D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[CreamCloud0]

Why does it matter when the DM makes this stuff up, and why doesn’t the player of the sailor know any of this?

because some GMs actually care to make their gameworlds into logically functioning and connected settings with consistency rather than just adding whatever arbitrary quick-fix solution pops into their head at the moment to solve whatever problem arises, the player likely doesn't know because they didn't care to ask or inquire beyond what might advantage their character.

 

[Corinnguard]

because some GMs actually care to make their gameworlds into logically functioning and connected settings with consistency rather than just adding whatever nonsense pops into their head at the moment to solve whatever problem arises, the player likely doesn't know because they didn't care to ask or inquire beyond what might advantage their character.

It also helps if the GM expects the unexpected when running an adventure and dealing with the players who they have known for years. There probably are GMs on this thread who have had the same players for years. They know how their players think and act under certain situations, and thus GM accordingly.

 

[James Gasik]

@James Gasik shows it being from Oriental Adventures but I suspect we got it from somewhere else (Dragon? or UA?) as none of us ever really used OA, and we had it long before 2e came out.

And I know for sure we didn't make it up ourselves.

Yes, here you go, Unearthed Arcana. I looked in OA first because the Spell Compendium mentioned it as being a common spell for "spellcasters from the East",

 

[Hriston]

so you agree that the sailor would not know any ship on the south sea when he ever only worked on the inland sea?

I’m saying a hypothetical example of gameplay in which it has been established in the fiction the party is in a place where there are absolutely no ships with which the sailor is familiar is not part of my hypothetical example of a player making an action declaration that uses the feature because then we’ve moved into discussing play that suffers from a particular dysfunction, whereas I was talking about how the feature works in a functional game.

 

[Oofta]

I’m saying a hypothetical example of gameplay in which it has been established in the fiction the party is in a place where there are absolutely no ships with which the sailor is familiar is not part of my hypothetical example of a player making an action declaration that uses the feature because then we’ve moved into discussing play that suffers from a particular dysfunction, whereas I was talking about how the feature works in a functional game.

So if players don't have narrative control over the world it's not a functional game? The DM can never say "No that background feature does not apply here"? Assuming the party is at a port with ships, etc..

 

[Hussar]

It's in Oriental Adventures. The 2e Priest Spell Compendium says it's uncommon for Clerics and Druids, which requires them to research the ability to cast it.
View attachment 359967

Wow. Now that's a DEEEP dive into a niche.

No wonder I never saw this or heard of it before.

Why on earth would a cleric waste a second level spell on this? Yikes.

 

[Hriston]

So you're saying the background allows the player to make this up on the fly? That they know a ship that calls here frequently (and further, know its captain)? Sure, OK - but only if the PC is at a location where his having that knowledge makes sense.

Correct, and it making sense is something that relies on table consensus to establish. If it doesn’t make sense, either the player isn’t going to do it in the first place or something has gone amiss and the table needs to get on the same page about what’s going on.

One thing I've perhaps not mentioned is that the player and I would long since (probably at char-gen when the background was chosen) have fine-tuned that background a bit in terms of roughly where the sailor had voyaged, what type(s) of ships he'd sailed on, how long he'd been at it, and so forth.

For example the experiences and knowledge of a sailor whose sailing career had nearly all been on oar-powered merchant traders on the inland sea wold be vastly different than one whose sailing career had mostly been on an age-of-sail pirate ship that had been many places but had never stayed in any one area for long enough to get to know much.

Yes, the 2014 backgrounds suggest having exactly this kind of dialogue between the DM and player.

 

[mamba]

I’m saying a hypothetical example of gameplay in which it has been established in the fiction the party is in a place where there are absolutely no ships with which the sailor is familiar is not part of my hypothetical example of a player making an action declaration that uses the feature because then we’ve moved into discussing play that suffers from a particular dysfunction, whereas I was talking about how the feature works in a functional game.

and yet you insist on the Criminal feature working in Ravenloft, which given the feature description is much more unlikely to work than the Sailor feature is on the South Sea…

 

[Hriston]

Because the issue is not how powerful the ability is, it's what the ability represents in the fiction.

That might be the issue for you, but @UngeheuerLich characterized them as “big circumstantial abilities” and contrasted them with “light abilities that are always useful”, so that’s what I was responding to.

 

[James Gasik]

Wow. Now that's a DEEEP dive into a niche.

No wonder I never saw this or heard of it before.

Why on earth would a cleric waste a second level spell on this? Yikes.

Mimics?