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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hella_Tellah" data-source="post: 5324784" data-attributes="member: 52669">It's about disruption of play. Rules lawyers are like basketball coaches who stop the game to call a personal foul every time an opposing player brushes up against one of his guys. It's supposed to be called when the contact affects play, but it's up to interpretation to some degree.Playing by the rules is a fine thing to do, but the smooth running of the game takes precedence. Timing is key, and that's why the usual advice is to make a temporary ruling, then break out the books after the session.[sblock=Robot Chicken podcast sidetrack]I'd have ruled the same as Perkins, because Fairy Fire is explicitly not hot. But I would have given the player an interesting option to use instead right then and there, because otherwise I'm destroying the rhythm and positive vibe of the table. I think Perkins took a beating because he took a group that was upbeat and excited and made the whole table frown, and that's just poor DMing no matter how you slice it. There were a lot of things he could have done there, but he just took the easiest, least interesting course possible: "it doesn't work that way." The DM should always try to at least give the player a "No, but..." answer.Doesn't make the guy a bad DM, though, and I'm sure he's made a thousand great calls over the course of his career as a GM. I'm pretty glad my performance as a teacher isn't judged on the basis of 10 embarrassing seconds out of my whole career.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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