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<blockquote data-quote="Kobold Boots" data-source="post: 7760472" data-attributes="member: 92239">I think that whenever someone posts bluntly they run the risk of leaving what they're saying open to interpretation.&nbsp; Mike's a human first, game designer later and I don't hold the WoTC team to any standard of communication beyond where I would be if I was annoyed by something.&nbsp; At some point it's on me whether or not I want to take him in a negative light.My opinion is that the 3.5 and Pathfinder grouping of games has a lot more area where the DM needs to interpret things, and a lot more reading to be fluent in the game system such that the DM needs to manage expectations of his or her players as to how things will be judged and how rules will interact with each other in niche cases.&nbsp; Because most DMs don't have the time or the inclination to read everything, create a spreadsheet, do the math and figure out the balances ahead of time.. should they run in to or be a &quot;difficult player&quot; it makes the game less enjoyable and straddles the DM with a decision to not run things &quot;by the book&quot; with less emphasis on their right to &quot;do it the way you want&quot;.Now were I running a game company (FWIW I love crunchy systems) I would not write a crunchy system without a long chapter on game balance and mechanics theory aimed at the DM such that they knew one of the things they had to do was come up with their own &quot;how my world works&quot; document and &quot;players agree to&quot; document.&nbsp; This is so far away from &quot;lets just play a module on Friday night&quot;&nbsp; that I see exactly where Mike's coming from.KB</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kobold Boots, post: 7760472, member: 92239"] I think that whenever someone posts bluntly they run the risk of leaving what they're saying open to interpretation. Mike's a human first, game designer later and I don't hold the WoTC team to any standard of communication beyond where I would be if I was annoyed by something. At some point it's on me whether or not I want to take him in a negative light. My opinion is that the 3.5 and Pathfinder grouping of games has a lot more area where the DM needs to interpret things, and a lot more reading to be fluent in the game system such that the DM needs to manage expectations of his or her players as to how things will be judged and how rules will interact with each other in niche cases. Because most DMs don't have the time or the inclination to read everything, create a spreadsheet, do the math and figure out the balances ahead of time.. should they run in to or be a "difficult player" it makes the game less enjoyable and straddles the DM with a decision to not run things "by the book" with less emphasis on their right to "do it the way you want". Now were I running a game company (FWIW I love crunchy systems) I would not write a crunchy system without a long chapter on game balance and mechanics theory aimed at the DM such that they knew one of the things they had to do was come up with their own "how my world works" document and "players agree to" document. This is so far away from "lets just play a module on Friday night" that I see exactly where Mike's coming from. KB [/QUOTE]

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