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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8949757" data-attributes="member: 6877472">I will grant that by not specifically saying &quot;fireball ignites things&quot; or giving rules for it, it puts the onus on the DM to ad hoc these situations.&nbsp; Many powers explicitly state they only target creatures right in their rules, which is just going to lead to arguments.A lot of my 4e play was in Encounters or Living Forgotten Realms, where the culture was to stick to the rules-as-written as much as possible, and even then, this often required you to bring along printouts of forum posts and cust serv replies (of dubious value).&nbsp; In that environment, it does become easy to denounce 4e as a &quot;vidya game&quot; as many seem to do.Usually these debates would go like this:Player wants to use power in unusual way.DM says no because that's not how power works.DM wants to impose sanctions for player using a power (typically, by spreading fire damage around).Player says power can't do that, and often points out a previous ruling by the DM to that effect.Status quo maintained.But this is really no different than arguments that have taken place at tables throughout D&amp;D's history, nay, the history of gaming itself.&nbsp; Every group has to establish house rules on how they are going to handle these situations.&nbsp; Where some people balked at 4e was that there was no &quot;wiggle room&quot; in the powers themselves.&nbsp; They told you exactly what they did, no more, no less.If you were tired of endless debates about what an ability does in D&amp;D, this was refreshing.&nbsp; If you liked being able easily morph the rules to suit your gaming style, this was stifling.From my own experience, neither way is superior to the other; loose rules with lots of grey areas can cause just as many problems at the table as tightly written ones, depending on the play style of those involved.&nbsp; Personally, however, I hate having to parse the text of a D&amp;D spell to figure out exactly what it's doing, and try to figure out what to do in corner cases.Maybe the best approach is to have the long, drawn-out spell description, and then at the end of the spell have the quick TLDR of how it's intended to be used, to give DM's a good starting point for how to rule on it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 8949757, member: 6877472"] I will grant that by not specifically saying "fireball ignites things" or giving rules for it, it puts the onus on the DM to ad hoc these situations. Many powers explicitly state they only target creatures right in their rules, which is just going to lead to arguments. A lot of my 4e play was in Encounters or Living Forgotten Realms, where the culture was to stick to the rules-as-written as much as possible, and even then, this often required you to bring along printouts of forum posts and cust serv replies (of dubious value). In that environment, it does become easy to denounce 4e as a "vidya game" as many seem to do. Usually these debates would go like this: Player wants to use power in unusual way. DM says no because that's not how power works. DM wants to impose sanctions for player using a power (typically, by spreading fire damage around). Player says power can't do that, and often points out a previous ruling by the DM to that effect. Status quo maintained. But this is really no different than arguments that have taken place at tables throughout D&D's history, nay, the history of gaming itself. Every group has to establish house rules on how they are going to handle these situations. Where some people balked at 4e was that there was no "wiggle room" in the powers themselves. They told you exactly what they did, no more, no less. If you were tired of endless debates about what an ability does in D&D, this was refreshing. If you liked being able easily morph the rules to suit your gaming style, this was stifling. From my own experience, neither way is superior to the other; loose rules with lots of grey areas can cause just as many problems at the table as tightly written ones, depending on the play style of those involved. Personally, however, I hate having to parse the text of a D&D spell to figure out exactly what it's doing, and try to figure out what to do in corner cases. Maybe the best approach is to have the long, drawn-out spell description, and then at the end of the spell have the quick TLDR of how it's intended to be used, to give DM's a good starting point for how to rule on it. [/QUOTE]

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