In-game debates and rules disputes: What do you do about them?

[Celebrim]

50% miss, actually. It's 20% for the person blinking.

My assumption was that if material effects that don't extend into the ethereal have a 20% miss chance if the attacker can see into the ethereal, that the DM was ruling that the inverse case of having a material effect that extends into the ethereal (a force effect or ghost touch weapon) but where the attacker couldn't see into the ethereal provided a somewhat equivalent level of protection since at least during part of the turn the attacker was blind.

This is an unusual ruling, but I can sorta see the sense of it. I'd accept - but not be very happy with - a ruling from the DM which gave it a straight up 50% miss chance because there is no logical reason for it that I can see.

FIREBALL, BABY! Ain't no way the hoppity little punk is going to avoid me, even if I have to take damage!

Heh. But that doesn't necessarily work because...

"While blinking, you take only half damage from area attacks (but full damage from those that extend onto the Ethereal Plane)."

 

[irdeggman]

One last thing irdeggman, is the Birthright CS 3.5 yet? That is truly my favorite D&D setting, and you guys did some cool stuff with the 3.0 CS.

Cha 1 (character creation) and Ch 2 (bloodlines and abilites) are 3.5 and sanctioned (i.e., voted on by the boards so they will only have small changes made when the final project is completed.)

I really like what we put together in Ch 1 there was some very interesting twists that people came up with on the boards - things like elven nature magic affinity and alternate class paladins. Oh yeah and the magician and noble classes are pretty nifty too.

Currently working on getting the warfare chapter together.

Been running many many polls trying to get consensus on things while putting it together. I am currently not as active as I should be since I just started playing in my first Birthright PBEM game - we'll see if everyone gangs up on me.

The project has been taking so long to get revised because most of the original team has been inactive which left mostly me to work on the revisions.

 

[howandwhy99]

"In-game debates and rules disputes: What do you do about them?"

I think we have a definitive answer for you.

We argue about them.

 

[helium3]

Lengthy in game debates are to be avoided.. unfortunatly you occassionally run into a player/DM that refuses to comprehend the 'keep the game going and worry later' concept.

This totally breaks down when you have players that willy nilly try to parse the rules in order to change spell and combat mechanics in ways that benefit their characters. My group does this all the time and is part of the reason why I'm glad I'm leaving town at the end of the summer. They don't know the rules as well as they should, but they like to skim spell descriptions and then come up with "physics based" reasons for why the spell shouldn't affect them or the DC should be lower. For example, an NPC opponent casts "control winds" and blasts our party with hurricane force winds. Some of the players then begin to whine that they should not be affected by the spell because they're next to a wall and the wind speed would naturally be lower in that case. This is all well and good, but who has the time to do a 3-D mesh in order to calculate what the actual wind speed would be? It used to be that this kinda stuff would amuse me, and were I the DM, I'd give them a slight bonus on their save or what not. Now days, it strikes me as the kind of behavior that gamers behave in when their character builds and gaming abilities suck, and they have to fall back on hand-waving to stay alive. It totally bogs the game down and can lead to a lot of really heated discussions that can result in bad blood between players.

So yeah, some rules arguments are silly and shouldn't be dropped, but some require going to the mattresses, or finding new groups to play with.

 

[Caeleddin]

Interesting.


KarinsDad said almost EXACTLY what I said with regards to DMs thinking they are Gods and what our "ideal" DMs should NOT do.
Even more interesting is that there is an "ignore" function on these boards.

 

[boredgremlin]

Wow i have been reading this thread for like an hour and i am still not done. Anyway i felt the need to weigh in before finishing. I agree with both storm raven (in some ways) and with celebrim (in some ways). They both took thier viewpoint to the extreme in this debate though, somehow i doudt either one of them actually plays the way it might look like they do.

Anyway for me its like this.
I have DMed for about 9 years now, AD&D, 3.0,3.5, gurps, starwars, spycraft and one totally homebrewed game that ran for 2 campaigns.

I just started a new heavily house ruled 3.5 game. We use the grim and gritty rules variant and quite a few of my own variants and house rules as well. Right off the bat i told my players that this game is a mix of a several systems and my own ideas. I printed out the grim and gritties variant and gave it to them. Altered to reflect some of my changes. And i changed the weapon and armor table on excel, printed that out and gave it to them when they were buying thier gear in the first session. It stays on the game table the whole time. Some skills were changed and new ones added. I havent finished writing those up the way i want to yet but i explained most of the changes. Spell casters can allways sense magic. Arcane casters can sense the basic location of spells, thier school and relative strength. Divine casters can sense energies like light/dark/holy/demonic magic and emotional resonances (sadness, rage, loss, joy etc). Psychics can sense powerfull emotional resonances and even see visions of what caused them sometimes. All totally non core, but i like the feel. Warriors can get a general idea of how good a martial opponent is (rookie, experianced, veteran, master etc).
All other things are basically unknown to them.
1) Feats// Feats are specail skills resulting from specialized practice. Players dont know exactly how they work until they take them. Then i explain the feat, let them edit it some and maybe swap it out if they dont like it. But that does not mean they know how it works for other PC's or NPC's. One mans endurance isnt necesarily another mans endurance. As long as the power is balanced out thats why all that matters.
2) combat// Work like spycraft. 2 actions. move and attack, move and move. attack and attack ect. I explain this in the start but all the ramifications usually dont become clear until a few battles into the game.
3) totally different masterwork system. Too much to go into here but the players get a handout of options.
4) magic// players dont know jack. Even wizards have no clue how specific spells are gonna work for someone else. In my game magic is highly personalized, each wizards spells are slightly different even if they have the same name. This means i let my players tinker with thier spells some but so can the enemies.
The wizard wouldnt know how the others guys blink would work and so has no reasonable expectation of anything in particular happening. And has no right at all to throw any spell description at me. Thats like a player thinking he has a pretty good chance to hit an orc and then whining when that orc turns out to have a ring of protection and an 18 DEX. So you expected something to happen? So what. Sometimes **** doesnt work out the way we think it will, deal and move on.
5) Logic trumps all// If something makes sense in the real world then it makes sense in game and it works. I like heavy reality in my fantasy. The players know that and they know that waiving a book at me does nothing for them. But a logical argument as to why it should work might get me to change my mind.
6) nothing is more important then a good story// But we all share in that story. I am happy to bend rules, make up new ones, change interpretions and fudge dice rolls to move the story forward. I tell the players that too.
So in closing they know the hard and fast rules of basic combat. Eg thier attack bonus is this #a+#b+#c+ random #'s for different situations (elevation, flanking, visibility etc). They know what the weapons damage is what the armors soak is, everytime.
However they do not know how specail situations will work. Like charging around a corner, down a hill, missile weapons in the rain or dark etc. This stuff is too situational to have any hard and fast rules. The RAW has a few, but to be honest i feel about half the rules in the raw are either stupid, unrealistic or just dont blend together well.
Here we go then, i sort of aggree with both styles? Lol so am i "stalinist dictator DM", a "rules lawyer DM" or anything else offensive you guys can think up?

 

[Hypersmurf]

So in closing they know the hard and fast rules of basic combat.

However they do not know how specail situations will work. Like charging around a corner, down a hill, missile weapons in the rain or dark etc.

Shouldn't a 6th level archer know how rain affects his shooting, though?

-Hyp.

 

[pogre]

Sticking to the analogy (though I agree it isn't a great one), the rule of criminal enforcement is that you can error on the side of the alleged offender, but you cannot err on the side of a more stringent law. In other words, you could let someone off for stopping only 3 seconds under a 5 second law, but you cannot charge someone with the offense of not stopping for 5 seconds if the law says it is 3 seconds.

Similarly, if a law changes to make a penalty harsher, the harsher penalty cannot apply retroactively to a person who committed a crime under the prior law. However, if a law changes to become more lenient, it can often be used to reduce a penalty already applied to a person who committed a crime under the prior law. This basic legal concept is enbodied in the Ex Post Facto Clause(s) of the US Constitution, and encompass "[e]very law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed." (sorry for the actual legalise - my lawyer side is coming out). Ex Post Facto is a legal issue of fairness that is found in virtually every Democratic nation on the planet.

Making this more about D&D - I think a DM should either stick to the rules as written plus the previously announced house rules, OR (at their option) a more player-favoravble version of the rule on the fly. However, the DM should not change the rules on the fly in a less player-favorable manner. Changing rules without notice concerning an ability, a spell, an action, an inaction, or similar choice previously made by the player should never go to the detriment of a player.

Informed choice is a basic concept of the D&D player. If you take away some of that informed choice, you are taking away an essential role of the player and making it more of a role for the DM. Even worse, it violates a basic issue of fairness that's pretty universally accepted around the world (the concept of no ex post facto rulings).

Exactly how I handle it. If I'm not sure I make a ruling in the player's favor. Must be the lawyer in us, eh Mist?

BTW - I've never had a heated rules argument in a D&D game. I must be a pushover

 

[boredgremlin]

Shouldn't a 6th level archer know how rain affects his shooting, though?

-Hyp.

Well it depends on his climate. An arab archer for instance probably wouldnt get a lot of practice at shooting in the rain. I like dramatic backdrops though so since this campaign is in a wet enviroment they will by then. Its gonna use anything from a -2 to -4, and then i will also be using the rules from the core books on how wind affects shots and stacking them since its often windy when its raining.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I like dramatic backdrops though so since this campaign is in a wet enviroment they will by then.

I don't mean by trying it in a rainy combat in-game, and being told "You miss - by the way, I'm using a rule that gives a -4 on bowshots in the rain. Next!"

I mean as a part of his back-story and training... if the player says "Will there be any penalty, since it's raining, if I take a shot at the ogre?", the answer is "Yeah, -4", rather than "Try it and find out," since the character has been using his bow since he turned 12, and it's a wet environment. He already knows.

Or even "I take a shot at the ogre." "You realise, there'll be a -4 penalty because of the rain?"

I don't have a problem with that. The player was not aware of the rule; the character is familiar with the effects of rain, though, so the DM allows the player to change his mind after being informed of the unfamiliar rule.

There's a big difference between that, and "Your magic missile misses - I've changed the rules for Blink. Next!" It should have been, IMO, "Before you cast Magic Missile - you should be aware, I'll be imposing a 20% miss chance, despite the fact that Magic Missile is a force effect that 'strikes unerringly'. Still wanna cast it?"

-Hyp.