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

[MichaelSomething]

I though the reason WOTC added BIFTs was that people were complaining that 4E was just a combat war game with no role playing in it?

 

[Charlaquin]

I though the reason WOTC added BIFTs was that people were complaining that 4E was just a combat war game with no role playing in it?

Nah, those people hated them for being “director’s stance” mechanics, and begrudgingly accepted them because they’re easy enough to ignore.

 

[Jaeger]

Maze Rats is a great example of how to start off a PC with some keywords for their physical appearance, clothing, personality, and background. It takes 5 minutes and works as a jumping off point rather than anything determinative. Alternatively, I would ask my players to fill out the following

• Physical appearance: 2 adjectives + signature item of clothing
• Personality: 3 adjectives
• Backstory: 2-3 bullet points, <100 words
• What does your character want?
• What does your character not want?

This is true wisdom here.

I limit stuff myself to a short 1-2 sentence description, then all background info on a 3x5 card. No more than a paragraph, and bullet points are better.

Multi-page PC's backgrounds are the devil.

But if the GM starts saying things like "You did a great job talking about your sad past with the barmaid just now--take inspiration," that starts to worry me. And if the GM hands out advantage for cracking jokes or otherwise entertaining the table, that definitely tastes like approval-cookie. I'm sure those are effective tools for some players, but they just set off all my alarm bells.

Approval-cookies are also the devil.

Rolling what inspiration does into Hit-Dice would have been the more elegant solution. Aside from now having just one meta-currency the player now has to weigh the risk/reward of their choices: spend a HD now to roll with advantage, but have one less HD to heal with on a short rest...

I would allow rolls of a nat 20 to give back a spent HD as well. And done. You have a single meta-currency that is self recovering and has players make risk/reward choices when they use it.

A much cleaner design than 'inspiration' tied to some PC motivational malarky that is otherwise vestigial to the system.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Nah, those people hated them for being “director’s stance” mechanics, and begrudgingly accepted them because they’re easy enough to ignore.

Right. For the most, bifts are fun to look through, and help me clarify early on who the character is. Sometimes a flaw will clarify in my mind based on a negative reaction I have upon reading one of the listed flaws for a given background, or a Bond will based on an Ideal, etc.

Other times, I'll read "I have an obligation to those beneath me" or whatever in the noble background, look at the flaw I already chose about being contrarian and reckless, look at the personality trait that the character is empathetic and idealistic, and suddenly the character shifts from well-meaning noble who nontheless supports the continuation of the inherently oppressive system of aristocratic oligarchy, into an anarcho-socialist whose life's mission is to break the monopolistic power of the 12 Houses by inventing and funding the invention of viable alternatives to their technologies, while also undermining the aristocracy and writing under a pen name about the foibles of the nobles of the Sharn social scene.

That was actually an NPC, but since he was going to be fighting alongside the PCs, and was introduced in a flashback adventure where he was working as a wartime spy near the front and the group saved him from emerald claw necromancers, and I love building characters I built him out as an artillerist artificer with a custom background. The group is in the climactic showdown in a factory/lab in upper Sharn, having gotten there at the end of chase wherein the used Brenn's experimental flying machines powered by dragonshards and alchemy to chase a customised sky coach crewed by a sniper and two regular archers, while being pursued in turn by the enemy's emerald claw allies (a wing of griffon knights eventually helped sort out the pursuers on their soarsleds, because I didn't want the chase battle to drag on too long and it introduced potential complications down the road).

Having arrived at the warehouse lab, shooting the door mechanisms so they could close, and sending their summoned allies (a quetzacoatlus and two dryads) to chase down the pilot of the skycoach and the sniper, both of whom had successfully ditched the rig as it went down, they entered to find a modified warforged titan, and more humanoid enemies, waiting for them inside.

This being the third fairly large battle without any rest or even a few minutes to heal up or anything, I gave them the benefits of a short rest, and the ability to regain spell slots as if they had the Wizard's Arcane Recovery feature. The wizard in the group got this on top of his normal recovery. Thus still depleted a good bit (most of them had nearly no slots left, and had used most limited class features as well), we broke for the evening there for an easy pickup point next time.

But the whole adventure started because a witch warned them that a friend close to them was on a path that could end in their own death, and in a great deal of desctructive besides, if they didn't intervene. They found him at his townhouse in upper Tavick's Landing, told him what the witch had said, and he explained that he had made enemies in the 12 Houses, as well as amongst the noble families, as well as poking his nose into a conspiracy that the group had just recently found out about between the Emerald Claw, and the Cult of The Black Flame (dragonic cult that is seeking to bring new dragonmarks into the world via abberant magics and necromancy.) So, the first fight of the day was with assassins sent to kill Brenn during that conversation, then the chase battle through the air, then the warehouse.

One of the most fun adventure's I've mostly improvised in a long time, that came out of ideas I had for the character while messing around with background stuff. Sure, I can and do come up with wild adventures with hooks that I came up with on my own or that a player did, or that came out of gameplay moments, but I'm not about to dismiss the value of inspiration from a list of prompts related to a theme.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Now you're getting fiddly for no benefit. Some people are especially tall, some especially short, some about average. Shelves have heights that depend on pretty intuitive understanding of how rooms work and who uses the room. If it's built for Goliaths, the top shelf may well be 10 ft in the air. If it's built for humans, probably not in a normal room.

And some would argue caring about height within the human range is fiddly to no benefit.

simulationism is irrelevant to the discussion. Reality is only useful as the basis for how we picture things in our head, and even then shared perception and expectation trumps it. Tall people have longer reach, short people have an easier time hiding, isn't some wildly detailed deep dive into simulationist representation of real life geometry.

I really don't know what to tell you if you don't get why worrying about height differences within the human range is a simulationist concern, man. It absolutely is.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Not until 6th. Before that they were things that help define character (psych lims, social lims) that never had to be rolled n play, or things the GM used to set up and frame things (Hunteds ext).
One of the reasons I stuck with 5th Hero is the change to disads that were in 6th.

I'm pretty sure Psych Limits were potentially rolled in play back from day one, which is why I brought it up. I certainly know they were from 4e on. The top one was absolute, but the other two you could try to overcome--and fail.

Edit: I think with one version the bottom one was just advisory (though expected that you'd pay attention to) but the middle one always had an overcome-this roll.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think there may be some talking-past-each other going on here. In real life, the difference made by a foot of height is not tiny by any reasonable definition of the word. It has a very significant impact on a wide range of physical activities, as well as having an oft-underestimated social impact. When it comes to whether these differences should be modeled in gameplay, however, isn’t about how much difference it makes, but of whether that’s the kind of difference you want to model mechanically. Personally, I would think of character height as a matter of personal expression, and therefore not something that players should have to consider mechanical benefits and drawbacks when deciding on. But, I can imagine someone with different priorities wanting to make sure that such differences are acknowledged on a system level.

There are certainly some games that do pay attention to that sort of thing, though usually its primarily about things like hit point calculations in fixed hit point systems.

But as an example, pretty much every incarnation of Runequest had a Size characteristic, though what exactly it effected varied somewhat, but its usually had to do with hit points, melee damage output, stealth and agility.

 

[Asisreo]

I'm more than willing to have player's hand out inspiration. Only one player can generate an inspiration per session (and only one can have it, can be earned only once per session) so it encourages passing them around without making it seem like there's any favoritism.

And I'd be a referee to ensure no funny business like "randomly" giving out inspiration to the rogue just before their turn when they can't otherwise gain advantage. If someone says "What they did was cool! I give you advantage!" That's fine. If someone says "Uh oh, they need to succeed this check and I can't help, I grant inspiration!" That's a no-go.

 

[overgeeked]

I keep going back-and-forth about BIFTs. I like them because they give a framework for new players to role-play but they're kludgy and not integrated in the game well at all. As non-mechanical suggestions or a list of ideas to be inspired by, they're far better.

"Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. (Good)" is good info to have if that's actually useful for the player as a guide to playing their character. But it doesn't give me as a DM much to work with. I can dangle people being treated disrespectfully or their dignity being violated, but that doesn't mean the player will do anything about it.

Better to have players decide on quests/goals for their characters to give the DM something actionable in the game. You're playing a farmer gone adventuring because gnolls attacked and burned your farm? Perfect. That's something I can work with. A story thread to drop in to hook the character into the game. There's no guarantee they'll go after gnolls or raiders either, but at least it's more useful to the DM. It's the player directly saying this right here is something I want to do in game. I want to fight gnolls and/or raiders. If they change their mind, sure. Come up with a new quest/goal you want to pursue and I'll work that into the game.

 

[mrpopstar]

"Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. (Good)" is good info to have if that's actually useful for the player as a guide to playing their character. But it doesn't give me as a DM much to work with. I can dangle people being treated disrespectfully or their dignity being violated, but that doesn't mean the player will do anything about it.

I love this ideal! It's amazing how many players choose it for their character.

There are certain table debates you know to anticipate once you have enough experience under your belt being a Dungeon Master. One of them is the ever-reliable brouhaha over torture and alignment that takes place in hostage situations.

If the debate gets heated or common agreement remains elusive, there's an objective arbiter we can look to for resolution: Good-aligned characters believe people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. -- Solved!

It was said earlier that personality characteristics are a compass. Show them how to use the compass and then reinforce its use by awarding inspiration when they do.