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"Hot" take: Aesthetically-pleasing rules are highly overvalued
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8111763" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>Not the OP and I can't think of ones that "cannot be understood", but I can think of some where the language gets in the way of the rule making sense, or where the meta-aesthetic desire to have a rule function in a particular way, even though it doesn't really make sense except on an aesthetic level, hampers understanding. Surprise comes immediately to mind. No single subject in D&D has had so many angry threads where people INSIST often quite rudely that there's no possible way to interpret surprise except as functioning this way or that way, and that people understanding it differently are intentionally engaging in malfeasance. It was practically a cliche on the 5E reddit for a while that there'd be a thread about surprise, and it would be full of people saying "Here's how it works I can't believe any human is stupid enough not to understand it, duh!", often with contradictory opinions about how it actually worked, naturally. Oddly this has been less hotly-fought here and I hope it stays that way. To this day some people don't even seem to get that there's not actually such a thing as a "surprise round" in 5E.</p><p></p><p>But almost all the issues with it relate to the way the surprise rules are written, and the fact that they're at odds with how previous editions worked and at odds with how some proportion of people (which seems to be significant) can understand surprise to work. I think if they'd been written in purely clear, mechanistic language, and it was made obvious that this was a gamist concept, not a simulationist one, and that it was done for balance reasons (to avoid overvaluing surprise), then people would be a lot clearer on it.</p><p></p><p>Btw I point-blank refuse to engage in any argument over what the surprise rules actually mean, I'm merely pointing out that they're ones where it's an issue. I know your question was honestly meant, but I think the danger with providing examples is that, as much as some, like you, will engage with them merely as examples, a lot of other people, will, without meaning to do anything wrong, instead try to argue the toss on what they do mean, and suggest they're not good examples because what they mean is "obvious" (I'm not sure I can convey appropriate levels of rolling my eyes at this use of "obvious" of course).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8111763, member: 18"] Not the OP and I can't think of ones that "cannot be understood", but I can think of some where the language gets in the way of the rule making sense, or where the meta-aesthetic desire to have a rule function in a particular way, even though it doesn't really make sense except on an aesthetic level, hampers understanding. Surprise comes immediately to mind. No single subject in D&D has had so many angry threads where people INSIST often quite rudely that there's no possible way to interpret surprise except as functioning this way or that way, and that people understanding it differently are intentionally engaging in malfeasance. It was practically a cliche on the 5E reddit for a while that there'd be a thread about surprise, and it would be full of people saying "Here's how it works I can't believe any human is stupid enough not to understand it, duh!", often with contradictory opinions about how it actually worked, naturally. Oddly this has been less hotly-fought here and I hope it stays that way. To this day some people don't even seem to get that there's not actually such a thing as a "surprise round" in 5E. But almost all the issues with it relate to the way the surprise rules are written, and the fact that they're at odds with how previous editions worked and at odds with how some proportion of people (which seems to be significant) can understand surprise to work. I think if they'd been written in purely clear, mechanistic language, and it was made obvious that this was a gamist concept, not a simulationist one, and that it was done for balance reasons (to avoid overvaluing surprise), then people would be a lot clearer on it. Btw I point-blank refuse to engage in any argument over what the surprise rules actually mean, I'm merely pointing out that they're ones where it's an issue. I know your question was honestly meant, but I think the danger with providing examples is that, as much as some, like you, will engage with them merely as examples, a lot of other people, will, without meaning to do anything wrong, instead try to argue the toss on what they do mean, and suggest they're not good examples because what they mean is "obvious" (I'm not sure I can convey appropriate levels of rolling my eyes at this use of "obvious" of course). [/QUOTE]
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