D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

[Hussar]

Taking one outlier example of a particular style of play from the 1e DMG and expanding that to an overall Gygax advocation of that style of play is a rather extreme stretch.

All this shows me is that the 5e designers are just as capable of making mistakes as anyone else.

I've been consistently arguing for blind declaration (e.g. that a spell such as Shield must be cast before the to-hit is rolled). The 'time travel' piece (e.g. waiting to cast Shield until you not only know you're hit but how much damage you'll take, so if it's just a few h.p. you can let it pass but if it's a heavy blow you can cast to undo it) is merely a subset of that argument.

Lan-"shields up!"-efan

Sorry, but, no. That's not a mistake. 5e is chock-a-block with these sorts of mechanics. There's tons of them. Virtually every class has at least one of them. Many races also have them. You mentioned the similarities to Magic The Gathering, and, well, that's pretty apt. There's a shopping list of interrupt mechanics that let you "go back in time" by your definition.

IOW, this is a core element of play, not a mistake.

I may not need to say that, but it does in fact say it. "On a hit, roll damage" is equal to "On a miss, don't roll damage." It's just the way language works.

As an English teacher, I can categorically say that you are wrong here. No, language most certainly doesn't work that way. But, I can see why you would go down this road. This entire thread has been spent wasting time trying to teach the English language to you. I cannot see it as anything other than very bad faith on your part [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].

 

[Hussar]

Targets and the effects are two different things, and they do no occur simultaneously. You target the creature as part of the casting of the Magic Missile, and then the effect happens. The effect includes the missiles flying from the caster to the target which takes time. Up to the entire 6 second round if necessary. That's plenty of time after being targeted for the target to cast shield. Casting a spell as a reaction specifically only takes a fraction of a second. Far less time than it would take to complete the casting of the magic missile and then for it to travel to the target.

I'm sorry for laughing at this, but, it really, honestly, made me laugh. The contortions of logic required here are truly stunning to behold. That's just bloody impressive.

 

[Maxperson]

As an English teacher, I can categorically say that you are wrong here. [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].

Really? An Appeal to Authority as your response?

 

[Maxperson]

I'm sorry for laughing at this, but, it really, honestly, made me laugh. The contortions of logic required here are truly stunning to behold. That's just bloody impressive.

Really? You think that spells that fly at a target, target people and then hit them with no intervening time? And you questioned MY logic.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Really? You think that spells that fly at a target, target people and then hit them with no intervening time? And you questioned MY logic.

Hey! The logic guy is showing us how a Strawman Argument works! Pay attention everyone, this is good stuff.

 

[Maxperson]

Hey! The logic guy is showing us how a Strawman Argument works! Pay attention everyone, this is good stuff.

It was a question. But hey, don't let things like facts get in the way with your accusations.

 

[Oofta]

I should presage this by saying that the DM in question was a pretty good one other than my complaint here, and it was his first time DMing. I should also say that he was a really nice guy feeling his way into running his first RPG. His DMing was certainly streets ahead of my first attempts (and most other first-time DMs I've seen). However, here's my moan...

So the DM in question ruled that natural 1s and other natural low rolls (no matter the positive modifiers) were critical failures. I think he saw this kind of thing on a Let's Play series, and perhaps over-applied it, I don't know, I don't watch them. He applied this ruling not just to hit rolls, but all skill checks. The kind of outcome might be the attack killing a friendly NPC, or a failed attempt to throw a grappling hook meaning that the PC drops and loses the entire rope or falls and gets pulled in.

It was funny the first few times it happened, but it soon gave the impression that our party was a bunch of incompetent idiots, as any encounter would lead to at least one or two pratfalls. It actually had a noticeable chilling effect on players trying anything remotely interesting. I recall one player forgoing a chance to attack on his turn because he wouldn't dare traverse a low bench as he might fail the inevitable Acrobatics roll and then end up both taking damage and ending up prone. In my view, players should be encouraged to do heroic things, not be terrified to do the most mundane things. One fellow player quipped to me that he was scared to open a water bottle in case his character fumbled the roll and died of a cut.

Now, I realise that D&D combat isn't realistic, but my parallel experience with real-life sword fighting just rubbed salt in the wound. At this time I was doing historical sword fighting. I was very, very bad at it - embarrassingly so. However, in dozens if not hundreds, of bouts, I never once accidentally dropped my sword or fell over. And in the hundreds of other bouts I saw, I rarely saw an accidental sword drop and never saw a fall (throws and disarms yes, pratfalls no), and I never saw bystanders be hit. And most of us were beginners. D&D combat shouldn't be less cinematic than real-life combat done by rank amateurs.

The DM's style was otherwise pretty good, but this aspect was very annoying, and actually was a significant factor in me leaving (there were other factors which weren't his fault).

Sadly, your DM is not unique in this. I quit a game for similar reasons - if you rolled a 1 you dropped your weapon, potentially broke it, hurt yourself or an ally. Trying to play a high level fighter with multiple attacks was just annoying. Your PC is a pinnacle of expertise but they constantly lose hold of their weapon? No thanks.

 

[Hriston]

English is nonsense. Got it!

Somehow I don’t quite believe you actually think that’s what I was trying to say.

 

[pemerton]

ENWorld is the only forum I know where "appeal to authority" is treated as a fallacy rather than good evidence!

I've never been to France or spoken to a French government official. How do I know France's capital is Paris? I learned it from an authority! Fallacious me!

 

[pemerton]

When the GM narrates that NPC X kills NPC Y the built-in assumption behind that narration is that had that encounter been played out it would have followed the same mechanics as if it had been two PCs fighting each other. But as processing all that would quite understandably be very dull and boring for the players to sit through, the GM just cuts to the chase and narrates the result.

(1) Where is this assumption built-in? Not into AD&D, which uses different to-hit tables for a half-orc depending on whether the half-orc is a PC or NPC (see Gygax's DMG p 74). Not into 4e, which uses different character build principles player-side and GM-side.

(2) The GM narrating the results is not "cutting to the chase". It's not a mode of action resolution. It's framing and/or establishing backstory.