And I think that is the key. I've run into far more DMs who decry us for "metagaming" and "ruining the mystery" by seeking to understand what is going on. And I've had a few players who have been a bit off balance because they are getting more information than they are used to, and realizing that the things they are used to fearing... aren't to be feared. They don't have to look at the treasure and wonder "is touching this going to kill me?" or things like that.
I'll start by this because I think it's the most important part in our discussions. You might have the impression that I don't agree with your position or, even worse, that I'm saying that it's inferior for whatever reason.
It is not the case! It's just that I play with different peoples than you, that we have a different history and especially different tastes, but no way of gaming is better than another one. My way of gaming might be better for our tables (which does not prevent me from taking good ideas from you and adapt them to our way of gaming), but might be really poor for the people that you are gaming with. And the other way around, your way might be perfect for your table, and not float our boat.
It's really good that you found a way out from the metagaming problem that, by the way, I completely understand, because half of our players are also DMs, although about half of them occasionally only. We have taken other solutions because our tastes run more around the mystery of the world, but if your solution works for your table, it's certainly much better than mine for you and yours!
The problem is that I'm a permanent enthusiast about the game, and that, as everyone here, I have my personal preferences, so of course I will explain the fact that we love what we are doing, after all it's been our favoured hobby for more than 40 years.
So please, when I ask questions about the way your are gaming, or when I sound convinced about the way we are gaming, it's not an attack on your way of gaming, it's just explaining that, because we have different tastes, our solutions differ, which should not prevent us both from benefiting from each other's experience.
So if word which can have a negative connotation in some (usually toxic) circles best describe your or my way of gaming, we really should not take offense.
You gave the example above with metagaming, which in a sense you endorse, because if I understand correctly, you allow it while at the same time removing not allowing some of its negative effect to affect your game, and ignoring those that are of no concern to you in your game.
And that's absolutely fine with me. It's not the way I would do it, because our concerns are different at our tables, but it's certainly not a judgement of valor of either your game or your solution.
It should be the same with powergaming/optimising/minmaxing, honestly. If some tables want to pursue it, and they enjoy it, and their tables are having fun that way, great for them. Again, the preferences at our tables are not the same, and I hope that can be respected as well, but I do not see this as inferior in any way. At our tables, it has had some negative effects, and we are taking some measures (e.g. no Floating ASIs) to curb these effects, but certainly it has some positive effects on the game overall, making people conscious of balance, or simply looking more deeply as parts of the game (see one example below). And again, if that aspect of competitiveness and pushing the game towards more powerful characters is what you are looking for, why should I look down on it, you are having fun your way just as we are having ours our way.
And the same with roleplaying, various degrees and ways to do it, more or less deeply, certainly can be discussed, it's just that it seems extremely sensitive to some people when I say that, at our tables, we have been roleplaying the personality of our characters for a very long time, and that it is our preference. It is only our preference, and if some people prefer more or less or different roleplaying at their table, and they enjoy the game their way, what concern is it to me ?
One of the only thing that bugs me off, is ignoring the fact that the game, and in particular certain editions have been designed a certain way. As we all know, the game is not prescriptive anyway, it was always open to house rules, taking into account things and leaving other things on the side, so once more where is the problem with admitting that, when in the end it's all about personal preferences and that these are to be respected anyway ?
For example, it was interesting to see, on a recent thread, the fact that 3e had been designed to be competitive, and, probably for this reason, that the section about D&D being a game that is not something that you win or lose was not present in that edition of the game (whereas it has been present most of the time, from Moldway to 5e). And it's interesting to see how the edition turned out, from these design principles. Some people (including me) loved 3e, some people hated it, some people have changed their mind over time, who cares really. What's important is to discuss about facts, and it should be OK to display one's preferences without being afraid of being shamed or without this being automatically taken as a proof that you despise other styles of playing.
You might have me missed up with the other poster. Besides your approach seems to be to wait until the issue comes up and then solve it at the table. Asking me to solve it now, not at the table, is already different from your approach
It is, indeed, I just wanted your take on it in general, but if you feel that the conditions are not right for it, it's fine as well.
Your approach was far more than that. You've already determined that the effect of the spell will increase if the suggestion is "more like a persuasion" and decrease if it is "more like a domination". You also said that you would take into account the power of the spell, which means you have analyzed various spell slot levels and determined how powerful each should be. That is a lot of analysis and consideration, exactly the type of thing you are saying you don't want because of powergamers trying to lock you down.
The thing is that you have clearly seen what I'm trying to do in terms of general principles, but I must also say that we rarely have to do it in most cases for the game, new options being some of these cases (for example, we allowed most of Tasha's new options for classes without problem as they were destined to boost "weak" classes, but not the Floating ASIs for the reasons discussed here).
However, for Suggestion, although we never had trouble with the spell at our tables, it happens that I've had this discussion a few times on other forums with people who were really of the powergamer persuasion, but also with people who really wanted to tone it down, so I was more prepared for that question than probably many others (in particular the one about the Alert feat, which I don't think has been pointed out to me as a potential problem before, although I must say that I'm not too much in favour of "absolutes" like this, I would rather have advantage on perception checks during ambushes for example).
See, and here is the thing. You saying this makes me think that you see that as a problem. That that event shouldn't have happened, because it wasn't how you pictured the game. But it is also exactly what the rules of the game SAID should happen.
First, you are right, it was a bit of a problem (for us, at the table), because explaining that someone survives an incredible fall is something almost normal in the genre (see Aragorn's fall from the cliff during the fight with the wargs, for example), but doing it on purpose is different (again, for us, preferences and all that). It is gaming the world instead of having the world (and its specific paradigms like heroic fantasy) be an environment. And I hope you'll see the trend with the other examples below, it's not a criticism of the other approaches, just how we like to play the game.
This is what I'm talking about. The character, as a person in this world, knows how devastating a fall is, and knows they can make it. They have tales of people who did something exactly like this, and so they came up with a plan that utilized the physics of their world. However, those physics aren't OUR physics, and so many people would decry this as a problem, possibly accuse the player of powergaming or metagaming.
The thing is that I don't see this as physics. I know that gravity can be a bit wonky in D&D (see the spelljammer gravity which is canon in our universes and has been imported back into 5e through Dungeon of the Mad Mage), but in our view, it's not even about gravity.
It's about the fact that HP represents lots of things, but ultimately what they are is some sort of plot protection that shows why heroes survive things that normal people would not, dogding dragon fire or being stabbed by 100 swordsmen. Being plot protection, it is part of the story, which is what we are looking for in the game (in a sense, even more than roleplaying, we are story orientated).
So while the story of "Aragorn fell down the cliff and miraculously survived" is nice once in a while, the story of "Aragorn jumped on purpose straight down the canyon because the rules said that he had to survive" floats our boat a bit less, because it's not even about physics (physics would simply say that he died).
Does this make sense ?
This is why things need to be confirmed and checked. Why players and DMs need to get on the same page. Now, personally, I don't cap fall damage. Every 10 ft is 1d6 and if that means you take 520d6 damage, then that's what it means. I also tell players this, so they know. And if that changed, I'd let them know, because they need a working knowledge of the physics of the game to make decisions. Can you shove a 1 ton monster 15 ft Mr. Halfling? Normally no, but if you are a Battlemaster fighter with Pushing Attack then you can, and we need to figure out how that happens. If I'm just going to rule "no, your ability does not work" then I need to tell them that before they try to use it, because the game rules as they stand, the physics as they stand, don't put a weight limit on Pushing attack.
I understand your perspective, I hope that you can see above why ours is different (once more, not better, not worse, just different for different aims at the table), because it's not about physics (and even yours is probably more about skill and cinematics than actual physics), it's about what makes a nice story and does not break suspension of disbelief.
This isn't about destroying the shared story by locking it down with rules. This is about making sure people are aware of their options in this world where the rules are different.
I understand, in our case, we'd rather than the options come from projecting yourself in the game world and imagine cool things rather than listing the technical options that would be available.
To understand that unless the building is completely glass smooth there is no check. And even then, if the player has a climb speed, per the rules, it doesn't matter that it is completely glass smooth.
See, I had a character with a 40 ft move speed, 80 if they dashed, and a climb speed. I had a DM who wanted to tell me it was impossible for that character to free-climb a 50 ft tall stone wall. Not one that was glass smooth, just rough stone. They were thinking that it was impossible for a person to climb five stories in 6 seconds with no gear. And they are right, no human in our world can do that. But, DnD isn't our world, and the character wasn't human, they very much could do what I was saying I did.
So, do I expect you to have memorized every building that will ever appear in your games? No. Do I expect to be on the same page as you about whether or not you are throwing the climbing rules out the window in favor of your version of realism? Yes, because I'm not going to bother investing in being able to climb and jump with no checks if you are going to insist on checks anyways for "realism"
See above, it's not at all about realism, in particular because I don't think that D&D is particularly a realist game. The main problem, I think, is that some DMs make things difficult (like yours did) not for realism reasons but more for "balance" reasons, because he had not realised that your character might be able to do this with a climbing speed. Because there are far more unrealistic things that happen every single game while playing D&D. I might be mistaken there, obviously, about your DM's decision, so let me know.
How is a Tabaxi Monk (completely legal choice) with Haste (completely legal spell) abusing the system? See, this is what I'm talking about. How am I, the player, supposed to know that you are going to declare a combination of legal abilities "abuse" and start nerfing them?
See above, it's about gaming the world instead of letting the world guide you. It's about trying to cumulate technical bonuses about various rules in a combo that was certainly not playtested, and which is all the more silly because of the bounded accuracy in 3e.
While I find it funny to see people rack their brains to find the potentially best combo using the rules, having someone abuse the way these rules combine to make the world forcefully behave to match rules is unnatural to us.
Remember my perspective that the rules are like the "laws" of physics in our world. These so called "laws" are not really laws, they do not force the world to behave, they are actually theories that try their best to describe how the world actually behaves. The best examples are Newton's laws, who are actually pretty accurate descriptions, but which completely break down to describe the very small or the very big. Despite their attempt at universality, they only do their best to describe the world, they do not rule it.
And our approach to D&D rules is exactly the same, they do not force the world to behave in a certain way, they just describe the way it works most of the time. But if you try to force the world to behave a certain way when you get to the limits of the "law", they won't accurately describe it anymore, and the combo, while theoretically valid, will just not work.
And this is what the players at our tables expect, they know that using the rules to force the world to behave in a way that breaks the collective story and suspension of disbelief will fail, because the world is not based on the rules, but on the collective imagination of the players. So they know better than trying to break the world by combining rules.
This is not to say that we do not expect that "mundane" skill will be limited to that of earth. We have played a lot of Herowars/Heroquest (following Runequest) in which there is a continuum between mundane skill and godly magic, and getting better at running can get you to godly speeds because that's the way the world works.
But in the case of Glorantha, the world is built that way, and the system follows that. It's not the case in D&D, mundane skills stay mundane in general, the only exceptions are when combination of very specific rules technically allow it, but in that case, why only those and not any others ? Why allow incredible jumps but not incredible strength to punch through walls, for example ? Just because there is a technical combo in one case, and not in the other ? That does not seem to be sound rules of story world "rules" for us (and again, just a question of preference, right ?
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The rules are clear. I've still had DMs ask a player who makes a running jump with a 12 strength to roll athletics to clear a 10 ft pit. And, then, maybe the player is going to ask how you are going to handle rolling for a jump when it does need a roll, because those rules are very much not clear.
Again, as above (and I might be mistaken, so please excuse me if I am), this is not about physics, it's about a DM realising that what he thought would be a challenge turns out to be cakewalk, and still trying his best to make it look like one (and having exactly the opposite effect).
People very much do not share a common understanding of DnD worlds. They should, but time and again I've found people who don't understand how these rules apply. And I don't see what "hoops" you think you need to jump through just to talk to your players and answer questions.
Sure. I sat down at my friend's table a few weeks ago. He had to step out to take care of his daughter and pregnant wife. I knew that in a few levels we would be getting a feat, and I decided to go ahead and pass the time while he was busy looking at the feats and thinking of my options and narrowing down what I would want in those levels.
I've got no build, just looking ahead with what I know of the game, the party, and my available options, and considering what I will likely do. And if I'd come across something that might raise a question, then I'd ask him. Likely after the game or via a text during the week.
You say you might be wasting time... but first of all how much time do you expect a question to "waste" and secondly, while they may not decide to take the option they were asking about, that doesn't automatically mean that answering the question is a waste of time. Sure, anything might happen. But that doesn't mean looking ahead and seeking clarity is a waste of time.
Sometimes it is obvious to them, like when they faced a monster that was basically a fusion of an Aboleth and a Beholder. But sometimes, there is something strange going on, and I like to highlight that. Especially if the monster has an ability that breaks the standard rules of the game.
The interface is bugging, so I'll try to address all these points here. The thing is that most of the players I've met share a common understanding as to how the D&D world works, it's basically our earth with specific magic described through the available spells in the book. Most people don't ask themselves any special question, for example about gravity, although the example above (Spelljammer) shows that it's not really behaving as it does on our earth.
What people don't really share understanding on is not the world, it's about these fuzzy rules, which is particularly true in 5e. And this is why, in link with the above, and when we want people to play with the world, not with the rules, and in particular not gaming the rules to twist the world, we don't want to incite them to ask questions, because I'm 99% sure that it will be about the rules, not the world.
And this is why, even if the question seems innocuous, I will not waste time answering technical questions that might actually never have a practical application, i.e. if it's not for a technical choice that is important "right now". Moreover, "In a few levels" is not really important, I'd rather focus on the now.
And, considering all the above, this is also why even if a monster has an ability that breaks the rules of the game, I won't bother pointing it out specifically. Because what matters is that the monster behaves a certain a certain way in the world, and the description that I or the DM does, not whether it "breaks some rules". Breaking the rules of the game is not important to us, and there is little chance that it breaks the rules of the universe...
Anyway, thanks for bringing the discussion back to a cordial level, I look forward to exchanging more with you on this and other subjects.
