D&D General DM Authority

[Don Durito]

The implication being that anime is real.

It isn't?

See I told you I didn't know anything about it.

 

[generic]

What's anime? Is that the thing with that pink haired knight girl?

 

[Minigiant]

The other thing is the strange belief that words like "gritty" or "low fantasy" or "heavy role-playing" actually convey information whereas they're pretty much vacuous.

"This game will be set in a city state republic. A big part of the campaign background will be based around the elections for the rules of this republic. I'd like to run a game in which the PCs become involved as players of one kind or another in these politics. Things like spying, blackmail, negotiation etc will be major parts of the game. There will be combat, but it should ideally be linked to goals related to the above, and may not always be the best approach. There will not be traditional dungeon crawling" - says something about the game.

Saying "a role-playing heavy game in a low fantasy city" means nothing.

this

It's less that there are vacuous and more that, like you said, many fans don't start at the same reference point. So unless you use the DMG or a encyclopedia as your reference point, many words like gritty and high fantasy are meaningless for exchange of ideas.

That's why many people think they are explaining their games but aren't.

I mean, people still argue why the D&D ranger has spells.

 

[Minigiant]

What's anime? Is that the thing with that pink haired knight girl?

The pink haired girl is the cleric. It's the blonde, black, or blue haired one that's the knight

 

[generic]

The pink haired girl is the cleric. It's the blonde, black, or blue haired one that's the knight

What about that funny little blue-haired girl on the shirts and in the music videos?

 

[Maxperson]

What about that funny little blue-haired girl on the shirts and in the music videos?

That's an elf.

 

[generic]

That's an elf.

I'm so lost...

What the HELL is that cat eared blonde girl, and who the holy hammer of Torm...

Is the one named after computer memory?

 

[Umbran]

either way the hobby’s success is not a reliable indicator that the PHB is doing its job well, as the success could easily be in spite of the PHB rather than because of it.

"Could easily be," is a hypothetical.

If you are going to assert that the PHB is actively hurting the hobby, you kind of have to have some evidence the hobby is, you know, hurting, don't you? Otherwise, the assertion is entirely speculative.

And, as I said, the hobby seems to be doing phenomenally, so evidence of any real harm is going to be hard to come by. Anecdotes from a couple of people that the book was not helpful aren't going to cut it with an Amazon sales rank of #81 in all of books nearly six an a half years after publication.

I personally don't think the book is a great teacher itself. However, I recognize the possibility that this is fine, because it could easily be that folks learning from the book is a rare occurrence. Online actual play, tutorials, and people bringing their friends in may be taking the teaching role, so that the book simply doesn't have to do that job.

If so, writing the book to teach may actually hurt the game, by reducing its utility at what it is actually doing - acting as the game reference, which it seems to do well enough.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's an elf.

But aren't all elves devil worshipers?

 

[loverdrive]

In the wizard's mind, maybe. Nothing says any of that has to have been real (in the setting); the wizard could simply have been piling on the BS in order to help win his argument.

Wizards do that now and then, you know.

And in that case, you're discouraging people from contributing to the game world.

Same team?

The DM's out to kill my PCs. I'm out to keep them alive. Flip those roles when I'm the DM.

That's was the weirdest thing I've heard in quite some time, until I've seen next post.

That's the player's job. If they're not doing it, or at least trying, they're failing to fulfill part of their role.

It's the DM's job to resist this.

Both of these sound like GM not being a fan of the PCs, which is like... What?