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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6320952" data-attributes="member: 2067">So it seems like one of the big points of contention here is the distinction between a playstyle preference and a "Good Group Fixes Everything" rules patch. I think the latter might be getting confused with the former.Here's the way I see it:Playstyle Preferences are ways of using or interpreting the rules for a different experience -- it takes the typical goals of a D&D game, and tweaks them a bit to be different goals, sometimes only slightly. For example:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "Gods are distant and unknowable in my world, so no divine spellcasters in my campaign."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "I want something a little more gritty, so everyone only has 1 HP."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "I am a fan of big epic stories, so no one will face permanent death here, but you CAN turn out to have an unhappy ending to your story!"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "All fighters in my game belong to the Brotherhood of the Blades and so you cannot take a level of fighter unless you become a member."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "This is going to be a classic dungeon crawl game, riddled with traps and lethality, so bring backup characters and prepare to save-or-die!"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "Guys, we're going to kill everything in the Deities and Demigods book. TRY AND HIT THOR'S AC!"</li> </ul>The Good Group Fix happens when a rule, as it is written, would create some problematic effect, so good groups and good DMs interpret the rules so that it DOESN'T create that effect. For example:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "Fireball is a weaker spell than Magic Missile? Well, Magic Missile is a rare spell that few spellcasters know, so they aren't likely to find it."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "Expertise feats are required to keep pace with the math? Y'know what, I'm just going to drop monster AC's by 1 point."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "The Wizard makes the Fighter irrelevant? All right, I'm just not going to choose the spells that offend the most."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "Man, that weapon vs. armor table looks complicated. Lets....not do that."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "Those grapple rules are hard to understand so....lets just see if you roll more than 10."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "Man, Bards suck. Well, lets just have a few more political intrigue missions that she'll be good at."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "Looks like if you combine X, Y, and Z it could be a problem. So I'm going to rule that Y can't be combined with X because of (insert technicality). I bet that's the intent."</li> </ul>For me, an effect is pretty obviously under the latter camp if it's an unintended consequence of a rules interaction and it produces an effect that a lot of tables will find undesirable -- the effect isn't one you're trying to get, it's an unexpected one you don't want. Nobody's playstyle sets out with the agend of "lets be boring." That's not a goal of anyone's table. So with Mike's reaction, it's not clear what "playstyle" he's talking about there. There's no real goal served in playing the rule in a boring way, so I don't know why someone would choose to do that. Though it seems clear that someone just following the rules as they are written could stumble into this negative experience, if they don't manage to fix it somehow. I think this sets up a bit of a false dichotomy between "A game that is highly codified" and "A game that prevents bad DMing."DMing trumps rules. Bad DMing as much as good DMing. The rules can't stop bad DMing, but they can encourage good DMing, and rules that produce unintended, negative effects don't encourage good DMing, they just create bad play experiences in the absence of DMs who are specifically good on that metric just as it comes up in play. Because a good DM knows how to leverage codified rules to support places that will add fun to their game, and how to use their authority to get rid of codified rules that don't. Good DMs are not monolithic, they're snowflakes, they all need different things to support them. A good DM knows what support they need, and what support they don't.</blockquote>

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