-
Monstrous Menagerie II: Hordes & Heroes is live! 300+ more monsters for your D&D 2024, or Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition games, plus new horde rules and rules for heroic monsters who level up alongside you--whether they be allies, companions, or foes! Back it now on Kickstarter!
D&D (2024) Exception-Based Design in D&D: When Rules Enable Rule Lawyers
- Thread starter OptionalRule
- Start date
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
This feels very much a "I know D&D and D&D-like games only". It takes conclusions from D&D being explicitly D&D-like that feel like "water is wet" if you run a wide variety of games include those with other philosophies and have other expectations from both players and GMs.
Yes, wargames have always favored system mastery and being able to use your forces as effectively as possible within the rules. That's one of their defining characteristics. D&D has continued that tradition. It is not attempting to be one of the more narrative RPGs out there, and that's intentional. Complaining that it's in the category it wants to be is just weak sauce.
And then trying to link it to exception-based design? Sorry, that connection is just not there.
Yes, wargames have always favored system mastery and being able to use your forces as effectively as possible within the rules. That's one of their defining characteristics. D&D has continued that tradition. It is not attempting to be one of the more narrative RPGs out there, and that's intentional. Complaining that it's in the category it wants to be is just weak sauce.
And then trying to link it to exception-based design? Sorry, that connection is just not there.
It was ultimately more forgiving than that. Take a hypothetical scenario of needing to climb a sheer marble wall without relevant skills or having skills but having them too low to matter. The key was to lean into the solid & reliable skills abilities & items that the party did have to build up +2 +2 +2 of differing bonus types through manageable checks. The phb even had a section about working together to accomplish impossible checks using time & teamwork instead of an action. An awful lot of players skipped over that(along with the associated DM's best friend) and just grumbled about not having a good climb☆ skill instead of thinking how they could leverage the skills they did have towards the problem of the moment.More accurately, it was a game that allowed you to succeed at (extremely little) if you didn't have the right ability. Technically, you were still allowed to try anything; and once in a while those attempts would come off despite not having the right ability, thanks to some lucky dice rolling.
Bob might be in a group where nobody has the climb skill for that hypothetical sheer marble wall, but he's also in a group where some others in the group have a rope grapplehook other skills maybe a spell or two & a possible idea involving the construction of a siege ladder or something to trivially scale the wall after some work
☆or whatever skill
OptionalRule
Hyperion
There’s a segment of the community that will reflexively deny anything.
The most ironic part of those type of responses here is that the D&D designers openly acknowledge this is a problem. There’s an entire section in Chapter 1 of the 2024 DMG discussing problem player exploitation of the rules.
This article highlights the missing piece in the conversation: how the game’s own design encourages the very behavior the designers explicitly warn against. Reading the DMG, you might think this issue emerged out of nowhere, as if it’s solely a product of fanbase toxicity. Without question, there’s an element of online culture that amplifies discussions about exploitation, misaligned goals, and other problematic behaviors. However, the designers are absolutely failing to acknowledge that their own design choices contribute to this issue as well.
The resulting cycle is that DMs often adopt Wizards of the Coast’s attitude—that the problem lies entirely with the community and the players. They take actions to address player behavior, never realizing that those efforts can only go so far. This leads to further cycles of arguments and resentment, with many missing a critical piece of the puzzle.
The reality is that the game is designed to incentivize this behavior. This is simply how the system works for many players, often without them even realizing it. Trying to address this with a single subsection that essentially says, "Don’t let the thing we set up to happen, happen," is a profoundly weak attempt to solve a problem the designers themselves created. It encapsulates the root cause of many issues with modern D&D.
The most ironic part of those type of responses here is that the D&D designers openly acknowledge this is a problem. There’s an entire section in Chapter 1 of the 2024 DMG discussing problem player exploitation of the rules.
This article highlights the missing piece in the conversation: how the game’s own design encourages the very behavior the designers explicitly warn against. Reading the DMG, you might think this issue emerged out of nowhere, as if it’s solely a product of fanbase toxicity. Without question, there’s an element of online culture that amplifies discussions about exploitation, misaligned goals, and other problematic behaviors. However, the designers are absolutely failing to acknowledge that their own design choices contribute to this issue as well.
The resulting cycle is that DMs often adopt Wizards of the Coast’s attitude—that the problem lies entirely with the community and the players. They take actions to address player behavior, never realizing that those efforts can only go so far. This leads to further cycles of arguments and resentment, with many missing a critical piece of the puzzle.
The reality is that the game is designed to incentivize this behavior. This is simply how the system works for many players, often without them even realizing it. Trying to address this with a single subsection that essentially says, "Don’t let the thing we set up to happen, happen," is a profoundly weak attempt to solve a problem the designers themselves created. It encapsulates the root cause of many issues with modern D&D.
Last edited:
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
A logic which only works if you presume rules are bad and dumb and wrong and nobody could possibly enjoy using, interacting with, or thinking about rules.
This is demonstrably false.
Li Shenron
Legend
I've played and run many editions. I did not generally found the rules complexity too difficult to handle. Although 3ed complexity tended to become annoying at high levels, I think the reason was too many stacking bonuses and lingering effects rather than "stacking exceptions". 5ed has been a breeze to run for me, but I am aware that the main reason for that is that I purposefully avoided playing with hardcore gamers, and played instead mostly with family, friends, workmates and generally people who are either beginners or casual gamers.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
While I don't always agree with 3e's execution of its philosophy, I whole-heartedly support the philosophy of simulation-based rules itself. The game would have strongly benefited from a clear examination of its intended playstyle in the corebooks, both so players would know what they're getting and so they would be empowered to make any changes for comfort and know they were staying within the spirit of the rules.
I think that it did a pretty good job of that when it came to skills if you look at dmg30 (dm's best friend) & Mialee's skill check being impacted by stuff we might use more modern terminology to describe as quantum & fate style scene aspects. You get a really nice cohesive whole for skills after mixing that with the player side of that onPHB65/66 for practically impossible skill checks & working together (more +2's/the player side of DM's best friend) & the -10 to +43 "who could do it" based DC ladder
Similar Threads
