D&D 5E On rulings, rules, and Twitter, or: How Sage Advice Changed

[Oofta]

Oops. My comment about gratitude for my gaming experience wasn't meant to be anything other than a takeaway from observing the whole thread. Please don't read into any subtext or subtle jab aimed at you.

I didn't take it that way - or even if I did I try not to take anything anyone says here too seriously - just pointing out that the flexibility of D&D is IMHO one of it's biggest benefits. We have alignment, BIFT, inspiration and so on if you want them and you find them useful or you can completely ignore them.

Different approaches will work for different groups. That's all, we can carry on with our normal ... umm ... conversation!

 

[tetrasodium]

Yikes.



Players are free to ignore any of the following and only engage when it benefits them:

• languages they speak
• armor proficiencies
• weapon proficiencies
• tool proficiencies
• spells they can cast
• rituals they can cast
• features they can use after a rest
• skill proficiencies
• equipment they carry
• wealth they have
• services and hirelings
• mounts they can ride
• activities they might undertake while traveling
• downtime activities
• available combat actions

I'd hate to point at any of these in a given situation where they might be useful for fear of reminding anyone how to play their character (gasp!).

Difference being that unlike BITFs all of those have mechanical teeth. Either they provide a mechanical limit for what a player can do or provide a penalty/deny a bonus for ignoring them. BIFTs by comparison do not.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yikes.



Players are free to ignore any of the following and only engage when it benefits them:

• languages they speak
• armor proficiencies
• weapon proficiencies
• tool proficiencies
• spells they can cast
• rituals they can cast
• features they can use after a rest
• skill proficiencies
• equipment they carry
• wealth they have
• services and hirelings
• mounts they can ride
• activities they might undertake while traveling
• downtime activities
• available combat actions

I'd hate to point at any of these in a given situation where they might be useful for fear of reminding anyone how to play their character (gasp!).

No, they are not, at least not for all of those. If you ignore armor proficiencies, there is a strong feedback for doing so -- you are hit more often or you have disadvantage on lots of things. If you ignore a tool proficiency, when you take an action that can use that tool, you are hit with a strong feedback -- you do not get to add proficiency bonuses to your roll.

Most of these things have feedbacks, in fact, whereas ignoring your BIFTs has no negative feedback at all. This is a terribly muddled list that doesn't consider how these things are actually incentivized directly or penalized directly in the game. Sure, you can ignore them, but then there is a feedback for doing to, almost always negative.

I'm trying to imagine the tables you're sitting at because all of the conflict you describe is just alien to my experience with the game. Who is it that behaves so terribly? I'd honestly like to know so I can avoid them should I encounter them in the wild.

I'm playing in a Blades in the Dark game right now, which features strong characterizations effects. So far, my rival has caused massive problems for my crew (the other players), and I've said bupkiss about it despite knowing exactly what's going on. This is because it's related to my backstory, which I do not share, because it involve my character having betrayed a former team for personal gain -- something I might do again but even if I don't, the implication is there.

Another example, my character has the reckless example. My character has done some incredibly stupid, very not good for anyone, things in the name of being reckless. This has blown up at least one, and seriously complicated many, things we've done. Hell, at one point, the crew had a threat pretty much locked down and I screwed it up entirely with a reckless move (had it paid off, it would have been glorious, but the odds were extrememly against that). This cause harm (injury) to two crewmates, almost ruined the score, and has had lasting effects as we didn't deal with the threat and had to spend lots of our downtime resources countering it - plus it showed up twice in other scores to cause further complication.

But, since Blades isn't a game where the team concept is placed first, but rather the characters, and it fully allows very different agendas from the characters (but not as much as Apocalypse World, due to the Crew mechanics), this isn't a problem at the table, even as it's a major problem for the characters and crew.

However, you're right, this would be extremely odd in a D&D game, because the first thing is the party and you're expected to bend character to this.

Respect is the thing your character believes in most strongly, though they're extremely hot-headed and someone else can use that to exploit them or cause them to act against their best interests.

Where does it say your ideal is, in any way, a stronger force for your character than their flaw, or bond? And, no, there's no way to exploit or cause them to act against their best interests -- at all.

There's no angel versus devil dichotomy. You've described someone who will smack you up if they see you disrespecting a gentle soul, but will only use the amount of force necessary to straighten you out.

I have an ideal and a flaw that are at odds, this is absolutely an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I might have a Bond of "family first" and a flaw of "drunkard" and spend far more time drunk, not being there for my family, but when I'm sober I am. I mean, that's like super tropey right there. There's nothing that requires BIFTs to be in harmony. Even your example is one where the character is choosing to enact violence when they could show respect and discuss and educate rather than bash. And, how much force is necessary to straighten someone out? What if the first beating doesn't take?

Inspiration is everywhere when campaigns first start because it helps to get everyone on the same page about the game we all want to be playing. As time goes on, it really only makes a showing in those awesome moments where something cool happens and there's magic in the air.

My big takeaway from this thread is that I'm incredibly lucky to play with the people I play with. There's so many magical moments!

Yes, no one else's game has magical moments.

I'm simply asking you to reconsider in light of D&D not being any of those other games. It's clear that you have a fixed mindset on this, so I won't try and push your thinking anymore.

There are quite a lot of people that have never even heard of those games that find BIFTs useless or harmful. There's threads here about it, and it's a common comment. The awareness of other games that actually showcase how this stuff can work very well just goes towards understanding exactly how BIFTs fail to do what they do. Frankly, given the nature of 5e as a GM-centered game, the attempt was ill-conceived to begin with -- it just adds to GM overhead and is one more thing that you have to hope the GM does for you.

I've not encountered this argument about 5e stripping power from the DM, but we'll have to discuss that in a different thread.

Edit: Formatting

Here I'm with you -- I'm not sure at all what @tetrasodium is saying, here. TS -- maybe start a thread on this idea?

 

[Ovinomancer]

I didn't take it that way - or even if I did I try not to take anything anyone says here too seriously - just pointing out that the flexibility of D&D is IMHO one of it's biggest benefits. We have alignment, BIFT, inspiration and so on if you want them and you find them useful or you can completely ignore them.

Different approaches will work for different groups. That's all, we can carry on with our normal ... umm ... conversation!

Sigh, 5e isn't that flexible (nor is D&D in general). Everyone here is playing pretty much the same way, with small differences that are imagined to be large so that 5e is flexible enough to accommodate them. But, everyone is expecting the GM to drive the game, everyone is expecting the GM to be in charge and have the say, and everyone is fine with play constraints that are very tight on players and very loose on the GM. This latter is usually what's confused for flexibility -- the game's core mechanic is "GM decides" and so different decisions is viewed as those big difference and flexibility -- but the choices are still in a pretty small bubble of play for RPGs as a whole. The whole argument about house-rules and tinkering enabling flexibility is similarly mistaken -- 5e is going to be D&D unless you change a huge amount, and it's going to play pretty much the same way -- the GM decides. This isn't an actual feature of 5e, which hides it's core assumptions (look to resting and encounter building, which is tied deeply into classes) so that it's hard to make good changes without serious examination. It's as much of a feature of 5e as it is of Monopoly, which you can play like Risk with enough houserules. This is a feature of people. 5e doesn't help much.

 

[tetrasodium]

Here I'm with you -- I'm not sure at all what @tetrasodium is saying, here. TS -- maybe start a thread on this idea?

You almost certainly have, I just left it vague rather than getting too tangential. It was a reference to things like how there used to be things like the "dm's best friend", a certain amount of magic items baked into the system & resulting room for them, actual needs for gold, subjective elements in gear that could allow PC specific lateral improvements that feel significant, rest & recovery changes to deadpool/wolverine/loony tunes levels, etc. All of that combined provided tools the GM could apply as carrot & stick to encourage/discourage things in ways that make the players interested in something.

If Those kind of things were still real options the GM could employ then BITs might have some support with allowing "gm decides so they aren't completely toothless", but instead we have 5e.

 

[mrpopstar]

Difference being that unlike BITFs all of those have mechanical teeth. Either they provide a mechanical limit for what a player can do or provide a penalty/deny a bonus for ignoring them. BIFTs by comparison do not.

Inspiration is a mechanical benefit. We can agree to disagree on the limits of not having advantage on an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check.

No, they are not, at least not for all of those. If you ignore armor proficiencies, there is a strong feedback for doing so -- you are hit more often or you have disadvantage on lots of things. If you ignore a tool proficiency, when you take an action that can use that tool, you are hit with a strong feedback -- you do not get to add proficiency bonuses to your roll.

Most of these things have feedbacks, in fact, whereas ignoring your BIFTs has no negative feedback at all. This is a terribly muddled list that doesn't consider how these things are actually incentivized directly or penalized directly in the game. Sure, you can ignore them, but then there is a feedback for doing to, almost always negative.

Having inspiration is incentivized. A newcomer reading the Player's Handbook for the first time ever is given a clear orientation to the behavior of heroes in the game of Dungeons & Dragons, including how that behavior is rewarded.

I'm playing in a Blades in the Dark game right now, which features strong characterizations effects. So far, my rival has caused massive problems for my crew (the other players), and I've said bupkiss about it despite knowing exactly what's going on. This is because it's related to my backstory, which I do not share, because it involve my character having betrayed a former team for personal gain -- something I might do again but even if I don't, the implication is there.

Another example, my character has the reckless example. My character has done some incredibly stupid, very not good for anyone, things in the name of being reckless. This has blown up at least one, and seriously complicated many, things we've done. Hell, at one point, the crew had a threat pretty much locked down and I screwed it up entirely with a reckless move (had it paid off, it would have been glorious, but the odds were extrememly against that). This cause harm (injury) to two crewmates, almost ruined the score, and has had lasting effects as we didn't deal with the threat and had to spend lots of our downtime resources countering it - plus it showed up twice in other scores to cause further complication.

But, since Blades isn't a game where the team concept is placed first, but rather the characters, and it fully allows very different agendas from the characters (but not as much as Apocalypse World, due to the Crew mechanics), this isn't a problem at the table, even as it's a major problem for the characters and crew.

However, you're right, this would be extremely odd in a D&D game, because the first thing is the party and you're expected to bend character to this.

It's not my goal to be right. I'm simply advocating for less negativity aimed at the game's basic rules because I feel some sense of responsibility to embrace common agreement, promote the hobby, and invite newcomers into the fold.

My personal opinions don't matter, really. Until the game is rewritten, this is D&D.

Where does it say your ideal is, in any way, a stronger force for your character than their flaw, or bond? And, no, there's no way to exploit or cause them to act against their best interests -- at all.

I have an ideal and a flaw that are at odds, this is absolutely an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I might have a Bond of "family first" and a flaw of "drunkard" and spend far more time drunk, not being there for my family, but when I'm sober I am. I mean, that's like super tropey right there. There's nothing that requires BIFTs to be in harmony. Even your example is one where the character is choosing to enact violence when they could show respect and discuss and educate rather than bash. And, how much force is necessary to straighten someone out? What if the first beating doesn't take?

I'm all for the internal struggle! I think that's the whole point of flaws.

I apologize, I took more of a dissociative personality vibe from your previous post.

Yes, no one else's game has magical moments.

I didn't mean that.

There are quite a lot of people that have never even heard of those games that find BIFTs useless or harmful. There's threads here about it, and it's a common comment. The awareness of other games that actually showcase how this stuff can work very well just goes towards understanding exactly how BIFTs fail to do what they do. Frankly, given the nature of 5e as a GM-centered game, the attempt was ill-conceived to begin with -- it just adds to GM overhead and is one more thing that you have to hope the GM does for you.

I think the hill I'm here willing to die on is that it's just not that serious. It is what it is. I support it because it's in the rules.

Here I'm with you -- I'm not sure at all what @tetrasodium is saying, here. TS -- maybe start a thread on this idea?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Inspiration is a mechanical benefit. We can agree to disagree on the limits of not having advantage on an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check.

Awarding Inspiration is related to BIFTs (although you can award it according to the guidance for just about anything you want as GM), but BIFTs do not control nor do they require receiving Inspiration. I can, for instance, lean heavily on a BIFT as a player and not get Inspiration. The only mechanical impact is whether or not I have Inspiration, which BIFTs are only weakly connected to.

But, this wasn't your argument. Your argument was that you could ignore all of those things without impacts as well -- but you cannot. I, as a player, can ignore my BIFTs and nothing happens. I cannot ignore the other things on your list -- they bite back.

Having inspiration is incentivized. A newcomer reading the Player's Handbook for the first time ever is given a clear orientation to the behavior of heroes in the game of Dungeons & Dragons, including how that behavior is rewarded.

No, they really aren't. They're told that they can earn it for playing to their BIFTs, but the reality is that it's entirely up to the GM. A new player might very well take actions to earn Inspiration, and not receive it, and play can be fair and balanced and good -- but this expectation is unfulfilled just because the GM has a difference of opinion. There is no way for a player to actually claim Inspiration. There is not clear path to this. You're substituting how you play for the baseline and it's not this.

It's not my goal to be right. I'm simply advocating for less negativity aimed at the game's basic rules because I feel some sense of responsibility to embrace common agreement, promote the hobby, and invite newcomers into the fold.

I do as well. I like 5e. I also think it's good to be honest rather that rose-colored-glasses-wearing about how it actually works and what you should expect from it. And BIFTs are a bad system, tacked on, that requires extra work from the GM to enable it to any semblance of usefulness, at which point it's still pretty weak.

My personal opinions don't matter, really. Until the game is rewritten, this is D&D.

I agree -- it's has a kludge of a system that doesn't work very well for it's claimed goals in BIFTs. I'm not denying it exists, I'm saying it does, and it's not very good.

I'm all for the internal struggle! I think that's the whole point of flaws.

You just said there was none. Please pick a position.

I apologize, I took more of a dissociative personality vibe from your previous post.

That's an odd place to leap to.

I didn't mean that.

I think the hill I'm here willing to die on is that it's just not that serious. It is what it is. I support it because it's in the rules.

To me, that's not a good reason. "I support it because it's there," doesn't inspire others very much.

 

[Asisreo]

To me, that's not a good reason. "I support it because it's there," doesn't inspire others very much.

I don't feel like its really our responsibility to inspire others to defend inspiration and BIFTs. We like it, so we speak out, but we don't have to convince people that don't like it that they're wrong. The existence of people the like it, in sufficient enough numbers, should be justification enough to keep it.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

Sigh, 5e isn't that flexible (nor is D&D in general). Everyone here is playing pretty much the same way, with small differences that are imagined to be large so that 5e is flexible enough to accommodate them. But, everyone is expecting the GM to drive the game, everyone is expecting the GM to be in charge and have the say, and everyone is fine with play constraints that are very tight on players and very loose on the GM. This latter is usually what's confused for flexibility -- the game's core mechanic is "GM decides" and so different decisions is viewed as those big difference and flexibility -- but the choices are still in a pretty small bubble of play for RPGs as a whole. The whole argument about house-rules and tinkering enabling flexibility is similarly mistaken -- 5e is going to be D&D unless you change a huge amount, and it's going to play pretty much the same way -- the GM decides. This isn't an actual feature of 5e, which hides it's core assumptions (look to resting and encounter building, which is tied deeply into classes) so that it's hard to make good changes without serious examination. It's as much of a feature of 5e as it is of Monopoly, which you can play like Risk with enough houserules. This is a feature of people. 5e doesn't help much.

It's a little difficult to have these high-level design discussions with people who only play traditional RPGs, especially those whose primary game is D&D.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's a little difficult to have these high-level design discussions with people who only play traditional RPGs, especially those whose primary game is D&D.

I do have to point out two things:

1. Just because you prefer trad games does not require you're oblivious to the design decisions in games of more modern origin; it can mean you're aware of them and just don't find them compelling.

2. You can have people who's only gaming experience is PbtA derivatives who still haven't the least idea of the design principals behind them. What you play and how interested you are in design philosophy is largely orthogonal.