Search results

For sure. There are a lot of mediocre DMs. Mediocre DMs aren't bad DMs and what you and others keep describing are bad DMs. Perhaps if the examples weren't of DMs calling their players idiots, railroading, ignoring the fiction to zap a pixie into place to cause a fall, we wouldn't think you...

They are that rare. The problem is that with multiple millions of players, there are enough DMs that if even 1 in 100 were like that, it would still be a significant number of DMs for the internet to complain about. And humans go to the internet to complain many, many more times as often as...

It doesn't happen. A DM who tried that would drive away the players before the game even started. Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge red flag there.

Hard coded rules aren't worth the paper they are printed on. If a DM wants to change the rules, there's nothing that book can do to stop him. Then he tells prospective players that he is playing X game with Y changes to the rules. They either accept or not, but unless they are really horrible...

It's never happened to me, either. So clearly he cannot be correct when he says it WILL happen. We have both been in many situations where it didn't happen, which disproves that statement.

I don't know about jumbo jets, but scientists have figured out how bumblebees do it.

I'm working from a sample size of several dozen DMs and hundreds of players and I've not seen the tyrannical DM, either. But maybe Los Angeles is an outlier.

Yep! After all, it's not like you work for The Simpsons.

I've never seen that happen. As I said, they are stronger than written rules. If someone is willing to break the social contract, no rule is going to do anything to constrain them. Nobody. It's a group thing. This is another incorrect statement. The DM has no ability to force people to...

And I've said what you are questioning in each and every one of those conversations, because folks like to Strawman that into meaning DMs are right evil bastards who are going to do everything in their unlimited power to poof pixies into existence and knock people off of cliffs. This is...

It's as strong a preventative as the DM just standing up and punching you for no reason. Neither are going to happen, so why worry about it?

"Can do" and "do" are two very different things. The power and authority of the DM can be abused, which is what you keep describing. DMs are very rarely in the game to abuse their players, and even those very rare DMs that are in it to abuse, don't last long since their players will leave...

For me if the high level fighter is doing things that are beyond the realm of what is possible for even the peak of their race, they've basically trained to the point where that ability is supernatural. Think Zoro in One Piece where he trains so much with his swords that he can slice people from...

I don't think there are any Type-I facts in an RPG. Even something as simple as saying that the PCs are breathing air isn't going to accurately portray all of the gas mixture here in the real world, which can vary slightly. It's not going to get the PCs correct oxygen absorption rate for the...

I mean, no. That's not true in the slightest. The narration said that the person was climbing the cliff. The mechanics said that the PC fell a distance of X feet and took Y damage. The narration cannot be completely arbitrary as it must conform to both the prior narration and the mechanics of...

In order for a rule to be set aside and not be breaking the rule, the rule itself needs to be worded with the ability to set it aside when the DM feels it's needed. Otherwise, it's breaking the rule. When I talk about breaking the rule or altering it when circumstances make it inappropriate...

The 5e Sage Advice clarified that there is Magic(spellcasting, spell like abilities, magical powers, etc.) and magic(background magic that infuses everything). The latter isn't subject to anti-magic spheres and is what allows those things to happen. "You might be thinking, “Dragons seem pretty...

The mechnics and the narration --->must<--- match. That works both ways. The narrated attempt to climb the cliff forces the mechanics of falling distance to be about the cliff fall, which in turn forces narration about cliff falling and not pixies. Those were general examples. Obviously a...

It's only inconsistent if it's not a fantasy world that we are imagining. If we are imagining a fantasy world, then in addition to the real world realism, there is fantasy realism. Things that are established within the fiction as "real" for the fantasy world, like magic and dragons. Once...

How is a lack of shipwreck rules a consequence of DMs occasionally overriding rules that exist? That doesn't make any sense. No it's not. That's completely wrong. When I override a rule, it's because the rule is a bad one for that situation and will result in nonsense. It's not at all about...