I think people making assumptions about changing things so an AI can run a game is a bit farfetched. There are quite a few things in D&D that just don't mix well with automation and likely never will. If there were an AI that could run a game they could just limit what the AI does and nobody would be the wiser. Yes, the AI only tells you to do the things that are on a short list but most players will only use a limited option as well.
Occam's Razor tells me that it's just something they find people don't use very often because it's so open to DM interpretation and it's too vague for a lot of people. That, and it's only a first level spell that in the old version needed to be understood and interpreted by the target. The new version is not the target interpreting the spell, it's the caster invoking something from a list of options. It's actually more powerful for the majority of players because the target doesn't need to understand the language.
I agree that the AI stuff is just a suspicion, but I don't think Command is an unpopular spell. It comes up a lot of in discussions of which 1st level spells are good to select which which 1st level spells upcast well.
And yeah, it got a buff in terms of in-combat power (due to the language thing), just got gutted in terms of creativity and fun.
Personally, I'm on the fence here. Removing the need for the target to understand you, while admittedly a PITA, is kind of nonsensical. I'd add that it weakens the point of learning different languages, but that ship has sailed into the sunset, lol.
OTOH, I'm so tired of people coming up with ridiculous commands that are too OP, I have no idea how to interpret, or are just in poor taste.
Like telling an armored character to strip or m*st*rb*t*, ffs. I've had nothing but problems with open-ended spells in the decades I've been gaming. Illusions, suggestion, wish- these are always moments where player expectations and DM expectations collide.
The player is always trying to see what they can get away with, and the DM is constantly trying to make sure the game's balance doesn't implode- the end result is a lot of "meh".
Honestly I wish suggestion was simply removed from the game- the constant arguments about what is "reasonable" made it not worth casting (but somehow it always works out for the NPC's, lol). But removing that word from the spell has just made it worse, IMO.
People on both sides of the DM screen will end up attempting to abuse it, and it's going to be fun for nobody.
Suggestion has always struck me as too open-ended and open to abuse, but Command as it's limited to a single word never caused me problems as a DM. "Strip" is a perfectly cromulent command to use on an armored opponent, especially as a single round isn't long enough to take off most armor.
That's not so bad. It's when players start arguing that "Well, it's just one word in Elvish" that you can have trouble.
Well that sort of thing is under complete DM fiat so now sure what leg they'd have to stand on to argue with me. In any case if one of my players wanted to research elvish linguistics in order to find more powerful Command words I'd be OVERJOYED as the DM and would certainly play along and give them some useful elvish verbs with the right legwork. It'd be a great way of injecting the flavor of the world into the mechanics of the game.
Let's not forget that command only lasts one round. So, for instance, if you command a king to resign, he might announce, "I resign from the crown!" and then immediately follow it up with "Just kidding!" or "What was I thinking?" or "Belay that!"
Exactly. That's how any sane DM would run that.
Huzzah!
@Daztur Well said.
There are definitely ways to do "rules not rulings", but I think games like 4e and PF2e do a much better job. WotC seems to have difficulty – imho – sticking the landing with concise precise clear rules language. I get it – that sort of writing is very difficult.
As for me a lot of the fun is having to make rulings and respond to unexpected ideas / creative uses of magic. I think one of the great strengths of D&D / TTRPGs is inspiring creativity, and I like rules that support that.
One of the design challenges (there are maaany) for 5th edition is they're trying to bridge both groups – "rules not rulings" / "rulings not rules" – but I think the younger audience (who is and should be their target audience) may be more interested in "rules not rulings" right now. Not 100% positive on that, but that's my hunch.
Thanks!
In my experience running D&D with kids quite a bit, most of them tend to prefer a "rulings not rules" approach in my experience as players if they have an experienced DM who knows the ropes, but ye gods are kids bad at running "rulings not rules" campaigns as DMs unless they get extensive mentoring. So it balances out.
That said, my older son (15 now) has turned into a pretty damn good DM (although a bit hack and slash oriented) who runs with a sold middle ground approach which makes me so damn proud.
I think that keyword is trust.
A spell like command requires trust in the player and trust in the DM that is far beyond normal RPG gaming.
Because it's not just trust that you will handle it well as much as trust that you maintain the same expectations. And this would require a session zero conversation.
Which then becomes "how many spells are you going to discuss during Ssssion Zero?".
Which is not a problem if you have a small group of friends that all think similarly and have similar experiences, ideas, wants, desires within the game.
But the size that D&D grew and how much WOTC wants D&D to grow such open and spells just are problematic before you talk about video games in VTTs. D&D is slowly becoming too mainstream for such open-endedness.
Never had any issues with it in decades of playing (started in 1990 with Rules Cyclopedia) aside from some people being juvenile with "defecate" commands, but that was a pretty laid back beer-swilling campaign so no harm.
Preach it man. I love when RPGs have a bunch of languages, especially if they're cultural rather racial or the like - the very best I've seen in a D&D product was Taladas, all the way back in 1989, which had a ton of languages, and a cool flow chart with like dots on the flow to show how the languages related to each other, so like if you were a perfect speaker of one language, you might understand about 70% of what was being said in another, closely-related one, and about 20% of a more a distantly related one, and so on.
I do think it's fine for Command to supersede actually knowing the language in question, because I see it as a supernatural command, like in the language of the universe or whatever, the language the gods spoke to bring the world into being. But generally? I like complex language setups.
Yeah, complex languages are a lot like weather. They're something I always want to make important in my campaigns but it's just so easy to be lazy and default to "nice spring day" and "everyone speaks common." Much respect to any DMs who put the effort into things like making languages matter.
