM decides which of the six abilities is relevant to the task at hand and the difficulty of the task, represented by a Difficulty Class. The more difficult a task, the higher its DC. The Typical Difficulty Classes table shows the most common DCs.</em>"</p><p></p><p>That all said, I don't think we're disagreeing by much. I don't buy the rulings not rules propaganda, because it is profoundly contradicted by rule books running to hundreds of pages, that players spend good money on and use much of <em>as written</em>. When players cast a Magic Missile, they overwhelmingly go by the rules, i.e. roll a number of d4+1s. Or perhaps more the way I understand the rulings not rules concept is that it simply states out loud something that has always happened in PnP RPG, which is that the situations that can come up, the things that players want to do, are so wide roaming, our narratives and actors so diverse in the particulars, that no rule set will ever cover everything that we might imagine. The incompleteness of rule sets, is what calls for rulings. Rules <em>and</em> rulings: the rest is propaganda <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" /></p><p></p><p>I would recast your framing as - The rules set forth an approach: the group uses and as necessary modifies that approach to achieve their goals.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 7483239, member: 71699"] When I say "[I]Probably the designers intended DMs to choose a difficulty class[/I]" I am thinking about the location of the mention of stunts and unusually long distances in Athletics, under Ability Checks, in the same chapter where Difficulty Classes are detailed, below the words "[I]The Athletics skill reflects aptitude in certain kinds of Strength checks[/I]". I think one can say for sure that the designers intended a check to be made against DCs guided by those listed on the table, for jumping unusually long distances. Or to put it another way, if that's not what they intended, they took the most remarkable steps to obfuscate their meaning. The Using Ability Scores section goes to a lot of trouble to lay out an approach. It's a method that is at the heart of 5e. "[I]An ability check tests a character's or monster's innate talent and training in an effort to overcome a challenge. The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results. For every ability check, the DM decides which of the six abilities is relevant to the task at hand and the difficulty of the task, represented by a Difficulty Class. The more difficult a task, the higher its DC. The Typical Difficulty Classes table shows the most common DCs.[/I]" That all said, I don't think we're disagreeing by much. I don't buy the rulings not rules propaganda, because it is profoundly contradicted by rule books running to hundreds of pages, that players spend good money on and use much of [I]as written[/I]. When players cast a Magic Missile, they overwhelmingly go by the rules, i.e. roll a number of d4+1s. Or perhaps more the way I understand the rulings not rules concept is that it simply states out loud something that has always happened in PnP RPG, which is that the situations that can come up, the things that players want to do, are so wide roaming, our narratives and actors so diverse in the particulars, that no rule set will ever cover everything that we might imagine. The incompleteness of rule sets, is what calls for rulings. Rules [I]and[/I] rulings: the rest is propaganda :p I would recast your framing as - The rules set forth an approach: the group uses and as necessary modifies that approach to achieve their goals. [/QUOTE]
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