D&D (2024) I have the DMG. AMA!

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Staffan

Legend
And within the fiction, why is it unfair that someone might be punished by their god for breaking a divine commandment?
Because it makes heretics impossible. If God provides the Pope with cleric spells but not Martin Luther, then clearly Martin Luther is wrong (or vice versa).

I'd much rather have divine magic being linked to the cleric's (or paladin's or whatever's) belief that they in tune with their god. A cleric of Sune who starts destroying works of art or breaking up loving couples... that's clearly counter to Sune's nature, and they should probably seek out a different patron. But I could totally see a conflict between a cleric believing that beauty is something that should be shared with the world, and art being widely accessible to everyone, while another believes art is treasure to be protected and saved for the deserving.

Also, the world reacts. Dungeons repopulate, guards reinforce defences etc.
I never got how most dungeons are supposed to repopulate overnight. Dungeons tend to be closed systems, occasionally with a poorly defined tunnel leading to the Underdark or something. So how are they supposed to get reinforcements? I mean, in some cases you might have a caster animating the dead or summoning minions, but that's an exception. D&D dungeons generally aren't Gauntlet dungeons that come with a monster generator that needs to be destroyed to stop pooping out monsters.


So this is the thing about encounter building, encounter frequency and the rests.

[...]

I don't see that any of this has changed.
I think changing encounter pacing and related stuff would require a far more thorough reworking of classes and abilities than the scope for the 2024 revision allowed. Also, last time they tried that, it didn't work out so well for them.

So it appears DMG has lot of setting stuff, Greyhawk stuff in it. This is just my opinion, and I'm sure many disagree,but personally I could not care less about that, and even if I did care, I don't think its place is here. DMG should be about building settings, and customising and running the game; it should be the GM's toolkit. Setting books for official settings should be their own thing. By leaving the setting stuff out of the DMG there would have been much more room for other things.
I'm ambivalent to the inclusion of Greyhawk. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having a setting included in a game, but it feels off to have Greyhawk being the example setting in the DMG and then having future material focus on Forgotten Realms with occasional visits to other settings. It feels a lot like (a) a bone thrown to grognards and (b) taking the opportunity to fix problematic parts of the setting.

It looks like a single line in the official campaign settings table that vaguely and briefly mentions Dark Sun. The equivalent to "yeah, it exists."
Which seems to be more than Birthright or Mystara are getting. Or Jakandor, for all of us fans.
Arrested Development Reaction GIF by MOODMAN

And wasn't it someone like Justice Ramin Arman who stated they want to give Dark Sun a shot, if they had the chance.
I think it's possible to make a modernized Dark Sun setting. But I think it's risky, and perhaps nearly impossible to do one that appeals to modern sensibilities (Dark Sun needs to be a Luke Cage setting, not a Black Panther setting), the current direction of game design (notably having psionic-themed subclasses for a variety of classes instead of as a separate subsystem with a class or two based just on that), while at the same time not be off-putting to old-school Dark Sun fans. And given the risks involved, I would not really blame Wizards for saying that there are much juicier fruits hanging in much easier places to pick them on that tree.

What is the Matrix?
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Tazawa

Adventurer
Emerikol said:
This is probably one of the best things that come out of e. Though I would use complex checks sparingly it does have a place in the right circumstances.

I completely agree. You don’t want to use a complex check for every shopkeeper, but negotiating with a dragon should be more than a single check.
 
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TiQuinn

Registered User
it’s not fair that a Wizard can cast Magic Missile while a Fighter cannot.

You choose your class, with all implications, good or bad. The choice was yours to freely make, I see no conflict there.

Yes, well, the implications presently are:

"For game purposes, wielding divine power isn’t dependent on the gods’ ongoing approval or the strength of a character’s devotion. The power is a gift offered to a select few; once given, it can’t be rescinded."

Yep, no conflict at all!
:)
 


mamba

Legend
Yes, well, the implications presently are:

"For game purposes, wielding divine power isn’t dependent on the gods’ ongoing approval or the strength of a character’s devotion. The power is a gift offered to a select few; once given, it can’t be rescinded."

Yep, no conflict at all!
:)
no conflict between someone being ‘disadvantaged’ for a choice they willingly and knowingly made, similar to choosing a Wizard or a Fighter and having to live with those consequences when it comes to character abilities

I could not care less about the DMG quote, of course it conflicts with it
 

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
A basic principle I follow for DMing is "If there's two ways to interpret something, and one way makes people happy and the other way makes people sad, I'm going to pick the first one."

I would rather choose the fiction that releases players from the worry that their character's powers might get taken away (unless that's a storyline they would like to explore.)
You are welcome to make that choice every time. My choice is based on what in my judgement makes the most logical sense given the setting concepts. I don't assume it will always be to the PCs benefit.
 

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Why allow classes where those kind of restrictive tenets exist for one class and not others?

The fighter could have a lord or commander whose orders they must follow. The rogue could belong to a thieves' guild and be obligated to follow their rules. Both of those concepts exist in all kinds of fiction. Why is it special to just the paladin, cleric, and as suggested by some, the warlock?
Because they are different class fantasies. Who am I to tell a player they have to play a fighter with an off switch for their abilities if that class fantasy doesn't have one built in?
 

DinoInDisguise

A russian spy disguised as a t-rex.
And we're back to fairness. So yeah, we don't agree on this.

I feel like people keep getting lost in the idea that players have no recourse to bad DMing and as such need rules to protect them. But we always forget that bad DMs have nothing forcing adherence to the rules, and good DMs aren't anti-socials monkey brains out to "get" their players. As such those rules meant to protect PCs are toothless wastes of paper and ink. They are nothing more than guidance that some will believe in until a DM says "no" in response to a hopeful player citing the rule.

I don't see this as anything more than WotC flailing around because they fundementally misunderstand how social the game is. Jerks don't care about a line in the DMG, and non-jerks don't act in ways that require that line. So I don't know that this "rule" does anything but give false hope to players in poorly run games.

The advice should be "if your DM does this without prior a conversation on it, you should leave that game" and it should be in the PHB under a "social contract" chapter. But maybe that is a hot take.
 

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