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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.

Still dodging.

Why does it matter? Changing the goalposts again.

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...

Your players never travel to other planes of existence? Never stumble across a lost civilization? Never get thrown into some weird alternate universe and have to struggle to get back home? Talk about a lack of imagination on part of the DM. ;)

This one D&D General - Playstyle vs Mechanics Any scenario where it doesn't make sense for a message to be sent. Is a player is a jerk if they attempt to send a message. Is the DM is a jerk for saying no? Not different scenarios, exact same situation.

Whereas I assume the campaign world works like the real world unless there's something supernatural.

Still dodging the question while simultaneously telling me that something not working is just a failure of DMing. I give up. 🤷 Most background features were never used because they were never actually beneficial. I'd rather reward a player for having a backstory with concrete benefits that are...

Then you are making an assumption that does not match my experience. It's also not answering the question I posed.

I was just trying to explain my approach. In session 0 I would explain that I don't use background features as written but I will try to find ways to make the background matter. In large part because when playing with other DMs, I don't remember a single time the background feature made any...

I could see them going away if they give us templates for NPCs in the new MM. The monsters don't need all the options PCs have but if I want to add a few levels of sorcerer to that dragon, character classes are generally the easiest way to do it.

You twisted my scenario, that's not what I asked. I was asking if who the jerk under exactly the same scenario changes whether the person is DM or player. My assumption? The background feature doesn't make sense because of the current situation. An example from a game I ran a while back: the...

Which can be a lot of fun. But I don't need a background feature to make that happen. As I said above, if the background and backstory of a character is important to the character I'll look for ways for it to matter. For better or worse, most people just chose backgrounds for the proficiencies...

So under exactly the same situation the player saying "yes" is being a jerk because they should say "no" but the DM saying "no" instead of "yes" is the jerk? Am I really reading that right?

According to the advice of Gygax, if your players do that they are being overly cautious. So come up with new traps and ways to f*** them over! Instead of just discussing options about approach to the game, if they listen at doors use earworms that lurk in keyholes just waiting for the...

Bad DMs will be bad DMs. Good DMs will work to find ways for players to share the spotlight if that's what the player wants (some players don't). Meanwhile occasionally saying "no" applies to spells as well as other character features and the hypotheticals around here get blown way out of...

Magic can sometimes overcome obstacles. Just as often so can clever play or using appropriate skills. In the same vein, magic doesn't solve all problems because it's a limited resource and you can only have so many spells prepared and only so many spell slots. Sometimes there are other reasons...

The player uses a background feature that makes no sense in the context's fictional positioning and they're a bad player. A DM says no when the context's fictional positioning is exactly the same and suddenly it's railroading. :rolleyes: Do you not see how you are changing what constitutes...

Interesting to me the attitudes. I freely admit my own reactions and preferences. They don't match up with some people and that's okay. I like that flexibility to make the game our own. But I will never claim that someone that disagrees with my preference lacks imagination, are only doing it...

Some players don't care. For the sake of the other players I do sometimes enforce limits. But this sounds familiar. If players don't set limits they're bad players. DM sets limits? Bad DM. :hmm: