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Maxwell's Silver Hammer: On Spells, Design, and the feeling of Sameyness in 5e
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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 7917712" data-attributes="member: 87792"><p>And this basically means that the only DMs that should happen are railroad DMs.</p><p></p><p>When running it is entirely <em>normal </em>that my players are going to take a look at the situation and head off in a direction that I do not expect. In order to follow your guideline I would have to have memorized <em>every ability of every monster both in the the hexcrawl sandbox and the three possible dungeons. </em>I literally couldn't run a sandbox with spellcasting monsters the way you propose.</p><p></p><p>Also I have in the past two sessions revolutionised the experience of two of my new players by rewriting their character sheets. They look a lot uglier now - but by putting the actual spell rules onto the spell part of their character sheets they are no longer flicking between spell cards and getting confused about what their spells actually do. And no, I don't blame the players here - I blame the game and blame myself for not stepping in earlier.</p><p></p><p>That sauce you want to apply has been kept unsealed and unrefrigerated for weeks, and I don't want to risk food poisoning for anyone. Character sheets and monster statblocks alike should be written so you don't have to look things up in other sources.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 7917712, member: 87792"] And this basically means that the only DMs that should happen are railroad DMs. When running it is entirely [I]normal [/I]that my players are going to take a look at the situation and head off in a direction that I do not expect. In order to follow your guideline I would have to have memorized [I]every ability of every monster both in the the hexcrawl sandbox and the three possible dungeons. [/I]I literally couldn't run a sandbox with spellcasting monsters the way you propose. Also I have in the past two sessions revolutionised the experience of two of my new players by rewriting their character sheets. They look a lot uglier now - but by putting the actual spell rules onto the spell part of their character sheets they are no longer flicking between spell cards and getting confused about what their spells actually do. And no, I don't blame the players here - I blame the game and blame myself for not stepping in earlier. That sauce you want to apply has been kept unsealed and unrefrigerated for weeks, and I don't want to risk food poisoning for anyone. Character sheets and monster statblocks alike should be written so you don't have to look things up in other sources. [/QUOTE]
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Maxwell's Silver Hammer: On Spells, Design, and the feeling of Sameyness in 5e
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