D&D General The DM Shortage

[Maxperson]

The exception that proves the rule. Yes, if the referee is an idiot and drops all the monsters into fireball formation, you happen to hit a lot of monsters with a perfectly placed AoE and you happen to roll well enough to kill off most or all of them with one hit, then and only then will it matter.

I never said all of the monsters would be hit. I said more would be hit than if you just had the smaller group of monsters. Do you have 50-100 yard rooms in dungeons? 50!100 yard wide taverns? And do on.

The vast majority of encounters happen I'm fairly small areas and making groups of enemies larger means that fewer of them can get out of area spells by spreading out

Unless the DM contrives to have combats happen outside somehow, what I said is not even remotely close to being a "corner case."

 

[Maxperson]

It did, yes.

Then I don't have an issue with them providing such a video link. Younger folks can ignore the book and older folk the link.

Had they not included a rulebook, that would have been bad. People forget rules or parts of rules and have to look things up. Having to rewatch a video to find out if a rule allows you to draw two cards instead of one would be horrible.

 

[Maxperson]

True, but good luck getting JRRT to write about adapting LotR to D&D!

I can probably look up 10 people willing to do a seance for me. I'd love to see the person conducting such a seance try to come up with believable sounding stuff for Tolkien adapting LotR to D&D. They're usually prepared for questions to loved ones.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Then I don't have an issue with them providing such a video link. Younger folks can ignore the book and older folk the link.

Had they not included a rulebook, that would have been bad. People forget rules or parts of rules and have to look things up. Having to rewatch a video to find out if a rule allows you to draw two cards instead of one would be horrible.

I don't think anyone is suggesting you can replace printed rules. But a large portion of D&D isn't rules.

The example @pogre gives is about scouting reports on rival sports teams. I.e. learning how best to beat them. I would imagine that everyone on the team is already very familiar with the rules of the the sport.

 

[FrozenNorth]

The trick is to ALSO encourage (rather than discourage or simply not address) DMs being open to solutions other than "it's magic..."

Very difficult when the designers share that bias. My go-to example is Mummy Rot: unhealable even with expertise in Medicine, trivial for a paladin or a cleric.

There are other examples in the game s as d in published adventures.

 

[Mort]

Very difficult when the designers share that bias. My go-to example is Mummy Rot: unhealable even with expertise in Medicine, trivial for a paladin or a cleric.

There are other examples in the game s as d in published adventures.

Definitely agree that the designers share the bias.

It's a safe course for the designers. Players grumble, but they ultimately accept "it's magic..."

whereas if, for example, they officially allowed medicine to cure mummy rot (even at some absurdly high DC) you'd get a vocal bunch screaming how that's unrealistic (I've always found this one hilarious in a fantasy setting but people claim it just the same), breaks verisimilitude, too easy, no resource drain, you name it.

 

[James Gasik]

Definitely agree that the designers share the bias.

It's a safe course for the designers. Players grumble, but they ultimately accept "it's magic..."

whereas if, for example, they officially allowed medicine to cure mummy rot (even at some absurdly high DC) you'd get a vocal bunch screaming how that's unrealistic (I've always found this one hilarious in a fantasy setting but people claim it just the same), breaks verisimilitude, too easy, no resource drain, you name it.

As if medicine has to be limited to what "some guy in a vaguely defined historical period" can do when there are mystical herbs and substances that don't even exist in our world. Like your local doctor can't prescribe you two doses of St. Cuthbert's Wort tea or something.

 

[Mort]

As if medicine has to be limited to what "some guy in a vaguely defined historical period" can do when there are mystical herbs and substances that don't even exist in our world. Like your local doctor can't prescribe you two doses of St. Cuthbert's Wort tea or something.

Sure, I 100% agree.

What the "realism" argument completely fails at is it tries to inject our world realism into the fantasy world.

When actually, you need to look at the "realism" of the fantasy world. In Greyhawk for example: Gods exist, magic permeates the environment, mummy rot is likely a recognized condition, has been studied, etc.

 

[Cadence]

Oh no, a magic curse that takes magic to overcome it! How anti-fantasy!! ;-)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Definitely agree that the designers share the bias.

It's a safe course for the designers. Players grumble, but they ultimately accept "it's magic..."

whereas if, for example, they officially allowed medicine to cure mummy rot (even at some absurdly high DC) you'd get a vocal bunch screaming how that's unrealistic (I've always found this one hilarious in a fantasy setting but people claim it just the same), breaks verisimilitude, too easy, no resource drain, you name it.

Fantasy setting does not equal "nothing matters, so anything goes". IMO, fantasy settings work best when the fantastic stuff is a specific exception, and the rest of the world operates more or less like ours. That grounding helps the fantastic "pop", so that the world is comprehensible.

Mummy rot as a magical disease works fine as a specific exception, IMO.