D&D 5E (2014) Should player's assume if it's in the DMG then it's RAW?

[Henrix]

A lot of the stuff in the DMG isn't even rules, but suggestions about how it can be handled, at the DM's discretion.

 

[BoldItalic]

Don't say no, let him sell the magic item just like that, but roll to see how many forests he gets for it. He doesn't get gold - there isn't enough gold in the world - he gets the title deeds to 1d6 forests. A long way away. Full of dragons, who regard them as their forests.

 

[fjw70]

My rule as a DM is assume the PH rules will be used as written unless I say otherwise and don't assume any rules in the DMG will be used unless I say they will.

It's really just setting the expectations of your players.

 

[guachi]

There are hardly any actual rules in the DMG. Sure there are 174 random tables and 60+ optional rules, but not many rules.

About the closest thing you get is the description of magic items.

 

[Eric V]

I blame 3ed/d20 for this problem. Everything - classes, monsters, NPCs, etc. - all followed the same rules. It empowered players to reverse engineer everything but in the process, DMs lost control of being able to surprise their players. 5E: take the power back!

No.

DMs never lost the power. Ever.

There has always been some form of "Rule 0" that has basically said "What the DM says, goes."

What was different about certain editions before this one, is there were more explicitly set out rules for more situations. Nevertheless, you always had the power to veto them.

It's just that some DMs, for some reason, didn't feel they could veto a more explicitly set out rule. Well, that's on the DM; "rule 0" was still there for you to invoke.

Yeah, it forced one to have a good reason to veto/change something, but that's a feature.

5e seems to be a bit more lax on some of these situations, perhaps "empowering" the DM to make their own calls, but that seems silly to me since the DM has always had the power to make calls. Always.

It was completely logical for a player to consult an official book regarding the selling of magical items. The DM is fine to say "Not in my world." That last part has been true since the red box.

One would hope that, through interaction with the DM's world, the player would have gotten the sense that magical items can't be sold...if he/she didn't, then the DMG is a logical place to go for the info.

 

[GlassJaw]

No.

DMs never lost the power. Ever.

There has always been some form of "Rule 0" that has basically said "What the DM says, goes."

3ed/d20 gave min/maxers, powergamers and whiners ammo to question the DM at every step if he didn't do something per "RAW". How's that?

 

[Eric V]

3ed/d20 gave min/maxers, powergamers and whiners ammo to question the DM at every step if he didn't do something per "RAW". How's that?

Sure. But vaguely worded rules did the same for me in 1e/2e. I got questioned all the time over vaguely worded stuff; I certainly didn't feel empowered by it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Then I guess the question becomes this. Should you, as a player, go and read up on the rules in the DMG and assume they are a part of the game?

Shortly, no. But your player isn't doing that, either.

Pg. 136 of the DMG explicitly says that the rules for magic item selling are "one way to handle it." Pg. 128 specifies that the DM can make selling items available as an option. Pg 129-130 puts limitations on how and when an item can be sold. The book tosses complications like "you decide the identity of the buyer" (who might be shady).

If your player was reading the rules, they would have read that this is something that the DM can opt into, not something the game treats as a default.

I don't think it was my fault that I didn't discuss how selling magic items went because I feel like the player shouldn't have gone and read the DMG and assumed that's the way it was done in my game.

I don't mind if my players read the DMG (I encourage it, actually!) and I don't mind them proposing rules that they'd like to use (e.g.: "I don't have much use for this wand, can I sell it using the DMG's rules?"), because it's everyone's game, but an assumption is a problem because it removes one of the fun parts of being a DM: shaping the game you run.

5e is pretty good about calling things optional and pointing out what assumptions it's using and why. If your player doesn't quite get that, ask them to read more closely.

 

[Dausuul]

Basically, should people just stay away from the DMG if they aren't DMing?

I had a player come to me about selling a magic item. He automatically assumed that all he needed to do was make his Investigation roll and then roll for days to find a seller and BAM, his item is sold. I explained to him that's not how it works in my world. "Well the DMG says XYZ", was the response I got and I told him he shouldn't assume anything he reads in the DMG is automatically RAW.

What do you think?

Selling magic items is in the "More Downtime Activities" section, which says in the opening paragraph:

Depending on the style of your campaign and the particular backgrounds and interests of the adventurers, you can make some or all of the following additional activities available as options.

So, by RAW, it's up to you whether selling magic items per the book is available or not.

More seriously--it's fine for players to read the DMG and can even be helpful. (As my group's resident rules lawyer, I'm pretty sure my DM expects me to read the DMG and be familiar with it so I can advise him on it.) But everything in there is intended as options for the DM to use or not as s/he sees fit. It's a toolkit, not a straitjacket.

I'm creating a backup character at the moment (I have reason to believe my current character's lifespan as a PC is limited). It's a fairly high-level campaign and I'm using the rules for starting wealth at higher levels, including two uncommon magic items. I know my DM and my guess is that he'll say to use those rules as written, so I'm going on the assumption that he will. However, it's always possible he will decide otherwise, in which case I'll adjust as necessary without complaint.

 

[Dausuul]

Ask yourself, why should a player assume that a rule which is not marked as optional would not be used in a game?

What does this have to do with selling magic items, which is marked as optional?