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(The conversational thread that's from is emphatically over, but you can track it from there, I think.)

There's been at least one poster who embraced blithe negation of PC abilities, so at least one person is saying exactly that. But your point (in another post I'm not quoting here) is vaild: If an ability isn't going to work, it needs to be an exception, and (as we absolutely agree!) the GM...

What I said that was most relevant here, I think, was this: and also possibly this: Do you really think I'm entirely agreeing with you?

Fortunately, the player I had who was most inclined to do these things was also newest to the system and A) needed the mechanics checked and/or explained to him and B) was happier knowing (how) things were going to work before he tried things. The way I ran things with/for him seemed to get the...

I don't insist on this (who knows what the barbarian has heard somewhere?) but I respect the hell out of it.

That's about where I am. I'll say no if someone's actually violating like a clear rule, but I'll try to make something work toward the same end. I also have players who understand they don't need to surprise me with a tactic for it to wrong-foot their enemies, so they'll ask be about stuff...

It's not "Nope." It's "Here's the situation, does what you want seem plausible to you, as though it fits the narrative, here?" It works out so much better when the player says no, even if they're kinda guided to it. It also works out better if it's not the default.

I have to figure there are feedback loops, which might drift between or otherwise connect otherwise unrelated tables, where trustworthy builds on trust--and the opposite.

I'm open to the idea there is some reason this particular context overrides the rulebook, but I think it's the GM's responsibility to convey that context to the player/s such that there is adequate buy-in to move on. "Nope" won't do it, most of the time.

Gotta be a strawman. It's not ever a hiccup when a conversation goes violent.

As I said upthread a ways, I'm pretty sure the change is going to work better for a lot of tables, since everyone at the table will have the same expectation/s.

This. So much sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I think it's pretty close, yeah. Seems to me the conflict is between DMs who hold their settings closely--as in, are really reluctant to let go of anything in them--and players who want the abilities they choose to work the way they understand them to--and who will have at least some tendency to...

Because it's "funny."

Yeah, I'm with you that there should be some common sense applied, here. I think if you want to be "I-know-a-guy Guy," you probably shouldn't be like fifteen. If you just want to be able to make non-hostile contact--more like "hello" than asking any favor/s--then I don't think being fifteen is...

You mean, if the feature is explicitly considered to be the result of time spent in the underworld making contacts, the player shouldn't take it if their character is too young to have done that? That's defensible, at least.

I would read the Criminal background feature not so much as a network as the ability to find a network (or whatever) and make non-hostile contact with it, more or less wherever they are. It doesn't seem out-of-whack to me.

I think that's consistent with the point I was making, did you mean it as something other than (mostly) agreement?

The player chose "Criminal" not "Urchin." Doesn't matter how old their character is. Someone who grew up doing criminal things might be able to navigate city spaces more swiftly (the Urchin feature, IIRC) or they might be able to find/make non-hostile contacts (a reasonable interpretation of the...

I think that if the DM is just going to nope-out background features--and it's clear there are a lot of DMs who do exactly that--then the change in both 5e2024 and ToV to feats/talents instead of more-narrative background features is probably going to work out better all around. DMs won't have...