Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ThirdWizard" data-source="post: 2592291" data-attributes="member: 12037">Hiding certain rules is an important part of the game, and the decision on what to include and exclude is also one of the things that separates a good DM from a bad one. I hide things too.That's not really what I was talking about, though.<a href="http://www.reallifecomics.com/daily.php?strip_id=1497" target="_blank">This</a> is hyperbole, but like all good satire it is based on truths. I see a difference between hiding a rule so that the Players can experience more wonder toward the world and hiding rules because you don't want the Players to know how something works. There was a sense that part of the DM's control of the game hinged on the Players not being aware of certain things. This gave DMs more leeway in rulings because the Players don't know if the DM is actually following the rules.I think that's a classic case of hiding rules for the wrong reason. Like you said, two DMs can make the same decision, but the reason behind the decision determines if it is a good one or a bad one. That will determine the pattern of how the DM behaves in that regard. Players should always know the abilities of their own PCs, for example, IMO. A wizard should even know how suchandsuch spell behaves on an incorporeal creature, I think. They just might not know that this particular incorporeal creature is immune to fire. But, the basic workings should be known.Yeah, I get you now. I have very mixed feelings on the subject. I'd like to go on record as saying balance was the main reason I excluded certain things from my campaigns in 2E. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Looking through, as an example, Complete Warrior, however, there are very few things that would be more difficult to have in an existing setting than the stuff in Core. So, new material will possibly rarely have to be more altered than the Core books. Even PrCs as exotic as the Kensai and Knight of the Chalise could be put into small cloistures that wouldn't affect anything on a large scale.However, for those who go into enough detail that, say, they can't see the monk class fitting in, then it might get more difficult.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

Verification