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"Hot" take: Aesthetically-pleasing rules are highly overvalued
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8111774" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>I think the OP's point is well-made, though.</p><p></p><p>5E is mostly a step forwards, but in the places that it isn't, it's sometimes the result of the desire to use natural language instead of being really obviously game-y. I would hope any future edition would learn from this, and either design rules differently so that wasn't a problem (because the places I think of natural language being a problem are where D&D IS trying to be a GAME, not a simulation but cloaking it), or just use clearer language where necessary.</p><p></p><p>I think there's a more general underlying problem with 5E in which the designers have their specific understandings of how things work which were not always adequately conveyed by the wording of the rules. That Feat that allows shield-shoving, for example. I don't think there was any easy way for a natural-language reading of that to determine that you only get the shove after an attack. I accept that you can come up with that, but I don't think it's obvious (and the evidence of perhaps most people initially interpreting it otherwise, both here and on reddit prior to the Sage Advice comment). Yet, had it been worded in a more game-y way, there wouldn't even have been a question. And indeed like a good proportion of Sage Advice stuff seems to be "this could have been solved by just wording it a little more obviously".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8111774, member: 18"] I think the OP's point is well-made, though. 5E is mostly a step forwards, but in the places that it isn't, it's sometimes the result of the desire to use natural language instead of being really obviously game-y. I would hope any future edition would learn from this, and either design rules differently so that wasn't a problem (because the places I think of natural language being a problem are where D&D IS trying to be a GAME, not a simulation but cloaking it), or just use clearer language where necessary. I think there's a more general underlying problem with 5E in which the designers have their specific understandings of how things work which were not always adequately conveyed by the wording of the rules. That Feat that allows shield-shoving, for example. I don't think there was any easy way for a natural-language reading of that to determine that you only get the shove after an attack. I accept that you can come up with that, but I don't think it's obvious (and the evidence of perhaps most people initially interpreting it otherwise, both here and on reddit prior to the Sage Advice comment). Yet, had it been worded in a more game-y way, there wouldn't even have been a question. And indeed like a good proportion of Sage Advice stuff seems to be "this could have been solved by just wording it a little more obviously". [/QUOTE]
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"Hot" take: Aesthetically-pleasing rules are highly overvalued
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