D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Micah Sweet]

I just don't believe the vast (vast, vast) majority of human beings are that consistent.

And I know--for an absolute fact--that the vast majority of OSR gamers don't ever write down even half of their rulings, let alone all of them.

Maybe not, but IMO they really should.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There are a lot of things D&D doesn't accurately model and really can't because of how simplified attribute are. Climbing is just one. Still an interesting video.

True. More's the pity IMO. The rule base can definitely support modifications to do a better job.

 

[Micah Sweet]

but this has been addressed many times. People have generally said they are looking not for realism in the sense of 100% close to real life but something that fits our expectations of realism: call I plausibility, real enough, naturalistic or even superficial realism. But when you guys keep trying to undermine the approach by arguing actual realism is impossible…..it isn’t really demonstrating anything except a failure to engage what people are actually saying or trying to say

The straw man strikes again! Poor fella's starting to look a little worn at this point.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It strikes me as a little funny that all the participants I saw in that 2018 thread are also posting in this 2025 one (with the exception of @Ovinomancer). I think we might be stagnating a bit.

More proof that no one's changing any hearts and minds here (most definitely including their own).

 

[AlViking]

To me having a ruling means you have a rule, once the ruling is made. Consistency is important.

And IMO rulings are for corner cases and other unusual situations anyway, and only occur in play when the incident requiring them occurs. When they happen outside of active play it's a houserule.

If I have to make an on the fly ruling I'll let people know we can discuss it later. If I decide to stick with it I'll add to my house rules.

But a lot of times these things are very situational and a broader rule doesn't really apply. For example I have an illusionist in one of my games now so I'll walk through how I'm going to handle it but the situation can change how well I think it's going to work. Same with any number of things, sometimes what someone attempts will works and sometimes it won't but I'll explain my thought process.

 

[robertsconley]

There is absolutely no need for combat rules to be more complex than non-combat rules. We simply accept this because... conservatism in the fandom.

Or they enjoy it. It not meant to be a rational choice, at the end of the day tabletop roleplaying is something enjoyable we do with our hobby time. What counted as enjoyable varies. And my opinion is that if somebody were to do a study of this, they would find the preference would fall along a bell curve, with very simple as an outlier on one end, and very complex and detailed on the other.

More so, it would be found to be graphed along multiple axes, as there are different ways of handling things of equal complexity. But this only tells you what the hobby is doing as a whole. For each person surveyed, the bottom-line answer will be whether it is enjoyable to play.

And if publishers find that in order to sell more core books, combat has to be the most complex subsystem compared to the other, then they found that more hobbyists enjoyed having that level of complexity for combat than the other elements of the RPG.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Realistically, desire for complexity in combat is going to be along a really wide spectrum, and requires multiple game systems to enable everyone to find a game that fits their preference. No one game, not even D&D, should be trying to be all things to all people in that regard.

We should have games with videogame-like levels of tactical complexity and required system mastery, and we should also have games where combat is just another another die roll or coin flip like anything else that gets resolved. But any one game really shouldn't try to be both.

I'm not convinced any one game should be trying to be all things to all people in any regard.

 

[robertsconley]

I'm not convinced any one game should be trying to be all things to all people in any regard.

The designer should have a creative vision of what they are trying to do. And view any feedback in that light. If you are writing a weird horror RPG, feedback from folks who dislike weird horror probably won't be relevant. But feedback from fans probably will be worth looking into.

 

[Bedrockgames]

More proof that no one's changing any hearts and minds here (most definitely including their own).

And this probably shouldn't surprise people. Few folks who were 3E fans, became 3E haters back in the day because of someone making a logical argument on a thread. We like what we like. Even attempts to examine that are probably going to fall short because people express a preference, then people question that preference and they defend, and eventually an inconsistency is detected. But that simply emerges because they defending what they like in the way they can with each point raised. Part of the issue I think in these conversations is we put way too much stock in logical argumentation, when everything we are talking about is largely about subjective preferences.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If I have to make an on the fly ruling I'll let people know we can discuss it later. If I decide to stick with it I'll add to my house rules.

But a lot of times these things are very situational and a broader rule doesn't really apply. For example I have an illusionist in one of my games now so I'll walk through how I'm going to handle it but the situation can change how well I think it's going to work. Same with any number of things, sometimes what someone attempts will works and sometimes it won't but I'll explain my thought process.

Fair enough, but you could still write down the ruling, narrow though it may be, and incorporate into your houserule document.