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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 2551990" data-attributes="member: 18280">Actually, I am shocked that you ever accepted that.When I was in high school, lo these many years ago, I had a friend DM White Plume Mountain.  In one of the encounters, I decided to go around the edge of a cavern wall rather than face an intermittant hot mud geyser.  The DM disallowed it because it wasn't an option in the module.  But, he was new at DMing, and I forgave him.Another guy, running one of the Slavelords modules, decided that the PCs aged 10 years/round whenever they didn't do what he wanted.  I got up and walked away from the table and never looked back.OTOH, I don't see the problem with the DM deciding that there's a chance of hitting an allied character when you fire through areas occupied by four of them to hit another target.  The rules, as written, may not support that decision, but common sense does.  To some degree, the DM's job is to ensure that common sense trumps the rules (bucket of snails and great cleave?)....and also to ensure that the rules are used to support the integrity of the game/game world rather than to undermine it.PCs should not know everything.  They should be surprised by new monsters, new feats, new spells, etc., etc.  The DM should be designing new rules (i.e., "crunch"), and letting the players learn about it in character.  It is not "unfair" that a group of NPCs has a feat option that the PCs didn't have (but maybe have now).The DM has information about the world that the players do not have.  As a result, a decision that the DM makes may appear to be simple fiat when it is not.  In a really good DM's campaign, seeming rules inconsistencies are actually clues as to the nature of the world, and/or what's going on in a particular circumstance.RCP.S.:  Anyone claiming that previous editions of D&D had as comprehensive and internally consistent of a ruleset as 3.X are simply blowing smoke.  3.X is a better ruleset than previous editions from a game design standpoint.  Of course, anyone claiming that the current edition is without ruleset problems is doing likewise.  The forums here (and elsewhere) demonstrate that point amply.</blockquote>

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