Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Literal reading vs common sense - which should take precedence?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="DM_Blake" data-source="post: 4419212" data-attributes="member: 57267"><p>This works only if you assume that you will always game with just the people at your table.</p><p> </p><p>Allowing for things like people moving away, you moving away, you playing at a convention, you deciding you want to play in two games each week but your regular group doesn't, or any other change in the situation, we can assume that sometime in the future, it's very likely that you'll be sitting at a table with a group that includes some people who are not at your current table today.</p><p> </p><p>Which means you will repeatedly need to rehash the "common sense" arguments over and over, each time you have a new face at your table.</p><p> </p><p>And, as seems to be suggested by this thread, it's likely that some of those new faces at the table might have a different "common sense" than yours.</p><p> </p><p>Which will cause friction, debates, even arguments. Unfortunately, it's hard to change people's common sense (I guess it's not really all that "common" is it?).</p><p> </p><p>So, when this friction arises, and the difficulty of changing the new person's common sense results in a stand-off, the general solution is the DM says "well, since we can't find a 'common' ground, I'll just make a ruling and forevermore this rule is interpreted thusly..."</p><p> </p><p>Which inevitably results in one of the dissenters being unhappy with the ruling.</p><p> </p><p>Which undermines the "fun" - wasn't "fun" one of the cornerstone 4e principles?</p><p> </p><p>All of that is a round-about path that gets us back to a principle of game design that I'd like to see more of in 4e, specifically, less is NOT more. Provide more rules. Provide clarifications. Avoid ambiguities. Make the rules as clear and concise and complete as possible. Eliminate any and all rules or rule conflicts that call for individual player interpretation.</p><p> </p><p>Sure, I know that no game will ever achieve this 100%, but I do believe it should be a goal of good game design.</p><p> </p><p>I'm hoping that as the months go by, WotC is compiling a very comprehensive list of issues and providing solutions for them that will be publicly available and downloadable as official rules corrections, changes, and errata - they've already made a small inroad to this; I'm hoping to see that become an errata superhighway.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DM_Blake, post: 4419212, member: 57267"] This works only if you assume that you will always game with just the people at your table. Allowing for things like people moving away, you moving away, you playing at a convention, you deciding you want to play in two games each week but your regular group doesn't, or any other change in the situation, we can assume that sometime in the future, it's very likely that you'll be sitting at a table with a group that includes some people who are not at your current table today. Which means you will repeatedly need to rehash the "common sense" arguments over and over, each time you have a new face at your table. And, as seems to be suggested by this thread, it's likely that some of those new faces at the table might have a different "common sense" than yours. Which will cause friction, debates, even arguments. Unfortunately, it's hard to change people's common sense (I guess it's not really all that "common" is it?). So, when this friction arises, and the difficulty of changing the new person's common sense results in a stand-off, the general solution is the DM says "well, since we can't find a 'common' ground, I'll just make a ruling and forevermore this rule is interpreted thusly..." Which inevitably results in one of the dissenters being unhappy with the ruling. Which undermines the "fun" - wasn't "fun" one of the cornerstone 4e principles? All of that is a round-about path that gets us back to a principle of game design that I'd like to see more of in 4e, specifically, less is NOT more. Provide more rules. Provide clarifications. Avoid ambiguities. Make the rules as clear and concise and complete as possible. Eliminate any and all rules or rule conflicts that call for individual player interpretation. Sure, I know that no game will ever achieve this 100%, but I do believe it should be a goal of good game design. I'm hoping that as the months go by, WotC is compiling a very comprehensive list of issues and providing solutions for them that will be publicly available and downloadable as official rules corrections, changes, and errata - they've already made a small inroad to this; I'm hoping to see that become an errata superhighway. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Literal reading vs common sense - which should take precedence?
Top