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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheLordWinter" data-source="post: 4614704" data-attributes="member: 63181">I'm really curious to hear what you think specifically points towards not answering player questions in the game. Also, there seems to be a growing theme throughout this thread that as the DM, it is your responsibility to say "No, there aren't rules for it, so not for you." From super-powerful scrying rituals to ancient sages to learning about a unique creature's abilities outside of combat, the general mood seems to be that "If it isn't written, you'll never know."Where on Earth is that coming from? Cause seriously, I've got the new Dungeon Master's Guide open, in front of me, and it ain't what I'm seeing. It's on page 28, right there: "As often as possible, take what the players give you and build on it. If they do something unexpected, run with it. Take it and weave it back into your story without railroading them into a fixed plotline." (DMG, 28)So let's take the whimsical example we've had already, and Orcus is gating 1,000 Balors into Waterdeep (a number which is whimsically unnecessary, but for the sake of the example let's roll with it). Your adventure is about the PCs traveling to Thanatos and fighting Orcus in revenge for destroying the city. However instead, the PCs wanna stop his ability to gate in Balors. Totally different direction. How could they do so when you haven't come up with the very mechanics of his ability to gate? Improvise. Perhaps they need to recover a special magical relic or destroy an avatar or sacrifice a goat. Whatever it is, doesn't it fall, more importantly, to your creativity rather than what the Rules As Written demand he can and cannot do? If you say "Yes, there is a way to stop Orcus from gating Balors/Scrying on You/Being Quite to Unpleasantly Ugly" then take it and run with it. It's the direction your players want to go, so find the adventure where they're looking.If I might toss out one last quote, from Chaosium's brilliant Call of Cthulhu d100 roleplaying game: "Introducing higher and higher potency materials reduces the chance for roleplaying. The effect of more powerful weapons or deadlier magics is progressively to isolate the owners from the events of the adventures and the ordinary challenges of play, and paradoxically to limit the range of responses players... feel safe in contemplating." (CoC, 121) This applies to DMs too - if Orcus can gate 1d20 Balors anywhere, why would he ever simply hit anything with his wand? Why send Doresain and his ghouls to collect information about the PCs when he has "See everything the characters do Ritual" right in his stat block? By removing these things, it opens up new possibilities, particularly in how DMs and Players alike approach this. It's new - Orcus in some games can scry on characters from afar through his bubbling cauldron of Doom, while in others he must send his ghoul agents to scour the land for any trance of the characters, while in another he simply is so proud and malicious that he presumes no lowly mortals could ever interfere with his schemes. It's up to you, the DM, on what their capabilities are, and so long as you stick with the same capacities each time. It falls to the players, and how they choose to try and deal with this threat, and to he DM to respond and roll with the punches of each new and unexpected twist the players throw into his story. Much like 2nd edition, 4th doesn't give you everything. It doesn't care whether Orcus can tie a very fine knot or whether Asmodeus has skill focus (bluff), these aren't important details. The players will never know that these skills are there, they'll simply see the *effect* in the game, not the pure numbers behind the screen. What this edition, from what I've seen, is trying to do is strip away the unnecessary - if the players will never know that Asmodeus has skill focus (bluff) and gets a +20 divine bonus to bluff, even if the net result is that his bluff check is 40 higher than they can reasonably sense motive through, why give him those things and not simply say he's got a total bluff check of everything combined and not worry about the sources?Just my two cents, and I hope this didn't come off as too much of a rant.</blockquote>

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