D&D (2024) Command is the Perfect Encapsulation of Everything I Don't Like About 5.5e

[TiQuinn]

If it literally was not a thing that existed in the world, then the PC obviously cannot refer to it either. So In such a situation the GM should inform the player when they try to issue the command, so that they can choose something else.

Though I think "formal greeting" is a concept that has existed for a very long time, so the idea that it would not be a thing seems rather strange to me.

I still think I’d look at the DM with a sense of “the fuq?”

It’s a gotcha moment.

 

[SableWyvern]

I’m going to make a guess and say 0.1% of players are going to be amused by the idea that saluting has not been invented in the DM’s world and therefore their command doesn’t work.

Surely, if there is one thing we can all agree on, it's that anachronism has never had a place in D&D. Never!

 

[Umbran]

Flavour/Setting is the greatest weakness of 2024.

The entire year?

 

[mellored]

The entire year?

2021 had Covid, which cause a loss of taste.

So probably the year with the weakest flavor.

 

[Umbran]

But here's the problem. The idea of saluting doesn't exist until about the 16th century.

Merriam-Webster says the first attested use of the term, "salute," to mean, "to address with expressions of kind wishes, courtesy, or honor," is from the 14th century, not the 16th.

It may be that military salutes come later, but that "addressing with honor" is a couple centuries older. So, maybe the target salutes, but it isn't a hand to the forehead.

This presented not to argue the point specifically, but as a counter to the idea that historical-linguistic nitpicks are a good basis for how a GM should rule on things. It smacks of the GM being a rules-lawyer without telling the players the rules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The entire year?

Well, it is only August.

 

[Daztur]

Realistically, that's why we will not agree here. I do not see those things as equivalent at all. In one case, the players are engaging directly playing the game. In the other, the players are gaming the system.

But...but...but...why? I'm honestly am having trouble wrapping my head around your point of view. In both cases people are using tools at their disposal (Spells and honey) to do something that is not specifically covered by the rules and which requires a DM call. I just don't see how distracting an owlbear with honey is any different from the DM side of the screen than screwing with someone with Command. Now of course some people try stupid naughty word with spells ("I'm going to cast heat metal on the iron in his blood, har har.") but I've seen people do stupid naughty word with mundane stuff as well ("I'm going to throw the pot of honey into the dragon's mouth so it's stuck closed by the sticky honey so it can't breathe fire on us!"). In both cases the DM has to roll their eyes and tell the players their stupid naughty word doesn't work. What's the line you're drawing here?

For me an important line is between Associated and Dissociated mechanics: The Alexandrian » dissociated mechanics

Associated mechanics: the PC is making the exact same choices as the player. For example "I'm going to hit that goblin."

Dissociated mechanics: the player is making a decision that the character himself isn't making in the game. For example: "I use my inspiration to get advantage before I hit hat goblin." The character himself doesn't know what "inspiration" is.

For me if the player is using associated mechanics in a clever way that's always fine, even if it doesn't always work since the player is thinking the same thoughts that the character is thinking. For example even something as obviously abusive as "I cast create water in their lungs!" is not something I'd have a problem with players TRYING, since I could see some dumb newbie wizard trying that stunt IC, it's not going to WORK but the logic behind it is the same IC and OOC and gets the player thinking about what works and what doesn't in terms of the fiction of the world.

If the player is trying to be a weasel about the wording of dissociated mechanics, then that's just being a bad player and I'll shut that down.

 

[Daztur]

I still think I’d look at the DM with a sense of “the fuq?”

It’s a gotcha moment.

I'm not going to say "no saluting doesn't exist in my world" AFTER they cast the spell, I'm not an naughty word. I'd do it before then and let them choose a different word for their Command.

In my campaigns I like very strongly "themed" worlds (Greek Myth, Norse Myth, Shakespearean Italy with A Merchant of Venice and Othello, Ancien Regime France But the Nobles Are All Elves, etc. etc.) and keeping the standard D&D anachronism stew at bay helps with those campaigns and keeps people IC better in my experience.

So I'm going to make the details of that setting MATTER and I DO actually care about this kind of minor detail. But I'm also not going to do gotcha BS over it. After all, how does it make sense for a PC to cast a spell with a word they don't know?

 

[pemerton]

It can, but D&D is generally not that game.

Well, Moldvay Basic and 4e D&D are both pretty close to fitting the description I gave.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not quite following you. In both situations the GM is deciding how the NPCs responds. Seems like the same thing to me.

In AW, Go Aggro is a well-defined rules process. It includes clear specifications, at each point, as to who is required to make what decision about who acts how.

I don't think an open-ended D&D Command spell has the same clarity. The spell is meant to impose the caster's will on the victim, as mediated by a word. What will the word be taken to mean by the victim? Does this reflect the caster's desire, the victim's desire (as chosen and operationalised by the GM), the GM's desire (which is implemented independent of whatever we imagine the victim to desire), or something else? The rules aren't clear at all, as recent pages of this thread have demonstrated.