D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[mamba]

Have you been reading this thread? Can you really claim in good faith there aren't people posting in this thread who at least come across as declaring just about every usage some people suggest as a "nope?"

yes and yes, you on the other hand continue to misrepresent one side consistently

Do you really think jumping to "You're on some other plane of existence where neither you nor anyone you've ever met has ever been" is a scenario being posited in good faith?

do you think that this is not an exception? It’s not about good faith, it is about the limits of ‘you know a contact everywhere’ and yet you cannot bring yourself to say that yes, in this case the feature should not work

 

[mamba]

Which offer a way for the seemingly unreasonable to maybe become reasonable

given that they misconstrued the feature, they are not doing that

 

[prabe]

yes and yes, you on the other hand continue to misrepresent one side consistently


do you think that this is not an exception? It’s not about good faith, it is about the limits of ‘you know a contact everywhere’ and yet you cannot bring yourself to say that yes, in this case the feature should not work

You are correct, it's not at all about good faith. Good job, well done, have a day!

 

[Mort]

The DM can't know everything a player might attempt. If the DM says the group is in a city they never even knew existed and the player says the message their contact and DM thought the whole "never knew existed" should have covered it I don't think the DM is a jerk by saying "No, that doesn't work because ___."

5e Background is a singular thing. It generally gives exactly 1 big benefit. So the DM, assuming this is a consistent player really should know that they would like to use the feature.

And if the DM knew the city was going to be a long term consistent fixture of the campaign - yeah, they should let the players know some backgrounds might have their features nerfed, if that's what he intends to do.

I've been at tables where some of the people don't seem to really pay attention to the fiction of the world or what's going on. Doesn't automatically make them a jerk, although it can.

If the player has been repeatedly told to cut it out but continues - that seems dispositive.

 

[mamba]

Between a cobbler and a wizard? This is a strange hill to die on.

between a PC and an NPC, as you well know

No one stopped the neighbor blacksmith from becoming a wizard, no one would have stopped the cobbler either, it’s just that the player did not pick that occupation

Well the differences between PCs and NPCs pretty clear. They clearly follow some different rules, even if they share many.

in the game world the difference is that one is controlled by the player and the other by the DM, that is it

 

[soviet]

yes and yes, you on the other hand continue to misrepresent one side consistently


do you think that this is not an exception? It’s not about good faith, it is about the limits of ‘you know a contact everywhere’ and yet you cannot bring yourself to say that yes, in this case the feature should not work

Would you ever cut off and eat your own limbs?

What, not even if you were trapped under a boulder with no food or help, miles from anywhere? Hah, gotcha!

Therefore all autocannibalism is fine, we disagree only on the trivial question of frequency.

In this TED talk I will

 

[mamba]

Would you ever cut off and eat your own limbs?

What, not even if you were trapped under a boulder with no food or help, miles from anywhere? Hah, gotcha!

not a gotcha at all, sorry. Not sure what you want to prove here, agreeing that I would and saying that even then I could not do it are both fine

 

[Oofta]

5e Background is a singular thing. It generally gives exactly 1 big benefit. So the DM, assuming this is a consistent player really should know that they would like to use the feature.

And if the DM knew the city was going to be a long term consistent fixture of the campaign - yeah, they should let the players know some backgrounds might have their features nerfed, if that's what he intends to do.


If the player has been repeatedly told to cut it out but continues - that seems dispositive.

As I've explained, I stopped using background features as written because they were never actually useful. Even if you can get a message to a contact the odds of it having any benefit were minimal. I replaced the features with things I thought would be beneficial which I explained in session 0.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Between a cobbler and a wizard? This is a strange hill to die on.



Well the differences between PCs and NPCs pretty clear. They clearly follow some different rules, even if they share many.

And yes, Iron Man is pretend. So is Spider-Man. When I watch an Iron Man movie or read an Iron Man comic, if Spider-Man doesn’t appear as relevant to the story, then he’s not “doing” anything.



The comment is not at all directed at anyone’s preferences unless they prefer crappy analogies to useful ones.



But the background features don’t let you influence anyone no matter what. They let you influence certain people under certain circumstances. Which is what skill use also allows.

Skill use has a chance of failure.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. And it's almost certainly a fictional position where the player wouldn't expect it to work; at least, any player who argued it would, would seem to be coming from a place of very bad faith. So why does it keep coming up?

I don't know. IME players are expected to try to make their powers work any time it would be an advantage in their current situation, and it's the DMs job to mediate that understandable desire through the lense of setting logic if the players don't so it themselves.