D&D (2024) I have the DMG. AMA!

[Maxperson]

Tasha's had several class features that explicitly said you can use this feature OR the original feature; very few people consider Tasha's to not be 5e.

Tasha's is not a core rulebook. It is very explicitly a book of optional rules. It's the very first thing it says.

"Tasha's Cauldron of Everything offers a host of new options for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, and our journey through those options is accompanied by the notes of the wizard Tasha."

Then after the introduction it's such an important thing to get across they give it a section of it's own called "It's All Optional"

"Everything in this book is optional. Each group, guided by the DM, decides which of these options, if any, to incorporate into a campaign. You can use some, all, or none of them. We encourage you to choose the ones that fit best with your campaign's story and with your group's style of play."

The core 5.5e books are not optional rules in the same sense as the Tasha rules. Can a DM decide which rules are going to be used from the 5e and 5.5e core books? Yes. Are they optional rules in the way Tasha's is? No. There's a difference between default core rules that you can decide to ignore or incorporate, and rules designed to be optional that are not used at all unless you opt in.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's important to remember that every class other than fighter had a "**** you" built into the class especially for the DM Mrs with them. It was typically either failing to play your alignment, an ethos or oath, limitations on gear, ritual combat/taking out a higher level NPC, or often multiple ones. The only class you could not have your power either removed or your ability to advance in was fighter, and that was because fighter was the weakest classes when it came to features. Yet I'm not hearing clamour for the return of druids or monks having to fight ritual combat to level or paladins and rangers having to give up excess treasure or barbarians and bard no longer being able to level if they become lawful.

I actually think that stuff was cool and wouldn't mind seeing it again. Made sense in a lot of ways to me.

 

[Emerikol]

Yet I'm not hearing clamour for the return of druids or monks having to fight ritual combat to level or paladins and rangers having to give up excess treasure or barbarians and bard no longer being able to level if they become lawful.

If I allowed either class, I'd definitely consider any barbarian becoming lawful as having an impact upon his abilities going forward. I do though think clerics and paladins are the most iconic examples and the most flavorful when it comes to Deity involvement.

 

[TwoSix]

That is cool stuff, nothing against it. But it is a big deal for the character, and I want the mechanics to reflect that. If you have a crisis of faith and forsake your god, then I think that can and should be reflected on the mechanics of the character too.
I wan the mechanics to represent the fiction, not to be a disconnected afterthought.

It should be a change, not a consequence, is the point I want to make. A consequence is something you inflict because someone did something wrong. A mechanical consequence for leaving their god is punishing the player for trying to make the character interesting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not really about Silver Surfer and Galactus. Like, it really isn't about that.

The examples have been flawed. Hard not to bring that up when you see it.

 

[TwoSix]

Well if he were truly going against his God's tenants, then this is how it would go...
1. When he is about to give mercy, the DM reminds him this is not the will of his God.
2. When he does it anyway, for one such infraction, then perhaps some minor penalty occurs like the loss of a spell.
3. If he continues to drift away from his God, he will eventually be powerless.
4. If at some point along the way, even in fact at the point he is powerless, the player can atone but in the case of this Deity that may not be an option.
5. The character then chooses to switch to another Deity. He suffers some more severe penalty like a level loss. But then with some in game roleplay he becomes a priest of the new Deity. Hopefully the new Deity is a better fit for the character. The player I assume has chosen to put his character into a crisis of faith.

If you inflict level loss, no player would willingly choose to take that action. To me, that's a failure.

 

[Maxperson]

But that's boring. Heretics and uncertainty about what gods want make for interesting stories.

I guess it boils down to my belief that gods, as such, aren't interesting pieces of game scenery. Religion is, but religion is something created by people. And religion is much more interesting when you have differing interpretations.

You can have those in D&D, even with gods who are active. You can have a sect of the war god's church who believe it's their duty to guide rulers when they go to war, while another sect actively tries to start wars, and a third sect doesn't guide or start wars, but does join sides to fight. Potentially both sides at once depending on the individual.

As long as all the interpretations fit within the tenets of the god, they are probably going to be just fine with their deity. However, the differing sects may not get along and consider one another heretical. Or not. The DM can decide.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Guys, we have to realise:
Those toxic X aren't all that present. They correspond to what? 2% of the gamers you have encountered? We are defending the game we love against hypothetical gamers we don't have at our table and won't tolerate anyway. Most of your are older gamers, you have a well established group and aren't gaming with toxic people. I know I don't.

I don't think the viking-hat Dms or entitled passive players are a big thing in the hobby, at this point this is more of a meme than anything else.

 

[Neonchameleon]

To the degree they exist they ruin games very quickly. They are easily spotted and avoided.

You might be surprised. I have in my experienced reality of regularly running open tables and teaching newbies to play seen in absolute terms more toxic DMs than I have toxic players. And I know people who have stayed with toxic DMs despite hating it for months or years. Indeed a group I've just joined has thrown the DM out after six months and we had a player at a club I go to telling stories of an online DM she's staying with out of morbid curiosity - and that game's been going a year. It takes far far more work to kick out a bad DM than it does a single player.

Toxic players on the other hand are often a nagging chronic pain in the DMs side but he soldiers on anyway.

Or they throw them out. I even managed to ditch one in the middle of a con game last weekend.

That is why we have so much trouble getting DMs. No one wants to put up with all the player b.s.

I have a question for you - did 4e mysteriously ditch all the toxic players because they were on the anti-4e side of the edition war or were there simply more DMs for 4e because it was a better game to run? Because 4e was not short of DMs. (And neither IME was 1e)

We have trouble getting DMs for 5e because the 2014 DMG is bad at teaching people to DM (why on earth did they make the first two chapters about worldbuilding and multiversebuilding?) and provides almost nothing in the way of tools to make the job easier. And then it provides almost nothing to the DM. I predict that some of the problem will be mitigated because the 2024 DMG is massively better than the 2014 one at teaching people to DM.

My solution is absolute authority, massive session 0 prep, and the willingness to just cut the cancer out immediately. The players I do have and keep are those who love my game. And there are a lot of those to the degree I can't please them all, all the time. I have to limit who can play. So I see no reason whatsoever to cater to entitled whining players who think the entire universe revolves around them.

And mine is to establish good practice for DMs. And I've had a player commuting over 100 miles each way once a fortnight for a three to four hour session to a campaign I've just finished.

And that is your opinion. I think having a class based on religion is interesting but if you take the religious elements out then you really shouldn't bother.

As I have pointed out the idea that sacraments are permanent is a religious idea. It is the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. I'm not the one taking religious elements out of the cleric by making them work like Jedi, falling to the dark side. You are the one making them not work like actual religions here - so why are you bothering?

So yeah, if cleric is going to be a fake religious class then I'd just as well dispose of it. Fortunately I am not behold or bound by anything a rules writing company does and haven't been for years.

So why haven't you disposed of your fake religious class? Because with the enforcement you are making them not work like actual religious people.

But as a rule, priests are not regularly working miracles (e.g. casting spells). We don't have a detect evil spell in real life. I never argued that there aren't any number of fantasy "models" a DM could run with for his campaign. Maybe the DM should detail some of those. I think though the cleric and paladin classes have a long tradition where they have allegiance to a deity and receive power as a result.

We do however have religious sacraments. And the rules are clear. Once you are ordaned that is permanent. And we're also talking 5e here - where paladins are different from clerics because they aren't tied to a deity. The badly designed paladin that loses their powers for a single sin is simply bad religion. Alas the muskrat has broken UrsulaV's Paladin Rant so I don't know if you can read it but the "one mistake and you're done" is nothing like any sort of sane religion. And by making it that way you're actually taking the religious elements out. So why bother?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So weird that people are so beholden to the latest edition.

"So, we are playing 5.5, but with the following changes.

1. Clerics worship a God, this is the approved list.
..
..
42. If you as a Cleric act against the tenet's of their faith (see approved list) they are seen to have betrayed their faith, and lose all Spell Casting slots, and the ability to Channel until performing appropriate penance (see approved actions)."

Who's going to stop you? Wizards?

My concern is more for the new players who will see 5.5's dictates as the only way to play due to a lack of exposure to broader ideas.