D&D 5E On rulings, rules, and Twitter, or: How Sage Advice Changed

[Parmandur]

Heh... I wouldn't even necessarily say that, because Mike made no bones about it when he made his own comments on Twitter. He always said that this is how HE would do it in that instance, but that if you wanted "official" rules clarification, you'd need to ask Jeremy. He never claimed his choices were official or correct in any way, shape, or form.

He was actually doing people a service by making plain the fact that it should always be your own choice on how to make a ruling, not divining for some god-result from on high.

True, but the moment he was out of the picture, Crawford changed the rules of engagement.

 

[overgeeked]

The game is seven years old at this point, and middle schoolers are successfully getting into the game.

Some middle schoolers can grok GURPS and Rolemaster while some adults with master's degrees bounce off those systems hard. What's your point?

The "rules arguments" that I see on the Internet (because I don't see anything more than a quick brush to read the rule again in person, compared to the nightmare that sprung up anytime someone attempted to grapple in 3.x, even though it came up often for our group) are about odd corner cases mainly, and easily resolved.

Sure. And it would be even more easily resolved if the designers would have written the game in clear and precise language.

I would say that 5E has succeeded in being clear, while still maintaining wiggle room for DMs to build their own game.

The constant rules questions and the ever-present ambiguity in the rules suggests otherwise.

 

[Parmandur]

Some middle schoolers can grok GURPS and Rolemaster while some adults with master's degrees bounce off those systems hard. What's your point?

Sure. And it would be even more easily resolved if the designers would have written the game in clear and precise language.

The constant rules questions and the ever-present ambiguity in the rules suggests otherwise.

My point is, children understand the rules. The bar of sufficient clarity has been met. The language is precise enough for the purpose intended.

The rules questions seem far less constant than in previous editions, and the answers are usually either already clear in the text or common sense applications of the basic principles of the system.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I agree, but I think that discussion of balance not needing to be as tight as a lot of DMs worry it does would have been far more valuable than the straight answer.

I disagree. He won't convince DMs in general that they could allow one player to play a gestalt fighter|wizard, another to use feats and MC, while another just plays a simple single classed character, and the game won't break. It's true, but you can't convince people of it who are convinced already that tight balance is required.

What you can do, is ease someone's worry on a particular issue, by pointing out that the thing they're worried about is actually working precisely as intended.

Some middle schoolers can grok GURPS and Rolemaster while some adults with master's degrees bounce off those systems hard. What's your point?

The rules cannot reasonably be called difficult to understand if people of all ages are able to easily understand them.

Sure. And it would be even more easily resolved if the designers would have written the game in clear and precise language.

Probably not, since most of them are cases of people just failing to actually read the rules. The same thing happened in 4e, where the rules where very clear and precise, even in cases where there was no rational room for secondary interpretation, because people see what they want to see.

The constant rules questions and the ever-present ambiguity in the rules suggests otherwise.

Not really. Primarily, because I think you'd have to back up the idea that these questions are at all "constant" or that ambiguity is "ever-present".

Secondarily, I don't think that the questions and occasional ambiguity do suggest against the claim that 5e succeeds in being clear enough to sit down and play while leaving room for interpretation. Most people aren't on twitter asking Crawford questions.

I don't have the tools to confirm or falsify this, but if I did, I would be willing to bet significant money that the amount of online traffic about dnd that is rules questions is enormously outwieghed by the traffic that is just people talking about their last session, their homebrew and houserules, their OCs, their favorite actual play, making jokes about class stereotypes, and other non-rules-questions related content.

Most groups find something that could go either way, someone notes what seems obvious to them as the best way to run it, and that becomes how that group runs it. Hell, that happens with rules that don't really have multiple ways they could go, because people don't most people don't care about RAW they just want to have fun.

And because the rules don't get nitty gritty with every last thing, and aren't written in legalese, people feel much more empowered to just play the game how they want.

 

[overgeeked]

My point is, children understand the rules. The bar of sufficient clarity has been met. The language is precise enough for the purpose intended.

Some children do. Some adults do not. That's not a bar, that's the typically "veiled" insult of "well, kids can understand it, so what's wrong with you?" I know adults who simply cannot comprehend RPGs, doesn't mean kids who do are smarter than them. I know adults who bounce off basic math, doesn't mean kids who are doing advance math are smarter than them. Better at math, yes. Smarter, no.

The rules questions seem far less constant than in previous editions

Better than does no equal good.

and the answers are usually either already clear in the text

Clear to some, not others. Obviously.

or common sense applications of the basic principles of the system.

Again, common sense isn't so common. Common sense dictates that any kind of life-threatening situation is by definition not restful, yet people are pretending that it's "common sense" that you can maintain restful sleep through 59 minutes and 59 seconds of combat...but adding in one extra second of life-threatening mayhem is clearly the "common sense" dividing line.

 

[Parmandur]

Some children do. Some adults do not. That's not a bar, that's the typically "veiled" insult of "well, kids can understand it, so what's wrong with you?"

Better than does no equal good.

Clear to some, not others. Obviously.

Again, common sense isn't so common. Common sense dictates that any kind of life-threatening situation is by definition not restful, yet people are pretending that it's "common sense" that you can maintain restful sleep through 59 minutes and 59 seconds of combat...but adding in one extra second of life-threatening mayhem is clearly the "common sense" dividing line.

How many adults do you know who have read the 5E rules and struggle to understand them...? Not a veiled put-down, I really haven't experienced that in the past 7 years.

"Good" in this case is relative: the game is being played by record numbers of people across a wide demographic swathe, without noticeable friction. So 5E did not prioritize a technical writing approach, but that was a design intention, one that has succeeded with players and hence proven profitable to the corporation. There is not a Platonic Ideal of "game book" that they failed to live up to here, nor did they fail at what they set out to do. They settled on certain design choices. They worked as designed.

 

[Campbell]

I often find the rules difficult to parse. I have been gaming for more than 20 years and work as a software developer. Compared to Old School Essentials, Apocalypse World, Worlds Without Number, and even Pathfinder Second Edition I find the writing style really frustrating to deal with. Particularly the choice to describe things in text that are much easier described through templating and graphic design.

Thank goodness for D&D Beyond. Without it I probably would not play 5e.

 

[Parmandur]

I often find the rules difficult to parse. I have been gaming for more than 20 years and work as a software developer. Compared to Old School Essentials, Apocalypse World, Worlds Without Number, and even Pathfinder Second Edition I find the writing style really frustrating to deal with. Particularly the choice to describe things in text that are much easier described through templating and graphic design.

Thank goodness for D&D Beyond. Without it I probably would not play 5e.

Go figure, that goes completely against my observations of people interacting with the rules. At least the tools to help clarify are out there.

 

[overgeeked]

How many adults do you know who have read the 5E rules and struggle to understand them...? Not a veiled put-down, I really haven't experienced that in the past 7 years.

Two people in my gaming group. One somehow read that the monks extra attacks were off-hand attacks so they didn't qualify for the ability mod damage of most attacks. Kept talking about taking a feat or multiclassing into ranger to get two-weapon fighting...just to get the ability mod damage on those extra attacks. Normally a really smart person, but just bounced off that particular rule. The other was playing a cleric and for the life of him could not understand why it wasn't listed anywhere how many cantrips he could cast in a day. Again, otherwise smart person...just bounced off that rule.

"Good" in this case is relative: the game is being played by record numbers of people across a wide demographic swathe, without noticeable friction.

Yet here we are. Arguing about how easy it is to read the rules and how official JC's tweets on rules clarifications are. I'd say that's not only friction, but quite noticeable.

So 5E did not prioritize a technical writing approach, but that was a design intention, one that has succeeded with players...

Some players. As evidenced by this thread and all the others like it, and the existence of Sage Advice, etc.

and hence proven profitable to the corporation.

Sales and popularity do not equate to quality of the product.

There is not a Platonic Ideal of "game book" that they failed to live up to here, nor did they fail at what they set out to do. They settled on certain design choices. They worked as designed.

Right. I agree. They settled on writing a reference book as if it were a coffee table book, then are "surprised" that some people have trouble understanding what they wrote in their reference book. I'm not saying they didn't succeed at their design goal, I'm saying their design goal was flawed. The goal of a reference book and rulebook for a game are clarity and precision. They threw that out, and in my thinking, threw the baby out with the bathwater. Technical writing doesn't have to be hard to read or a chore. Bad technical writing is hard to read and a chore.

 

[Parmandur]

Two people in my gaming group. One somehow read that the monks extra attacks were off-hand attacks so they didn't qualify for the ability mod damage of most attacks. Kept talking about taking a feat or multiclassing into ranger to get two-weapon fighting...just to get the ability mod damage on those extra attacks. Normally a really smart person, but just bounced off that particular rule. The other was playing a cleric and for the life of him could not understand why it wasn't listed anywhere how many cantrips he could cast in a day. Again, otherwise smart person...just bounced off that rule.

Yet here we are. Arguing about how easy it is to read the rules and how official JC's tweets on rules clarifications are. I'd say that's not only friction, but quite noticeable.

Some players. As evidenced by this thread and all the others like it, and the existence of Sage Advice, etc.

Sales and popularity do not equate to quality of the product.

Right. I agree. They settled on writing a reference book as if it were a coffee table book, then are "surprised" that some people have trouble understanding what they wrote in their reference book. I'm not saying they didn't succeed at their design goal, I'm saying their design goal was flawed. The goal of a reference book and rulebook for a game are clarity and precision. They threw that out, and in my thinking, threw the baby out with the bathwater. Technical writing doesn't have to be hard to read or a chore. Bad technical writing is hard to read and a chore.

Again, go figure. Those confusions from your experience seem like they were cleared up quickly, though, which is why it is good that something like Sage Advice exists to hep people out if they happen to need that sort of help.

The percentage of online chatter that is rules confusion is very, very low from what I can see. I see more drawings of peoples characters than rules questions, and the questions that come up have clear answers at hand.

Sales and popularity are the only reasonable measures of quality for a game book that I can think of. "Clarity" is, obviously, too subjective to measure.