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Thanks for clarifying! I had understood your statement about being confused how people could simultaneously value open and honest communication while not wanting to know about fudging as being more generally applicable. To clarify: as a player, if there's going to be fudging I strongly prefer...

My response to @Charlaquin was intended to be limited to the idea that not wanting to discuss how the sausage is made during play does not inherently conflict with a desire for open and honest communication. My personal preference is to have an open and honest discussion up front regarding...

Part of open and honest conversation is discussing (ahead of time) when is the right time for open and honest conversation. Adhering to such an agreement and refraining from discussing certain topics at certain times isn't a failure to be open and honest, it's just respecting anothers' wishes...

I'm not talking about the players underestimating the opponents based on accurately understood information, I'm referring specifically to miscommunication between the DM and the players. For example, let's say the DM and players have different understandings of how far sound travels in a...

If a DM fudges to force a predetermined outcome, then I absolutely agree that doing so reduces/removes the challenge faced by the players. But there are other reasons to fudge that don't involve forcing a predetermined outcome to a challenge. In some situations, fudging can actually honor the...

I'm fine with the DM fudging, and I'd rather not know about it. It therefore wouldn't in any way be disrespectful of my preferences for the DM to fudge and hide it from me.

As a player I'd prefer that the DM hide fudging from me, even though I'm totally fine with the DM fudging. In other words, I'm fine knowing that the DM fudges in the abstract, but I'd prefer not to know which specific things were fudged, just as I prefer not to know which content was improvised...

In my campaigns I don't tailor encounter difficulty to the party. Instead I rely on a combination of telegraphing and PC-driven scouting/observation/research/etc to communicate threat levels so that the players can make an informed choice regarding whether and how to have their characters...

I don't agree that the conclusion necessarily follows. One problem I see is that the argument doesn't take into account immediacy. The ability of an unspecified off-page explanation to satisfy "realism" preferences in an RPG can (and in my opinion usually will) depend on the extent to which the...

Could you clarify why you think so? To my understanding the definition of a dissociated mechanic is when the player's decision-making process can't be equated to the character's decision-making processes. Under my understanding, the attack mechanics would be associated because both the player...

Some individual poisons differ, but the general rule for injury poisons is that they stay potent until delivered through a wound or washed off. However, in general they only work once, and then have to be reapplied, which is why the action type to reapply it matters. My Battlemaster/Thief could...

Fortunately the DM didn't try that. :) I was frustrated enough at the time that I would have seen it as flippant instead of funny.

It happened to me regularly in a long-running game where I was playing a Battlemaster/Thief that specialized in poisons. For every PC that isn't a Thief, applying poison to your weapon requires an Action, whereas a Thief can do it as a Bonus Action. The ability to apply poisons quickly was one...

In the area of my campaign world I usually focus on, there are two places to reliably buy magic items, but both have drawbacks. The first is the Great Market in the capital city. Almost anything can be purchased here, but the market is so large that it can take weeks to find something obscure...

Depending on campaign style the Warlock player may be able to purposefully influence the number of short rests. Taking cooks tools, specializing in soups that require simmering, and RPing meal time is a great way to ensure that mealtimes are extended enough to count as rests, while...

My experience differs sharply. A short rest is pretty easily available any time that the party doesn't have an imminent deadline. The total time cost is low, or even almost zero if the party just stops for their next meal earlier than originally intended. Moving lunch up a couple hours, for...

Let's say a 9th level party decides that it is worth the time to build a small fortress. To save money they're going to perform as much of the work themselves as they can. Two questions: Would you consider construction to be downtime? When calculating the time required to build the fortress...

That's going to depend a lot on playstyle, in two different ways. First, many warlock players will cheerfully cast their slots at the drop of a hat, because the low opportunity cost of recovering their slots makes spells comparatively cheap, and the downside of having no slots left isn't so...

I thought the defining feature of the coffeelock is that they skip long rests? Isn't the association with being caffeinated and sleep-deprived where the "coffee" part of the name comes from? Just using short rests to stock up on sorcery points (without trying to charge up over multiple days)...

Personally, I don't see that as abuse. Warlocks excel at giving the party the ability to trade time for magic in smaller time increments than the full casters can manage. I think that capability is one of the main strengths of the class, and it comes at the heavy opportunity cost of not having a...