D&D 5E (2024) I have the DMG. AMA!

[mamba]

I'm not saying that mine is the only possibility - but I am saying that it is the correct one

that kinda makes it the only possibility however, because everyone disagreeing is simply wrong

 

[Xenolith234]

I believe it is being presented in the new books in an adversarial way, to always fall on the side of giving players (and their PCs) what they want.

“Your DM is gonna hate this”

 

[TwoSix]

I don’t think you can speak for all cases in which this occurs. If this was not an accident but the player intentionally following some arc, then maybe they should discuss that arc with their DM instead of going rogue, hoping for the best, and complaining about tyrannical DMs when the DM is not a mind reader

I assume players and DMs are always staying in contact about metagame concerns, if not at the table then outside the game session.

 

[TwoSix]

that kinda makes it the only possibility however, because everyone disagreeing is simply wrong

It’s a possibility the earth is flat, but also wrong.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Falling mechanics? It sounds like they must have been pretty happy if they've gotten down to falling mechanics to complain about.

Fall as in Paladin fall.

I think there is also the belief that people like me will soldier on modifying the game so they can ignore my preferences.

I think it's more that they don't want to support that sort of play style anymore as it's not what the target audience wants. The window of target audience always moves on and we all eventually stop being in it.

And I consider the move from 4e to 5e to be a big move in my direction.

It was the opposite for me.

But they failed in their promise to make a game that is super easy to customize.

This is something we can agree on.

I was liking the Next playtest, I was liking the promise of modularity, and then neither materialized.

So them changing clerics away from tradition is just one of many ways they've departed from the roots of the game and for the worse.

IMO (let's see if that keeps people from feeling they need to tell me this is an opinion), some of those roots needs to be cut off for the health of the tree. Modern players largely don't want to deal with this kind of stuff and at that point there's no reason to devote page space to supporting it.

 

[Emerikol]

“Your DM is gonna hate this”

Did they actually say that???

 

[Scribe]

I believe it is being presented in the new books in an adversarial way, to always fall on the side of giving players (and their PCs) what they want.

The answer is simplicity itself.

"I wont DM with this being the case, thoughts?"

 

[mamba]

But WotC is absolutely allowed to choose one as the default.

I do not recall arguing against this

 

[Neonchameleon]

If nothing else, there are games where what happens in the world can affect player mechanics and games where they cannot. Two different types of games though further differentiated by other considerations too.

And yet I'm on the "the world can affect player mechanics" side. Emphatically so. Like I have said I am an advocate for changing subclasses - and if that isn't impacting player mechanics I don't know what is.

What I'm not an advocate for is crippling the player character. Change isn't the same as crippling. That which doesn't kill you makes you stranger.

Exactly. We want some in game effects to impact player mechanics. We are also the same group of people who thought level drain, ability score drain, magical aging, etc.. were good fun aspects of gameplay. All of those to varying degrees affect mechanics. We want things happening in the world to have a lasting impact on the PC sometimes.

And the problem with just about all these is that they are boring. The problem is that literally all the consequences you have named there fit into one of two categories:

• Taking away someone's toys and crippling them until they get them back (removal of spells, level drain, ability score drain)
• Changing around numbers (magical ageing, ability score drain)

It's not the fact that they have an impact that's the problem. It's that they are all crippling and strictly negative.

What I like are consequences. I recently gave someone a homebrew Hand of Vecna and the way it worked was through a corruption mechanic; whenever they used one of the major powers they marked off a Mark of Corruption. And each time they used a major power they had to fill in a circle - fill them all and they become an NPC. Just a Taste and Megalomania went fast. How fast he got corrupted was up to him.

Marks of Corruption​

O Just a taste: The first time you reduce a foe to 0hp after a long rest they return as a zombie under your control​

OOO A touch of death: At the first level you look as if you haven’t slept for a week. At the second you look gaunt and haggard, and at the third like a lich​

O Blight: Small plants die and larger ones wither in your presence​

O Megalomania: Gain a tendency to speechify. You have everything under control. So you think.​

Far far more interesting than "You just took level drain. You lose your best toys and take -1 to rolls". I'm on the "we want this removing things trash out of the way because it's clogging up where interesting things could be as well as making things less fun". And you know what this does? It makes the PCs far more likely to risk the consequences because they know they will be interesting. And their character will get stranger, not just crippled.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The DM doesn't say "Your character doesn't do that."

They're using thread f metaphysical force to keep the player from playing their character how they want. That's what I'm seeing.