D&D 5E A player's responsibility with regard to the rules

[Tony Vargas]

Oh, and as far as 'homework' and books open at the table, it's a game, not a midterm - the character sheet should have everything you need to play your character (OK, sometimes that means my pregens are 4+ pages, because, y'know, spells). The need to memorize should be minimal and the need to look stuff up rare.

 

[MNblockhead]

The players' responsibility to the rules is minimal in my view. The rules are tools that serve the DM. All a player need do is say what they want to do (goal and approach) and the DM takes care of the rest.

Of course, one can play a game without knowing the rules, but the more one knows the rules, the more effective and reliable a teammate that person is. So if the player is the sort of person who wants to be effective and reliable, he or she should put some time into learning how to play his or her character well. That's especially true if the rest of the players are paying a heavy price for that player not doing so, being a team game and all.

In D&D, "winning" is defined as everyone having fun and telling a memorable story by playing. That doesn't require rules knowledge on the part of the players, but it tends to be a more achievable goal in my experience when they make a reasonable effort.

For the most part I agree. But I think this is unfair to the DM and is what makes taking on the role of DM so intimidating to many. Perhaps I'm mentally inadequate, but I just am not going to remember the details of all the feats and spells. I don't think that it is too much for me to expect a player to know how their spells work. But even for simple things like a fighter attacking someone with a sword, it is easier for the player to look at his or her character sheet than for me to talk through attack and damage bonuses. As a DM, I already have to prepare for all the NPCs they may encounter. I invest a lot of time and money on physical and digital aids to avoid slowing down the game to much.

I suppose I could just have all the character sheets in front of me and roll the dice for the players as well. This may work when using VTT tools like Fantasy Grounds, but I run an in-person game and my players like to roll dice. I also find it more engaging when players roll their own dice.

If I have to do all the work, well, that would tip the balance for me and it would just be work. Players at my game need to pull their weight to help make the game run and make the game fun.

From what I've read in similar threads, I think I tend to be far more accommodating and patient than many DMs, but at some point, lack of preparedness is rude and life is too short to accommodate rude people during my downtime.

 

[40below]

Perhaps I should say that I tend to be quite accommodating of this as well. As I mentioned in the post, the game is welcoming, and I want to be welcoming, too! Different players DO engage differently, and that's fine. This wasn't meant to be a gripe about a type of players.

Instead, I am specifically interested, in unpacking what my hypothetical "well-intentioned but lazy" player SHOULD learn.

Of course, there's a certain minimum that every single player should know. (We might debate what that minimum is, but I think we all believe one exists.)

But for the player who's down to roleplay but not too excited about the rules, but who DOES want to do her or his part, what rules SHOULD she learn and master?


So far, I see a general consensus that spellcasters should probably have some equivalent to spell cards. Does anyone else think it'd be nice for this hypothetical player to make the effort to really understand the ten combat actions and the structure of a turn?






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[TheNoremac42]

When I made my wizard... I basically copied and pasted the descriptions for all my spells out of the PHB and put them in a word doc. Granted, a lot of stuff in there doesn't copy/paste well so I had to do a lot of editing. But in the end I just had my own spells with all the important bits bolded and organized by spell level. I printed it out and stapled it to my character sheet. It was a lot of prep work, but worth it IME.

 

[ccs]

5e is a very welcoming game! With so many available pre-generated characters, a new player can sit down at a gaming table and get started with no preparation whatsoever. And that’s wonderful![/SIZE]

No, it's not.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There are ten actions in combat? That number seems either too low or too high, depending on how you group things.

 

[iserith]

For the most part I agree. But I think this is unfair to the DM and is what makes taking on the role of DM so intimidating to many. Perhaps I'm mentally inadequate, but I just am not going to remember the details of all the feats and spells. I don't think that it is too much for me to expect a player to know how their spells work. But even for simple things like a fighter attacking someone with a sword, it is easier for the player to look at his or her character sheet than for me to talk through attack and damage bonuses. As a DM, I already have to prepare for all the NPCs they may encounter. I invest a lot of time and money on physical and digital aids to avoid slowing down the game to much.

I suppose I could just have all the character sheets in front of me and roll the dice for the players as well. This may work when using VTT tools like Fantasy Grounds, but I run an in-person game and my players like to roll dice. I also find it more engaging when players roll their own dice.

If I have to do all the work, well, that would tip the balance for me and it would just be work. Players at my game need to pull their weight to help make the game run and make the game fun.

From what I've read in similar threads, I think I tend to be far more accommodating and patient than many DMs, but at some point, lack of preparedness is rude and life is too short to accommodate rude people during my downtime.

The DM should know the rules, more or less. We can't be expected to remember everything though. So we can just make rulings during play. We're doing it all the time. To me, everything the DM says is a ruling, essentially. So a player just saying what he or she wants to do and the DM narrating the result is just another ruling and that ruling may or may not be based on rules. This is what the DM does and shouldn't be a burden or be intimidating in my view.

Anyway, the way this works itself out is that the player is less effective at the game when he or she doesn't take the time to learn at least the rules that apply to his or her character. If you know the rules, you know what will be the most effective course of action in a given situation. People who play games, in general, will try to be effective. So given a little time and patience, these sorts of issues tend to go away in my experience.

There will be the odd player who doesn't care to be effective at the game. Those are the ones that deserve an honest but polite conversation about it. I would bet these sorts of people are rare enough to be an anomaly in this day and age. But everyone else is free to muddle along and improve of their own volition as far as I'm concerned. Plus I'm sure their team mates will help out. After all, what proper nerd doesn't like to demonstrate knowledge on a subject when asked anyway?

 

[40below]

There are ten actions in combat? That number seems either too low or too high, depending on how you group things.

Aren't there? Attack, Cast a Spell, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, Ready, Search, Use an Object.

I guess it depends on how you count. For example, I've never, ever seen someone Search during combat, but I have seen people do things not on that list. Seems like Search would be covered by Improvising an Action, not requiring a particular separate action on the standard list.

 

[cbwjm]

I rely on my players to be able to explain what a spell or ability does which should ideally be written down on their character sheet. I try to keep the rest of the rules in my head but sometimes even the DM makes mistakes, it took a player who was new and had recently read the PHB combat rules to correct our combat movement and opportunity attacks, for other rules I just make it up as I go along (I'm looking at you stealth checks) and then try to maintain consistency down the road.

I know some players just have a difficult time of understanding key concepts, I have one which has difficulty with when to add proficiency for skill checks.

One thing we do in our games is correct things after the fact. We'll finish a session and then I might check the rules rather than stopping play and checking on things then and there. For instance, in our first couple of games we were allowing cantrips to be used with commander's strike and sneak attack. We were all new to the game but afterwards, once I had reread the rules on the two abilities I just sent out an email saying we were doing it wrong and that we would correct it for the future.

 

[cmad1977]

Know your class. Understand a few basic concepts/numbers.
Trust the DM.


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