Who has said “great, this thread again”? Names.
This feels like a necro post...
Good grief. This argument, again?
That's just in the first few pages. If you want to find more names, feel free to go through the rest of the pages, but I'm not digging that much. I know it's been said at least a few more times in this thread, but two examples from the start of the thread should suffice.
You are totally wrong in saying lore aren’t rules. Imagine my surprise. They are rules. LITERALLY how rule is defined in the dictionary. They are part of the design process, just as important as mechanics.
Just because they're part of the design process does not mean they are mechanical rules of the game. At most the lore can be enforced as a RAI, but the discussion is about the RAW. Clerics have deities in their lore, but because there's no mechanical penalty that forces them to worship a deity in this edition, nor is their a mechanical penalty for if they denounce the deities in general, punishing a Cleric for either of these things would not be RAW. It's no more a rule of the game than a DM saying Wizards are not allowed in their campaign. The DM's allowed to do it, but that point has no place in a discussion about RAW.
Paladins are an exception to this, because their lore does have an excerpt with implications towards breaking their tenets. They still have their oaths, and those oaths have tenets, but they're free to break them, because taboo does not limit character actions. It just so happens that in this instance it is RAW to punish them for it, because the rules list penalties to impose on those who break their oaths.
You just got done saying we were too dumb to understand rules before the internet came along and we were presumably graced with intellectuals like yourself. So forgive me if I don’t take you seriously at all. I’m utterly convinced at this point you’re just trolling.
No, you don't get what I'm saying at all in this regard either if this is how you're still interpreting it. For example, I used to play Diablo 2 when it came out. Back then, online gaming was very small, and there were not really any active communities to discuss gameplay. Wikis did not exist, skill calculators did not exist, forums where you could find game guides did not exist. I was dumb at that game, along with almost everybody playing the game. Looking back at gaming then compared to how gaming is today, everyone back then were practically chickens with their heads cut off in terms of their knowledge as to how to play online games.
Everyone was stuck trying to individually figure out how the game worked. Nobody knew what good characters were, nobody knew where to find equipment, nobody knew that if your character was running that your defense was set to 0, etc, etc. Now the internet has guides everywhere for every game. Wikis exist for every game. You can download skill builds and descriptions as to how and why things work. Now if I were going to jump into Diablo 2 for the first time, I could read online and find out how to proceed, what mechanics are optimal, how skills actually perform compared to what the description says, etc, etc. Back then it used to be considered something amazing to get geared up and build a powerful character in such a game, but now that's just the minimum expectation to have figured out in a week.
Dungeons and Dragons is the same way. Look at Jeremy Crawford's Twitter and see how many people ask about rules clarifications. Back in the day people couldn't do this. This means these same people seeking clarification today would have never gotten an answer to their questions. They simply would have had to make something up, which is how the game used to be played, even by people trying to play RAW, because there was nowhere to go for quick and easy clarification on the rules.
Abiding by a rule is NOT removing player agency.
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Ohmyn - that's not how the 1E rules were written, you're trying to apply the modern approach to D&D rulebook writing to a 40+ year old game in which was still very much evolving up until the release of each rulebook (which were spread over a number of years).. the DMG in particular is very much stream of consciousness in its lack of organisation. Lowkey described the way the rules were written much better in I ever can several pages back.
The reason a Druid could not wear metal armour in 1E was because, in 3 places, the rules said they cannot... without ever giving any instances in which they can.
... plus the DMG training costs were not for PCs who broke the rules, they were for character who acted outside their general roles - there is a difference.
It didn't have to say they could. It said they cannot, and gave the reason. That's enough to know what happens when they try, so they don't have to give an instance in which they can. If the book said smith's tools can be used to perform blacksmithing, they don't need to list every item you can make. They simply tell you what happens when you use the tools, and then you apply that to any instance in which they are used. If they said Magic Users lack the training to use blacksmithing tools, they could still sit there and smash a chunk of metal with a hammer; they simply wouldn't get anything out of it. If they had to list every instance in which you could use them, the book would never end because the options are limitless.
And yes, that's how the book was written, it's just not how people read it. It was written like a tabletop RPG rule book, as the current books are, but people read it like a board game rulebook, because it simply wasn't common knowledge as to how to read a tabletop RPG rule book. I have copies of the books right now and they are written exactly as I have been explaining. You're just reading yes or no, and not the reasons given. The reason why Druids could not wear metal was not because they had some references in the book saying they couldn't wear it. The reason why Druids could not wear metal was because it spoiled their magic, which the book literally says is the reason the first time it mentions that they cannot wear it. As I mentioned before, every other instance was in reference to this fact, so of course they didn't need to spell it out each time.
As for the DMG training costs chart, yes, using a weapon not belonging to your class is indeed acting outside of the character of your class. A thief swinging a sword, and a Cleric peeing on their party members, are both actions. Thieves can't effectively use two handed swords, so a thief swinging around a two handed sword is acting outside the character of their class, just as a Lawful Good Cleric pissing on random people is acting outside their alignment. That's not something either character would do as defined by their lore, but the player could do it, they'd just be penalized for it. If you read otherwise, you were reading it wrong.
