el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Last night I was playing in a remote 5E game I recently joined, and I noticed that the players and DM adjudicated Thunderwave differently than I have in games - and different from how I understand the spell. I didn't say anything because the player actually casting it and the DM seemed of accord, so there was no point in interrupting the flow of the game to question it when it was not my character doing the thing or being effected by it.
Today, I spent a little time googling the spell and people's opinions and the Sage Advice errata, and realized that my reading of the spell is apparently not what was meant by the description of the spell. But that said, I don't care. I see Thunderwave as a "get away from me!" spell that effects the 8 boxes immediately around the caster and that is how it is going to continue to be in my games because 1) It has more flavor, 2) it makes sense that a wizard would have a low level spell that would help keep them from being surrounded when melee combat and having lots of HPs is not their bag, and 3) because I see (and have always seen) errata as an a la carte menu - take some and leave some according to what works for you and your game and how you see it. If my reading of the spell is an accident, then it is a happy accident, in my view.
I am happy to read and sometimes even take Jeremy Crawford's advice, but until he is at my gaming table running the game, he has no authority over it. (And to be honest, I never go looking for errata until there is an actual issue/confusion that comes up in-game because if everything else is going fine, why muck it up with dubious notions of "how it is supposed to be?"
It is for that reason that I see all the handwringing about recent errata kind of a waste of energy, energy better spent making the game how you want it to be along with your group's input.
Of course, some people are handwringing because they feel like these changes are in some way calling them out as playing wrong (at best) and willfully insensitive (at worst) - for that I don't really have a response except to say, that if reasons for changes to alignment (for example) make you feel uncomfortable then that is reason to at least examine your assumptions about it - but otherwise, there is no reason to think that this forces you to change your home game at all. In fact, I'd argue that when forming a new group or recruiting a player to an existing group there will always be assumptions about the game you will have to work out both implicitly and explicitly, whether they are about race and lineage for PCs or whether orc babies can be reasonably expected to try to bite your face off because of their fundamentally malevolent will, or more basic stuff like character creation method or choices of what rules options are being put to use (or not).
I know there are some folks who are also concerned about the assumptions that such changes might bring to D&D culture at large, but in my experience at least playing with friends, the culture at the table soundly trumps any generic gaming cultural assumptions, esp. once a group has been gaming together for any significant length of time.
Even brand new players and DMs who worry that they must follow and apply every rule all the time 100% correctly, in time find that not only do they not need to try to that, it is frequently not conducive to actual smooth and fun play.
Errata (when it is not just correcting typos or omissions) is best taken in that optional light. And when it comes to the changes to language that endeavor to create more inclusive and less insensitive assumptions, personally I am all for them - but tend to lean in more towards what creates more complex in-game options (not more complex rules, but more complex understandings of the setting and events) and eschew what over-simplifies or doesn't match my vision.
I do feel for those who just rent the books on D&D Beyond or whatever and have no choice about those changes being made to their copy of the text, but all I can say to that is, 1) that is to be expected of that format, and 2) none of the changes seem so extreme that you couldn't just grandfather them in from memory.
Today, I spent a little time googling the spell and people's opinions and the Sage Advice errata, and realized that my reading of the spell is apparently not what was meant by the description of the spell. But that said, I don't care. I see Thunderwave as a "get away from me!" spell that effects the 8 boxes immediately around the caster and that is how it is going to continue to be in my games because 1) It has more flavor, 2) it makes sense that a wizard would have a low level spell that would help keep them from being surrounded when melee combat and having lots of HPs is not their bag, and 3) because I see (and have always seen) errata as an a la carte menu - take some and leave some according to what works for you and your game and how you see it. If my reading of the spell is an accident, then it is a happy accident, in my view.
I am happy to read and sometimes even take Jeremy Crawford's advice, but until he is at my gaming table running the game, he has no authority over it. (And to be honest, I never go looking for errata until there is an actual issue/confusion that comes up in-game because if everything else is going fine, why muck it up with dubious notions of "how it is supposed to be?"
It is for that reason that I see all the handwringing about recent errata kind of a waste of energy, energy better spent making the game how you want it to be along with your group's input.
Of course, some people are handwringing because they feel like these changes are in some way calling them out as playing wrong (at best) and willfully insensitive (at worst) - for that I don't really have a response except to say, that if reasons for changes to alignment (for example) make you feel uncomfortable then that is reason to at least examine your assumptions about it - but otherwise, there is no reason to think that this forces you to change your home game at all. In fact, I'd argue that when forming a new group or recruiting a player to an existing group there will always be assumptions about the game you will have to work out both implicitly and explicitly, whether they are about race and lineage for PCs or whether orc babies can be reasonably expected to try to bite your face off because of their fundamentally malevolent will, or more basic stuff like character creation method or choices of what rules options are being put to use (or not).
I know there are some folks who are also concerned about the assumptions that such changes might bring to D&D culture at large, but in my experience at least playing with friends, the culture at the table soundly trumps any generic gaming cultural assumptions, esp. once a group has been gaming together for any significant length of time.
Even brand new players and DMs who worry that they must follow and apply every rule all the time 100% correctly, in time find that not only do they not need to try to that, it is frequently not conducive to actual smooth and fun play.
Errata (when it is not just correcting typos or omissions) is best taken in that optional light. And when it comes to the changes to language that endeavor to create more inclusive and less insensitive assumptions, personally I am all for them - but tend to lean in more towards what creates more complex in-game options (not more complex rules, but more complex understandings of the setting and events) and eschew what over-simplifies or doesn't match my vision.
I do feel for those who just rent the books on D&D Beyond or whatever and have no choice about those changes being made to their copy of the text, but all I can say to that is, 1) that is to be expected of that format, and 2) none of the changes seem so extreme that you couldn't just grandfather them in from memory.
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