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

[Xetheral]

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

I would agree that overall the rules are sufficiently clear. That doesn't stop the exceptions from becoming recurring topics of debate or confusion.

For example, as explictly noted by JC, the meaning of "melee weapon attack" hinges on the lack of a hyphen between "melee" and "weapon". He's entirely correct on that point, but for a reader to be able to understand the intended meaning of "melee weapon attack" three conditions must be met:

1. The reader must be familiar with the rules for hyphenating compound adjectives.
2. The reader must be willing to assume that the designers correctly used the rules for hyphenating compound adjectives.
3. The reader must be willing to assume that the designers were willing to let the meaning of a rule hinge on the presence of absence of a single hyphen.

If any of those conditions aren't met, the reader cannot unambiguously determine that "melee weapon attack" refers to a "melee attack with a weapon" rather than an "attack with a melee weapon". And since that distinction is critical for throwing weapons, this particular point of confusion tends to come up with regularity for any new player who wants to make a character who throws knives or javelins.

If the rules has been written more carefully, the writers might have realized that having a rule hinge on a presence or absence of a single hyphen is not a recipe for clarity (especially in casual writing, but also in formal writing). Instead, we have a rulebook that claims to be written casually, where the writers deliberately chose to nevertheless condition full understanding on the minutae of the compound adjective rules. (And we know it's deliberate, thanks to JC's explanation in the SAC.)

So sure, it's generally pretty good, but the exceptions caused by the inconsistent use of casual and technical language can be both recurrent and frustrating.

 

[Parmandur]

I would agree that overall the rules are sufficiently clear. That doesn't stop the exceptions from becoming recurring topics of debate or confusion.

For example, as explictly noted by JC, the meaning of "melee weapon attack" hinges on the lack of a hyphen between "melee" and "weapon". He's entirely correct on that point, but for a reader to be able to understand the intended meaning of "melee weapon attack" three conditions must be met:

1. The reader must be familiar with the rules for hyphenating compound adjectives.
2. The reader must be willing to assume that the designers correctly used the rules for hyphenating compound adjectives.
3. The reader must be willing to assume that the designers were willing to let the meaning of a rule hinge on the presence of absence of a single hyphen.

If any of those conditions aren't met, the reader cannot unambiguously determine that "melee weapon attack" refers to a "melee attack with a weapon" rather than an "attack with a melee weapon". And since that distinction is critical for throwing weapons, this particular point of confusion tends to come up with regularity for any new player who wants to make a character who throws knives or javelins.

If the rules has been written more carefully, the writers might have realized that having a rule hinge on a presence or absence of a single hyphen is not a recipe for clarity (especially in casual writing, but also in formal writing). Instead, we have a rulebook that claims to be written casually, where the writers deliberately chose to nevertheless condition full understanding on the minutae of the compound adjective rules. (And we know it's deliberate, thanks to JC's explanation in the SAC.)

So sure, it's generally pretty good, but the exceptions caused by the inconsistent use of casual and technical language can be both recurrent and frustrating.

The nice thing about the feedback loop the designers have going is, the next go around they will have a very clear idea of how to tighten up the rules.

Honestly never had the melee weapon thing come up in play.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

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

I completely agree with you.

But I think the problem is that many people aren't grappling with your earlier idea- that rulebooks do, in fact, serve multiple purposes, and that there is no single "best way" for the rules to be written given that there are multiple goals.

Imagine, for example, you are writing a cookbook. There are innumerable ways to think about the topic- do you want people to actually read the whole thing? Do you want them to buy it? Do you want them to use it? Do you want them to get a visceral sense of pleasure when perusing it? What is the basic level of knowledge that you will expect people to have when they engage with the recipes- for example, do you need to tell them what "boil water" means? What about "finely chop?"

Depending on the goal of the cookbook, one approach might be to create a sumptuous, full-color cookbook that has recipes interspersed with gorgeous pictures of the dishes and locations as well as stories interlinking the recipes. Another approach might be a simple, black and white, recitation of recipes. Still another might be recipes, put together in a "learning curve" for cook that are aspiring to learn.

None of these is the perfect cookbook, and all of them have advantages.

I have to admit, though, that I am truly baffled by the people complaining about the opacity of 5e's rules. Given the sales of 5e (which is an objective measure), and given my anecdotal experience seeing clubs sprout up at the middle-school and high school level locally, I am having a great deal of difficulty understanding why the veritable grognards of this forum are complaining that it is too difficult to understand.

Perhaps if it was written in High Gygaxian it might be easier to parse?

 

[Campbell]

@Parmandur

Would you also argue that Vampire - The Masquerade had clear, concise rules because there was not much discussion of the rules online? It also had high sales, cultural cache, attracted nontraditional gamers who mostly ignored the rules, and was a dense archaic mess with poor formatting.

5e is a game is considerably more functional game, but the text shares similar issues to early World of Darkness material. I like the actual game. I just want a better text.

 

[Parmandur]

I completely agree with you.

But I think the problem is that many people aren't grappling with your earlier idea- that rulebooks do, in fact, serve multiple purposes, and that there is no single "best way" for the rules to be written given that there are multiple goals.

Imagine, for example, you are writing a cookbook. There are innumerable ways to think about the topic- do you want people to actually read the whole thing? Do you want them to buy it? Do you want them to use it? Do you want them to get a visceral sense of pleasure when perusing it? What is the basic level of knowledge that you will expect people to have when they engage with the recipes- for example, do you need to tell them what "boil water" means? What about "finely chop?"

Depending on the goal of the cookbook, one approach might be to create a sumptuous, full-color cookbook that has recipes interspersed with gorgeous pictures of the dishes and locations as well as stories interlinking the recipes. Another approach might be a simple, black and white, recitation of recipes. Still another might be recipes, put together in a "learning curve" for cook that are aspiring to learn.

None of these is the perfect cookbook, and all of them have advantages.

I have to admit, though, that I am truly baffled by the people complaining about the opacity of 5e's rules. Given the sales of 5e (which is an objective measure), and given my anecdotal experience seeing clubs sprout up at the middle-school and high school level locally, I am having a great deal of difficulty understanding why the veritable grognards of this forum are complaining that it is too difficult to understand.

Perhaps if it was written in High Gygaxian it might be easier to parse?

Well said.

I think the 5E style leans more towards Gygaxian, actually, just...more readable. I think the "5E has rules clarity issues" folks are actually more WotC Edition players, not 1E players. Might be wrong, though.

 

[Parmandur]

@Parmandur

Would you also argue that Vampire - The Masquerade had clear, concise rules because there was not much discussion of the rules online? It also had high sales, cultural cache, attracted nontraditional gamers who mostly ignored the rules, and was a dense archaic mess with poor formatting.

5e is a game is considerably more functional game, but the text shares similar issues to early World of Darkness material. I like the actual game. I just want a better text.

I have literally zero familiarity with the World of Darkness (before my time, and not my scene). My only point of reference is the Critical Role two-shot that Taliesen Jaffe ran, and it seemed pretty straightforward from an at-the-table play perspective.

 

[overgeeked]

Again, go figure. Those confusions from your experience seem like they were cleared up quickly

Five levels of once a month play. 1st through 5th. The monk/ranger character mentioned they'd finally started getting decent damage because of the two-weapon fighting thing...so we had a moment as a group. We all assumed they just rolled really low damage all the time. The cleric kept casting their leveled spells, go straight to melee, and never cast a single cantrip. We all assumed they just would rather mix it up than cast cantrips. The player eventually got frustrated and blurted out something about "how many !@#$% cantrips can I cast in a day!?"...so we had a moment as a group. Both smart adults. Both with years of gaming experience.

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.

Clearly written rules would be infinitely better.

The percentage of online chatter that is rules confusion is very, very low from what I can see.

Your sight is limited. And, just out of curiosity, what generally happens to people who are wrong on the internet?

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.

There is not measure of quality. Quality is subjective. Sales are objective. Sales are not a measure of quality. Quality is too subjective to measure. Clarity is not all that subjective.

 

[Parmandur]

Five levels of once a month play. 1st through 5th. The monk/ranger character mentioned they'd finally started getting decent damage because of the two-weapon fighting thing...so we had a moment as a group. We all assumed they just rolled really low damage all the time. The cleric kept casting their leveled spells, go straight to melee, and never cast a single cantrip. We all assumed they just would rather mix it up than cast cantrips. The player eventually got frustrated and blurted out something about "how many !@#$% cantrips can I cast in a day!?"...so we had a moment as a group. Both smart adults. Both with years of gaming experience.

Clearly written rules would be infinitely better.

Your sight is limited. And, just out of curiosity, what generally happens to people who are wrong on the internet?

There is not measure of quality. Quality is subjective. Sales are objective. Sales are not a measure of quality. Quality is too subjective to measure. Clarity is not all that subjective.

Quality cannot be measured because it is not quantity, yes. Sales are a measure of people's reactions to a quality, however. Especially long term sales.

 

[overgeeked]

Well said.

I think the 5E style leans more towards Gygaxian, actually, just...more readable. I think the "5E has rules clarity issues" folks are actually more WotC Edition players, not 1E players. Might be wrong, though.

You are. I've played D&D since 1984. Just because we made it through the word salad that was 1E doesn't mean we should idolize or try to emulate that nightmare.

 

[Parmandur]

You are. I've played D&D since 1984. Just because we made it through the word salad that was 1E doesn't mean we should idolize or try to emulate that nightmare.

Fair enough, shame on me for assuming. Though, as someone who started in 3.x, I have found it fun to get old 1E books and read them for fun and application in 5E. Can't say the same for more "clear" rule books.