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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6004089" data-attributes="member: 996">While /some/ of us voiced that attitude - that RAW was at most a starting point - it was far from prevalent in the 3e era.&nbsp; 'RAW' became sacred, &quot;that would be a house rule&quot; became a rude dismissal.&nbsp; Compared to the attitude of the (admittedly, much less connected) community in the first decade or two of the game's history, it's a stunning about-face.&nbsp; In the 1e DMG, EGG made it very clear that it was the DM's perogative to change rules.&nbsp; The role of DM, itself, was an outgrowth of the wargaming 'judge' who's job was to make impartial rulings and interpretations in a more adversarial environment.&nbsp; Interpreting rules was unquestionable the role of the DM, and interpreting them for the 'good' of the game experience was an ideal most better DMs presumably aspired to.3e changed all that.&nbsp; My theory is that the impetus was 3e's intentional 'rewards for system mastery' (designed into the game according to Monte Cook in 'Ivory Tower Design').&nbsp; Those rewards were built into the system, often in ways that a 'good' old-school DM might be inclined to dis-allow as imbalancing.&nbsp; To get those rewards, system-masters would have to insist on sticking to the system, as written, no interpretations to restore balance - because beating the balanced base-line was the point of the system-mastery meta-game.4e muted the phenomenon, but did nothing to eliminate it.&nbsp; Heck, I suppose it might even have turned it on its head, making RAW (and frequent 'updates' thereof) a defense against powergaming.I suspect 5e, with it's promise of voluminous advice to the DM, and rules-lite philosophy may intend to put that particular genie back in the bottle.&nbsp; I don't think it's likely they can succeed, but I'd be delighted if they were to.&nbsp; Be sure to invoke Solmon's name when you seal that puppy back up.&nbsp; <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&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6004089, member: 996"] While /some/ of us voiced that attitude - that RAW was at most a starting point - it was far from prevalent in the 3e era. 'RAW' became sacred, "that would be a house rule" became a rude dismissal. Compared to the attitude of the (admittedly, much less connected) community in the first decade or two of the game's history, it's a stunning about-face. In the 1e DMG, EGG made it very clear that it was the DM's perogative to change rules. The role of DM, itself, was an outgrowth of the wargaming 'judge' who's job was to make impartial rulings and interpretations in a more adversarial environment. Interpreting rules was unquestionable the role of the DM, and interpreting them for the 'good' of the game experience was an ideal most better DMs presumably aspired to. 3e changed all that. My theory is that the impetus was 3e's intentional 'rewards for system mastery' (designed into the game according to Monte Cook in 'Ivory Tower Design'). Those rewards were built into the system, often in ways that a 'good' old-school DM might be inclined to dis-allow as imbalancing. To get those rewards, system-masters would have to insist on sticking to the system, as written, no interpretations to restore balance - because beating the balanced base-line was the point of the system-mastery meta-game. 4e muted the phenomenon, but did nothing to eliminate it. Heck, I suppose it might even have turned it on its head, making RAW (and frequent 'updates' thereof) a defense against powergaming. I suspect 5e, with it's promise of voluminous advice to the DM, and rules-lite philosophy may intend to put that particular genie back in the bottle. I don't think it's likely they can succeed, but I'd be delighted if they were to. Be sure to invoke Solmon's name when you seal that puppy back up. ;) [/QUOTE]

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