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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7484706" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>That's an interesting viewpoint. RPG rules simulate an imaginary reality. Simulations are necessarily incomplete, the only question being where you draw the line? In that context, a critical enabler of RPG is the rule-generating-DM, who can continuously fill out the world as players explore it. This has been the case for every edition of D&D: 5e has not pulled off the remarkable feat of being the only edition of D&D to be incomplete.</p><p></p><p>It is the shared rules that tell us we are playing D&D. We agree that a DM can alter or ignore rules. We don't agree that this makes the rules in some sense less important or at fault. In many places the rules are clear and almost universally accepted. In some places they are incomplete, sometimes deliberately. In other places they are ambiguous or contradictory. Those latter are not deliberate: the designers intended to express clear meanings. That is why they publish Errata and Sage Advice. What the designers did not intend to do is cover every conceivable case.</p><p></p><p>Jumping is a good example of an incomplete rule, not a vague one. RAW is clear on how far a character can usually jump, and incomplete on how far a character can unusually jump. RAW is not incomplete as to offering an injunction to set a DC, and rules about how to set one, but it does not detail what distance should relate to what DC. We know that "most people" can manage a DC 5, and that a "low-level character" should struggle to make a DC 25... which in this context doesn't seem especially helpful. Vexing as it is, there is nothing vague about an absence of information.</p><p></p><p>I imagine that we are both prepared to admit that there are rules: they're things that exist. Maybe I misunderstand what you want to say: you're saying that because a DM can choose to alter or ignore a rule, that rule <em>becomes</em> vague. Is that really right?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 7484706, member: 71699"] That's an interesting viewpoint. RPG rules simulate an imaginary reality. Simulations are necessarily incomplete, the only question being where you draw the line? In that context, a critical enabler of RPG is the rule-generating-DM, who can continuously fill out the world as players explore it. This has been the case for every edition of D&D: 5e has not pulled off the remarkable feat of being the only edition of D&D to be incomplete. It is the shared rules that tell us we are playing D&D. We agree that a DM can alter or ignore rules. We don't agree that this makes the rules in some sense less important or at fault. In many places the rules are clear and almost universally accepted. In some places they are incomplete, sometimes deliberately. In other places they are ambiguous or contradictory. Those latter are not deliberate: the designers intended to express clear meanings. That is why they publish Errata and Sage Advice. What the designers did not intend to do is cover every conceivable case. Jumping is a good example of an incomplete rule, not a vague one. RAW is clear on how far a character can usually jump, and incomplete on how far a character can unusually jump. RAW is not incomplete as to offering an injunction to set a DC, and rules about how to set one, but it does not detail what distance should relate to what DC. We know that "most people" can manage a DC 5, and that a "low-level character" should struggle to make a DC 25... which in this context doesn't seem especially helpful. Vexing as it is, there is nothing vague about an absence of information. I imagine that we are both prepared to admit that there are rules: they're things that exist. Maybe I misunderstand what you want to say: you're saying that because a DM can choose to alter or ignore a rule, that rule [I]becomes[/I] vague. Is that really right? [/QUOTE]
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