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

[Emerikol]

For a time Crawford's tweets were considered "official rulings," since he was the rules guru, which was an idiotic nightmare. No one overrules the DM at the table, not even the books themselves. A bad DM should find themselves with few or no players, making such "official" rulings irrelevant. A good DM can use rulings to make them work for a fun experience, regardless of RAW (a concept I've hated since it first appeared).

This.

As DM, all rules are subject to interpretation and adjudication. A perfect example was that darkness spell fiasco. Enough bad rulings and you are out of a job but until that moment your word is final.

 

[abirdcall]

In my experience non-hobby gamers (I'm defining as people who haven't played anything heavier than Settlers of Catan) have a fine time understanding the rulebooks. I am sure this is a big part of why it has many millions of players.

Also in my experience both in person and online I've found that players that come from 3e have the hardest time understanding the rules.

I don't think this is a coincidence and I don't think it is a fault of the way the rules were written that they aren't catered to people who liked a particular game.

Having people who aren't hobby gamers understand a heavy hobby game is a great feat of rules writing.

 

[Parmandur]

In my experience non-hobby gamers (I'm defining as people who haven't played anything heavier than Settlers of Catan) have a fine time understanding the rulebooks. I am sure this is a big part of why it has many millions of players.

Also in my experience both in person and online I've found that players that come from 3e have the hardest time understanding the rules.

I don't think this is a coincidence and I don't think it is a fault of the way the rules were written that they aren't catered to people who liked a particular game.

Having people who aren't hobby gamers understand a heavy hobby game is a great feat of rules writing.

A significant number of the Sage Advice answers I see, in particular, are caused by importing certain rules interactions from 3E to 5E and Crawford pointing out that the assumed interaction isn't present in the rules at all.

 

[Campbell]

Too many times we make false binaries. Evocative or concise. Easy and enjoyable to read or precise. Like our only choices are dense dry Pathfinder First Edition esque tomes, Gygaxian evocative yet barely readable texts, or 5e's 'natural' language. This is yet another case of what I view as an overreaction. Instead of shifting slightly or even going halfway they did a complete 180 from 4e.

My own high watermarks for effective text design are Old School Essentials, Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland, Worlds Without Number, Apocalypse World, and Monsterhearts. Kevin Crawford's texts in particular are evocative, easy to use, and filled with practical instruction.

 

[Parmandur]

Too many times we make false binaries. Evocative or concise. Easy and enjoyable to read or precise. Like our only choices are dense dry Pathfinder First Edition esque tomes, Gygaxian evocative yet barely readable texts, or 5e's 'natural' language. This is yet another case of what I view as an overreaction. Instead of shifting slightly or even going halfway they did a complete 180 from 4e.

My own high watermarks for effective text design are Old School Essentials, Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland, Worlds Without Number, Apocalypse World, and Monsterhearts. Kevin Crawford's texts in particular are evocative, easy to use, and filled with practical instruction.

I see it as two extremes with a Golden Mean to be found. 5E comes close to that mean, for me at least.

 

[Xetheral]

Of course they can. The two phrases are used differently within the text. The only people I have ever seen get it wrong are people who are very prone to overthinking rather than just taking the text at face value.

To my knowledge, "melee-weapon attack" appears nowhere in the rules, so unless you know differently, I believe your claim that both phrases are used differently in the text to be false.

They didn't, though.

Jeremy Crawford has said so explicitly. The Sage Advice Compendium says: "Here’s a bit of wording minutia: we would write “melee-weapon attack” if we meant an attack with a melee weapon." This confirms that the designers intended the interpretation of the rules to depend on the lack of a hyphen. (Which, as I noted in my post, is technically correct English, but not well suited for being unambiguously understood.)

 

[Parmandur]

To my knowledge, "melee-weapon attack" appears nowhere in the rules, so unless you know differently, I believe your claim that both phrases are used differently in the text to be false.


Jeremy Crawford has said so explicitly. The Sage Advice Compendium says: "Here’s a bit of wording minutia: we would write “melee-weapon attack” if we meant an attack with a melee weapon." This confirms that the designers intended the interpretation of the rules to depend on the lack of a hyphen. (Which, as I noted in my post, is technically correct English, but not well suited for being unambiguously understood.)

If they only use the phrase one way, where's the confusion?

 

[Xetheral]

To be perfectly honest, I have trouble remembering what the potential confusion is here for people (though obviously there is one for certain folks), because the intent in any given situation involving melee weapon attacks or melee-weapon attacks in the rulebooks have been clear in my experience.

If they only use the phrase one way, where's the confusion?

The confusion comes from whether "melee weapon attack" means "an attack with a melee weapon" or "a melee attack with a weapon" throughout the text.

In technical/formal English, the lack of a hyphen signifies that each adjective independently modifies the noun, whereas the presence of a hyphen forms a compound adjective that itself modifies the noun. So, technically speaking, in the phrase "melee weapon attack", "melee" and "weapon" both modify "attack", resulting in the phrase meaning "a melee attack with a weapon".

If instead a hyphen had been included, the compound adjective "melee-weapon" would modify "attack", so the phrase "melee-weapon attack" would mean "an attack with a melee weapon".

The problem is that the hyphenation rules aren't widely know and/or followed, so in casual English the hyphen is often dropped. Unless a reader knows that the author both is aware of the rules for compound adjectives and that they followed them correctly, it's impossible to know whether the lack of a hyphen in "melee weapon attack" is meaningful. Those with editing, formal writing, or technical writing backgrounds are likely to spot the potential ambiguity (in commonly do so, in my personal experience). Best practice when a compound adjective is not intended (i.e. when the formal rules say not to include a hyphen) is (arguably) to reformulate the sentence to avoid potential confusion. The designers did not do such a reformulation here, so the meaning of the phrase in the rules does indeed hinge (and deliberately so, according to the SAC quote) on the lack of a hyphen.

The ambiguity matters in the rules for any ability that requires a "melee weapon attack". Interpreted as a correct application of the compound-adjective rules, any such ability works with any melee attack made with a weapon (or without a weapon, actually, thanks to the unarmed strike debacle). Interpreted instead as an incorrect application of the compound adjective rules, any such ability works with any attack made with a melee weapon, regardless of whether that attack is melee or ranged. Ergo, the ability would also work with thrown weapons.

As it turns out, we know that the designers used the compound-adjective rules correctly, so it's confirmed that abilities requiring a "melee weapon attack" do not work when throwing thrown weapons, even though such weapons (except for darts) are melee weapons. But that still leaves us with a text whose correct interpretation depends on a single hyphen and a somewhat-obscure rule of writing that readers have no reason to be confident that the writers followed.

 

[Parmandur]

The confusion comes from whether "melee weapon attack" means "an attack with a melee weapon" or "a melee attack with a weapon" throughout the text.

In technical/formal English, the lack of a hyphen signifies that each adjective independently modifies the noun, whereas the presence of a hyphen forms a compound adjective that itself modifies the noun. So, technically speaking, in the phrase "melee weapon attack", "melee" and "weapon" both modify "attack", resulting in the phrase meaning "a melee attack with a weapon".

If instead a hyphen had been included, the compound adjective "melee-weapon" would modify "attack", so the phrase "melee-weapon attack" would mean "an attack with a melee weapon".

The problem is that the hyphenation rules aren't widely know and/or followed, so in casual English the hyphen is often dropped. Unless a reader knows that the author both is aware of the rules for compound adjectives and that they followed them correctly, it's impossible to know whether the lack of a hyphen in "melee weapon attack" is meaningful. Those with editing, formal writing, or technical writing backgrounds are likely to spot the potential ambiguity (in commonly do so, in my personal experience). Best practice when a compound adjective is not intended (i.e. when the formal rules say not to include a hyphen) is (arguably) to reformulate the sentence to avoid potential confusion. The designers did not do such a reformulation here, so the meaning of the phrase in the rules does indeed hinge (and deliberately so, according to the SAC quote) on the lack of a hyphen.

The ambiguity matters in the rules for any ability that requires a "melee weapon attack". Interpreted as a correct application of the compound-adjective rules, any such ability works with any melee attack made with a weapon (or without a weapon, actually, thanks to the unarmed strike debacle). Interpreted instead as an incorrect application of the compound adjective rules, any such ability works with any attack made with a melee weapon, regardless of whether that attack is melee or ranged. Ergo, the ability would also work with thrown weapons.

As it turns out, we know that the designers used the compound-adjective rules correctly, so it's confirmed that abilities requiring a "melee weapon attack" do not work when throwing thrown weapons, even though such weapons (except for darts) are melee weapons. But that still leaves us with a text whose correct interpretation depends on a single hyphen and a somewhat-obscure rule of writing that readers have no reason to be confident that the writers followed.

Well, thank you, that is a very clearly laid out explanation of the potential communication issue.

I would never have thought to apply "melee weapon attack" to a non-melee context such as throwing a weapon, as that would be a contradiction in terms.

 

[Xetheral]

Well, thank you, that is a very clearly laid out explanation of the potential communication issue.

I would never have thought to apply "melee weapon attack" to a non-melee context such as throwing a weapon, as that would be a contradiction in terms.

Out of curiousity, if it had instead been written "melee-weapon attack" would you still consider it a contradiction in terms to make a "melee-weapon attack" with a thrown weapon?