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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 8825004" data-attributes="member: 20323">My answer is soft skills. You need to read your room &amp; have a pulse on the players you game with. And whenever you display the BBEG's awesome power in a way that might inconvenience or harm the PCs or seem like failure, it's important to give the players something they can succeed at (it might not be defeating the BBEG, but maybe they can smuggle the sacred scrolls out of the burning city).I gravitate towards players for whom this would not even be an issue, personally. &quot;Justification&quot; language implies a lack of trust, in my experience.I think it's also worthwhile, if you have that sort of player as the party wizard, to seed all kinds of weird magic that breaks the mold of the PHB. Yes, if they are of sufficient level, undertake a certain quest, find the rare component, seek out tutelage, and/or pay the arcane price they too can learn such forbidden magics.My personal view is that the more mystery and wonder we can inject into how magic systems play in our fantasy RPGs, the better the game is for it. Obviously, that's working against the trend of how 5e treats spellcasting.However, if you have players who are all about that 3e / highly codified / spell upsmanship gaming life where NPCs are built like PCs, no exceptions, then read the room. My &quot;wondrous magic&quot; approach would not be ideal for such a group, and might be a hard bounce-off point for them.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 8825004, member: 20323"] My answer is soft skills. You need to read your room & have a pulse on the players you game with. And whenever you display the BBEG's awesome power in a way that might inconvenience or harm the PCs or seem like failure, it's important to give the players something they [I]can[/I] succeed at (it might not be defeating the BBEG, but maybe they can smuggle the sacred scrolls out of the burning city). I gravitate towards players for whom this would not even be an issue, personally. "Justification" language implies a lack of trust, in my experience. I think it's also worthwhile, if you have that sort of player as the party wizard, to seed all kinds of weird magic that breaks the mold of the PHB. Yes, if they are of sufficient level, undertake a certain quest, find the rare component, seek out tutelage, and/or pay the arcane price they too can learn such forbidden magics. My personal view is that the more mystery and wonder we can inject into how magic systems play in our fantasy RPGs, the better the game is for it. Obviously, that's working against the trend of how 5e treats spellcasting. However, if you have players who are all about that 3e / highly codified / spell upsmanship gaming life where NPCs are built like PCs, no exceptions, then read the room. My "wondrous magic" approach would not be ideal for such a group, and might be a hard bounce-off point for them. [/QUOTE]

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