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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8620897" data-attributes="member: 87792">Treating the players as adults is a very long way from what the DM did. He didn't have an out of game chat. He arbitrarily declared in an act of DM fiat "You rest and your rest is uneventful, and plagued by bad dreams. It has no effect. When you leave your magical shelter, the BBEG has completed the ritual, and the townsfolk have been slain." When the DM declared "It has no effect" he literally retconned the game universe because he didn't like the rules of the game and in a high handed and arbitrary manner punished the players for something that seemingly all of them agreed would work. He considered himself an adult laying down the law to children rather than paid any attention at all to their side the way an adult would. The DM was a jerk.What a non-jerk DM who wasn't on a power trip would have done would be to have respected the character's competence and had the conversation before abusing DM fiat to piss all over a plan that, according to all the information both player and character alike would have had. They would at the very least have told the player that that wasn't going to work - and that their character would have known that. And that because the character would have known that and the player made the choice under the sincere belief it would work they could re-choose the abilities or spells they were trying to use.The player trying to slip in a rest may or may not have been a jerk. Different groups have different approaches to whether it should be allowed. The DM who decided to house rule on the fly that it did not work and then punished the players for even trying and didn't actually discuss things with them was absolutely a jerk.This is information not presented in your initial scenario. Otherwise known as "moving the goalposts".And this is where I have to say "are you kidding me?" <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/good-breakdown-of-multiclass-vs-single-class-for-5e.687628/post-8615777" target="_blank">The example given that you then had the DM be a jerk in response to</a> used the Catnap spell to have a short rest in the space of ten minutes. If the BBEG was ten minutes away from completing their ritual and you didn't communicate it that's really not setting the stakes properly. And if you hadn't decided beforehand that the BBEG was less than ten minutes from completing their ritual and suddenly the BBEG completes their ritual then it's obviously punishing the players.And all because the DM can't stand that the players used a spell for its intended purpose.And if the DM doesn't accept that the players can and should be able to do things the DM hasn't anticipated that derail their plans then the DM is too immature to be DMing and, if they want the characters to always take the option they decide they should give up DMing and instead take up novel writing.Having short rests of the rules and using spells for their intended purpose is not an abuse of the rules even if it makes the DM feel that they do not have complete control over everything. And the example you were replying to used Catnap and Rope Trick for their intended purpose. It is also a collaborative game - and the players are collaborating and working together. The person who is not collaborating and is throwing a hissy fit is the DM. And part of the art of DMing is learning to enjoy losing because your NPCs almost always will.The person using cheat software (retcons) in your example is the DM. The players aren't even glitch-hunting. They are just using spells like Rope Trick and Catnap for their intended purpose.</blockquote>

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