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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daztur" data-source="post: 9438983" data-attributes="member: 55680">Yup, "ruling not rules" what was supposed to be a big part of 5e.Yeah, I don't think arbitrating this is as hard as some people are making it out to be.I think a fair reading of the spell description argues otherwise as "flee" is explicitly allowed even if it results in you getting hit by  AoOs.No need for a discussion. I'm the DM, I make a ruling, that's what happens. If people don't like my rulings they can play elsewhere. Never had a problem enforcing that kind of thing, I'm generally a very kind and merciful DM who is willing to meet players halfway with their harebrained shenanigans (since harebrained shenanigans are my favorite part of D&D and I'm always cheering for the players) but if I put my foot down on stupid naughty word then that's the end of the discussion.And that's perfectly fine. Different DMs running the game differently is what makes D&D fun. It's be a horrible shame to try to shove all DMs into the same mold.The thing about 3.5e, at least when I played it, is that it introduced MORE uncertainty about the rules in many ways. A lot like weapon speed factors and the weapons vs. armor table in 1e, there were a whole slew of rules in 3.5e that a lot of DMs ignored or didn't even know exist. This meant that, every time I sat down at a 3.5e table I had no idea ahead of time how many of the rules the DM was going to follow and what they would do if I started to interact with stuff that those rules covered. At least with 2e I had a pretty clear idea of what rules were set in stone and what rules were more fuzzy while I've never EVER seen a 3.5e DM follow the rules for social interaction by the book. 5e is a bit more predictable than 3.5e in actual play, at least for me.Most experienced DMs stuck to the OSR? I don't think the OSR is anywhere near that big. That hasn't been my experience at all. As someone who started on the Rules Cyclopedia, I was fine with running 5e games as it generally played like a cleaned up 3.5e which was a close enough compromise for me. I like the spirit of the OSR a lot, but ye gods is there a lot of defending of bathwater and forgetting about the baby from a lot of OSR people...Yeah, I've trained up my son pretty well as a 5e DM and he's never run anything but 5e. He really likes a chargen mini-game he can sink his teeth into and OSR games don't give him that while 3.5e and 4e overwhelm him a bit (his eyes glazed over a bit when I started telling him about skill synergies etc.). 5e hits a good sweet spot for him and a lot of other D&D kids and a lot of them have figured out how to DM pretty damn well.Yeah, I'm just not seeing how it's such a big hassle to adjudicate Command. Never seen it be an issue with players once they're pointed out the line against being able to use it to make critters commit suicide.Agreed completely, this is exactly what I meant in the OP. 5e set out to be a compromise between those different approaches you walked about. And it's a messy and flawed compromise and, like most compromises, it's resulted in lots of grumbling. But it's been a surprisingly successful and resilient compromise despite its flaws. I just see 5.5e as walking away from that compromise (however slowly) and that makes me sad. He lies down and tries to will himself to die for a few seconds. Not much happens. Any kind of suicidal act is clearly against the plain rules of the spell.Fireballs expanding to fill 33,000 cubic feet just warms my heart in all of it's clunky unwieldy glory.Nah, it skews young because of the massive influx of new players. Same as in the 80's. Just way too many new players for the existing DMs to run games for, especially as most DMs want to run games for their friends, not a bunch of random kids half their age (unless they're running stuff for their kid and their friends or somesuch, as I have done a lot of with 5e).</blockquote>

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