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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8392480" data-attributes="member: 6801228">The bare minimum is still an awful lot. What was rolled to hit, hp damage, damage type, what saves they need to make, the effects of failing those saves. Other than that the only thing I can think of is the name of the ability. So, you give out quite a bit of technical information, but expect the players to ask almost no technical questions... because you are worried about the flow of the scene? Combat flow is very choppy in general,so I don't see the concern.Okay, descriptions are great, but do you know how often those descriptions are instead confusing? And if the player just asks for more and more descriptions, isn't it just faster to tell them in the mechanical terms? I mean, at some point your objection is more about how they ask the question than the fact that they are asking.Why not? It's happened to us quite often."Should be clear" does not mean "is clear". You are putting a lot of this on the assumption that the DMs description provides everything the player actually needs to know, and that the player understands that. And if it isn't clear, then questions are going to be asked.Well, my group for one. Yeah, If I made a mistake on the technical level that affects actual change in the game, like reducing hp, that is more than important enough to clarify. That difference could end up changing the story, and I want my game to be run fairly. That includes letting them catch mistakes and making sure that everything is running smoothlyAgain, my point wasn't that the player should be accusatory, just that it was very noticeable that you immediately specified that the player must be polite for the DM to even consider giving an answer. Especially given that the OP and myself and most others have taken no position that anyone is accusing anyone of anything. You are adding this fact in, and I find that puzzling. Of course people should be polite to each other, that should go without saying, but you are starting to draw the battle lines. Implying a player who isn't polite is trying to make the DM feel guilty. It could also be possible that they are exhausted after a 12 hour shift, had a bad day getting chewed out by middle-managers, and are working on a short temper because of it. I'm not going to demand people are polite to me and ascribe motives to them if they aren't. I don't see how that makes the game better either.1) If it slows down the game to say "it's basically hunter's mark, we can talk more later" then your game moves way faster than mine. Combats can stretch for an hour or more, and not every second is spent in the weeds. Sometimes it is me as the DM doing math to subtract hp, and I've got time to answer questions while I do that. Or while I'm moving figures on the board. 2) Who says it is of no interest to other players? Maybe it does interest them. We can't know that. 3) How does it foster any competitive ambiance to seek understanding clarity? Me and my friends use this technical language all the time. We aren't competitive in the game, nor do our stories suffer. Maybe it would be like that at your table, but as a general rule, I don't think we can say this is true. I don't need the rules to tell me that breaking the rules when I don't intend to is a mistake. It is sort of like grammar, if you are breaking the rules on purpose that is very different than breaking them unintentionally. I'm not saying never change the rules, what I am saying is that if you didn't change the rules and the players ask what is going on, that might be a sign you made a mistake and did something you didn't intend to do. Also, stories with no challenges can be quite boring. Not all of them, but DnD isn't set up well to tell slice of life stories, so challenge is an expected part of the experience.Why is cheating even in the discussion? Nobody was really discussing cheating, until you came in and started talking about it. And what counts as a minor mistake? 10% of the player's hp is fairly significant to my eyes, not something minor.You are wrong. You are correct in that the DM should not be playing to beat the players, but they absolutely can cheat. And if you need to "decide" that the "rules" are that your boss monster has resistance to all attacks, immunity to that condition, and regenerated half their spell like abilities... you cheated. There are ways to set up a power-up or a desperate last play, but those are different than straight up cheating.</blockquote>

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