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

[TheSword]

Almost. It’s what game rulebooks are meant to be. That’s literally why they exist. To clearly and precisely convey the rules of the game.

I’m not sure why you think well-written and clear rules would detract in any way from you getting what you want.

That is a question of degrees. As has been said elsewhere, 12 year old kids manage with the rules just fine.

Most of the big arguments on here about rules disagreements are corner cases, usually about someone trying to get an edge... (being able to knock a person down with shield master first then get advantage on the attack for instance)

I was active on the Paizo forums quite a bit throughout 1st edition. Believe me D&D 5E’s rules disagreements aren’t even close. Every day there were multiple endless threads about whether one combination was RAW or not. Go back through the EN World threads and see how many rules questions there are and how many are answered in the first page.

 

[AnotherGuy]

It strikes me, @Charlaquin that another aspect might be that Crawford has mentally pivoted towards 6E as the solution to repeat questions at this point, as it is probably closer now to the end than the beginning of the edition. I recall from one interview he did with Greg Tito that Crawford is actually keeping a running document of clarifications needed in the event of a 6E based on all the questions that he gets. I don't expect that a new edition would be a radical transformation, but a synthesis of the thesis : antithesis of the 5E core rules : audience response is probably warranteI don'td at some point.

This is the first thought I had when @Charlaquin opened this thread.

 

[GlassJaw]

Oh come now, the RAW and RAI was clear before the ruling on that one. It’s a sensible houserule, balance wise, but it was always a houserule and always clearly counter to the wording of it and most other similar actions.

It most certainly was not clear, or did you miss the countless threads and numerous Sage Advice posts discussing it?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It most certainly was not clear, or did you miss the countless threads and numerous Sage Advice posts discussing it?

Yeah I gotta agree with you, @doctorbadwolf is demonstrably wrong here, if you look at discussion on it pre-SA, people mostly came down on the side of you being able to use it before (you could see this in the voting in reddit threads on it, for example), with some thinking otherwise but often having views that also didn't match the SA (like that they thought the RAW as after, but RAI was either, for example, which was a fairly common take). The RAI/RAW was unclear and suggesting otherwise is pretty close to saying "everyone but me was dumb", however unintentionally, given the demonstrably large amount of discussion about it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It most certainly was not clear, or did you miss the countless threads and numerous Sage Advice posts discussing it?

Nah. It was clear. People just didn’t want to admit it because apperently only getting advantage against the prone target on one attack makes the whole feat “garbage”.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nah. It was clear. People just didn’t want to admit it because apperently only getting advantage against the prone target on one attack makes the whole feat “garbage”.

Ah the classic "everyone disagreed with me was arguing in bad faith", which is even worse than "everyone who disagreed with me is stupid" lol. It's very easy to go back to threads at the time and see your claim here is false, too.

Also you get Advantage on ZERO attacks. Not why you're saying one, unless you yourself are misunderstanding the SA.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ah the classic "everyone disagreed with me was arguing in bad faith", which is even worse than "everyone who disagreed with me is stupid" lol. It's very easy to go back to threads at the time and see your claim here is false, too.

That’s not what I’m saying, but okay.

And no, I was inthose threads or at least read them (I quickly gave up), and folks’ arguments were absurd to the point of it being impossible for me to take them at all seriously.

Folks didn’t want the RAW to say what it very clearly said. That was my position when those threads were active as well, so no those threads do not prove me wrong.
A lot of people not getting something doesn’t actually prove that the thing is hard to get. People see what they want to see, when they are invested in the thing being discussed, often even when the reality of the situation is blatantly clear.

Yes, even very smart people, and yes, even people who are acting in good faith.

It’s perfectly reasonable to rule, as a DM, that Shield Master works different than the RAW, because it is needlessly restrictive on a build that isn’t particularly powerful to start with, but I won’t pretend for anyone that such a ruling isn’t a houserule.

Also you get Advantage on ZERO attacks. Not why you're saying one, unless you yourself are misunderstanding the SA.

Yes, I misremembered the SA ruling that I don’t care about from several years ago.

 

[Charlaquin]

Personally I think the RAW on that one was pretty clear. Or at least, the wording was definitely correct English if the intended meaning was the one JC confirmed on Twitter. But I don’t blame folks for doubting that was the intent, nor for choosing to rule counter to it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I can't comprehend seeing anything to do with "touch attack" somehow being more clear than plain English.

Ranged touch attacks!

Sure, super clear!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A lot of people not getting something doesn’t actually prove that the thing is hard to get.

Picard facepalm is pretty much all I can say to that.

And yeah, you're accusing everyone else of either arguing in bad faith or arguing in good faith but being too dumb to understand what was going on. You can phrase it as "invested", but it amounts to the same thing.

Yes, I misremembered the SA ruling that I don’t care about from several years ago.

So, you can't even remember the ruling or even think about how the logic would work, but you remember all the threads well enough to know everyone else was arguing in bad faith?

Ok again we are back to Picard facepalm territory I'm afraid.

Personally I think the RAW on that one was pretty clear. Or at least, the wording was definitely correct English if the intended meaning was the one JC confirmed on Twitter. But I don’t blame folks for doubting that was the intent, nor for choosing to rule counter to it.

I think the major issue was that a number of other SAs prior to that had come down on the opposite side of the "correct English" meaning (something that continues to this day), which lead to a lot of people very much doubting the RAI even where they agreed that was the RAW, and a fair chunk of people didn't even think it was the RAW (again in part because D&D rules aren't always "correct English").