D&D 5E How has your personal experience/expertise affected rulings?

[Imaculata]

Which while probably true in real life, rather flies in the face of long-established D&D lore largely built around the Web spell, the webs from which have always been quite flammable.

Then I guess the webs created by that spell are different from actual spider webs.

 

[guachi]

In our crew I'm the only one with any real boating/yachting experience (though none of it recent!), so I'm on solid footing with that sort of thing as DM and often have to chime in as a player when such things come up. I'm also well-versed in weather - I was a weather geek long before I became a D&D geek - and describing realistic weather can really help set the tone and make the world believable.

I love weather, too. Love reading forecasts. In '93 or so I went to my college library and got microfiche of the newspaper for every day of the year (Billings Gazette while at Montana State University) to see just how accurate forecasts were.

Oh, to have had a proper spreadsheet program instead of doing it by hand. Montana weather is quite variable so accurate forecasts can be difficult when trying to time when fronts roll through. Being off by a little bit in timing can mean a lot of degrees.

In any event, I found two results. One: forecasts (and five-day was the longest at the time) were more accurate the shorter the time frame. That is, a forecast one day out was more accurate than one five days out. This isn't surprising and what we would hope to be the case. Result two: forecasts were consistently too conservative. That is, if the forecast was for the temperature to be above average it was warmer than predicted. If the forecast was for the temperature to be below average it was colder than predicted. This was consistent day after day, month after month.

But back to D&D! Because of the internet we can go to wunderground.com and get historical hourly weather for hundreds of locations in the United States. Pick a location with weather you believe mimics your fantasy location. Pick a year. Instant perfectly believable weather!

My current campaign is set in Mystara. The first Gazetteer was published in 1987, so I picked 1987 for the year. I picked Roanoke, VA to mimic the town from the setting, Threshold. The Mystara map is earth from 150 million years ago, so Threshold is basically in the foothills of the Appalachians and that's exactly where Roanoke is. Turns out 1987 was a nasty Winter with lots of wet snow. It really affected the game! The PCs decided not to take the hook and do Keep on the Borderlands But the snow in the mountains was so bad it drove the humanoids out of the caves and they overran the undermanned keep.

Massive record breaking rains slowed the PCs on their way to get one of them cured of lycanthropy before it killed her (as it does to demihumans in BECMI D&D). It certainly added tension and the PCs outright skipped some things just to get where they were going. Plus, the PCs don't think I'm out to get them or, conversely, making it easier on them when the temperatures hit the '80s in May and travel was easy. Many picnics were had after that awful Winter!

Sure, it takes lots of prep but I enjoy it. It's also the type of DMing I like. Once the game starts I try to be as neutral as I can be.

 

[Kalshane]

I am pretty interested in historic things from the middle Ages and Renaissance, so in my games i use some houserules for more realism. E.g. there is no leather armor or studded leather, there is padded and bolstered armor (made from layers of linen) and Brigantine (the source of many People being stuped in that leather with studs has a use above being accesoires for a heavy metal fans or sm studios). I only allow rapier main gauche to be dual wielded and only in Settings which have a Renaissance background (read: rapiers exist in the setting). In my renaissance setting platemail is available easy but you will not be able to buy chainmail, it is much to expensive to produce and inferior, that is another thing from actual history. Otoh if i decide the Setting has a dark ages Background platemail and polearms might not be available.

Out of curiosity, what stats do you use for brigandine? I see lots of references to "This is what actually existed that modern people mistook for studded leather" but no one says where it should actually fall on the armor charts.

 

[Lanefan]

I love weather, too. Love reading forecasts. In '93 or so I went to my college library and got microfiche of the newspaper for every day of the year (Billings Gazette while at Montana State University) to see just how accurate forecasts were.

Oh, to have had a proper spreadsheet program instead of doing it by hand. Montana weather is quite variable so accurate forecasts can be difficult when trying to time when fronts roll through. Being off by a little bit in timing can mean a lot of degrees.

In any event, I found two results. One: forecasts (and five-day was the longest at the time) were more accurate the shorter the time frame. That is, a forecast one day out was more accurate than one five days out. This isn't surprising and what we would hope to be the case. Result two: forecasts were consistently too conservative. That is, if the forecast was for the temperature to be above average it was warmer than predicted. If the forecast was for the temperature to be below average it was colder than predicted. This was consistent day after day, month after month.

I tend to find it depends on who's doing the forecasting. I've got three weather apps in my phone and all of them are (usually) way too conservative, particularly in the summer. But the Environment Canada crew tend to be, if anything, too extreme - particularly in the winter.

But back to D&D! Because of the internet we can go to wunderground.com and get historical hourly weather for hundreds of locations in the United States. Pick a location with weather you believe mimics your fantasy location. Pick a year. Instant perfectly believable weather!

That's one way, for sure. A long time ago I made up my own weather tables and - after a fashion - I still use them today. They set the base conditions (sun, cloud, rain/snow, storm) and windspeed, and the temperature is a variance from a generic 'normal' for wherever they are. Most usefully, though, once I've set the base conditions the tables tell me how or if it'll change.

And this comes in handy when one has decent-level Nature Clerics who can use Predict Weather to get an accurate forecast nearly 2 days out.

Lanefan

 

[Inchoroi]

Hm. The only time I think that personal experience has entered into it has been when I, as a PC, tried to convince my DM that aerated sawdust was flammable. I ended up having to show him a video to convince him, then had barrels of sawdust hooked up to a bellows from the forge as part of a siege defense thing.

As a DM, if someone can come up with a good reason, a good explanation, or just something that is awesome, I'll usually let it go with a roll of some sort. I like shenanigans like that, though. My old DM did not.

 

[Coroc]

Out of curiosity, what stats do you use for brigandine? I see lots of references to "This is what actually existed that modern people mistook for studded leather" but no one says where it should actually fall on the armor charts.

I use AC 13 with a max dex bonus of 3

Probably 14 or 15 with dex 2 would still be justified but I got other armor covering that range. It is definitely a medium armor, its nearly as strong as a breastplate but a bit more flexible.

 

[Ninja-radish]

Personally I find the skill system in 5E ludicrously unrealistic, it's much too difficult to succeed on an "average" DC 15 check. To me, if you're "proficient" in a skill, then average should be damn near automatic. Only high difficulties should pose any problems. If you have about a 50/50 chance of hitting that DC 15 skill check, which most PCs have in 5E, then you are NOT proficient and have no business saying you are.

I'm a paramedic, and if I screwed up 50% of my calls, I would've been fired a long time ago. Would you trust a doctor who only diagnosed people correctly 50% of the time? Or a mechanic who fixes your car correctly only half the time? Utter nonsense. That's why I use a system of passive checks instead. I don't even make my group roll if the DC is less than or equal to 10 + skill modifier.

 

[iserith]

Personally I find the skill system in 5E ludicrously unrealistic, it's much too difficult to succeed on an "average" DC 15 check. To me, if you're "proficient" in a skill, then average should be damn near automatic. Only high difficulties should pose any problems. If you have about a 50/50 chance of hitting that DC 15 skill check, which most PCs have in 5E, then you are NOT proficient and have no business saying you are.

I'm a paramedic, and if I screwed up 50% of my calls, I would've been fired a long time ago. Would you trust a doctor who only diagnosed people correctly 50% of the time? Or a mechanic who fixes your car correctly only half the time? Utter nonsense. That's why I use a system of passive checks instead. I don't even make my group roll if the DC is less than or equal to 10 + skill modifier.

The game system has it set up where all action declarations first pass through the DM to decide on automatic success or failure before the rules, if any, are applied. A DC 15 ability check, for example, means that the DM has decided that this action declaration has some complicating factor that makes it not a routine situation.

So I don't think the analogy to your job, the doctor's, or mechanic's is applicable. Unless you're asking for ability checks for just about everything, that is, which is possible, but may lead to self-inflicted dissatisfaction.

 

[Ninja-radish]

The game system has it set up where all action declarations first pass through the DM to decide on automatic success or failure before the rules, if any, are applied. A DC 15 ability check, for example, means that the DM has decided that this action declaration has some complicating factor that makes it not a routine situation.

So I don't think the analogy to your job, the doctor's, or mechanic's is applicable. Unless you're asking for ability checks for just about everything, that is, which is possible, but may lead to self-inflicted dissatisfaction.

Ah that makes sense. We were rolling checks for most things because that's how we thought the system was supposed to work. After a few sessions, we abandoned that cause it was a terrible experience and I went with the passive checks system instead.

 

[iserith]

Ah that makes sense. We were rolling checks for most things because that's how we thought the system was supposed to work. After a few sessions, we abandoned that cause it was a terrible experience and I went with the passive checks system instead.

Yep, that's a common fix for folks who aren't happy with the outcomes they're seeing with the "Rolling With It" approach (DMG, page 236) in my experience, among other things.

As long as it's the DM deciding when a check will be made (passive or otherwise) and he or she balances ruling outright success or failure with going to the mechanics and dice, then it's hard to end up with a dissatisfying result as I see it.