TheSword
Legend
I suspect we just fundamentally disagree on the approach. That’s cool. It isn’t errata... yet. But he is the lead designer of D&Ds rules so it carries weight with me (and I suspect a lot of other people).I've seen designers interpretations of their own (or their company's) rules cause internet angry faces for decades.
We can go all the way back to 2E WoD and Rifts in the 1990s, and there'd be some rule which seemed pretty obvious and straightforward, and with Rifts Kevin Siembieda would be like "Well it's supposed to work like this..." and people were like "Hell no, that's completely dumb and directly disagrees with the text in the game..." (full disclosure: I was one of them, but far from the only one), and some of the WoD stuff (which wasn't even expressed as rulings generally, just suggestions) got people pretty angry. WoD overall annoyed a lot more people with really questionable Storyteller advice than rules stuff though. There was a bit of an issue generally in the 1990s with GM advice for various RPGs representing a disconnect between the authorial intention of the game and "how it was actually played", but that's a whole other (lengthy) topic.
Or good grief the original 1E/2E Dragon Sage Advice, which caused an awful lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth (often justifiedly lol, some of that column was spectacularly silly in a bad way or clearly misunderstood - and in some cases didn't even seem to have checked - the rules).
And that didn't carry the same (inaccurately) perceived weight as Jezza's stuff. Ironically, I think the fact that he started out giving opinions, and that the stuff isn't errata makes people want to argue with it more.
Hard disagree, in fact I daresay this is outright incorrect.
You're discussing actual errata and rules clarifications (and or software patches/fixes). That was the approach 4E took. It is not the approach 5E is taking, neither when it started out, nor presently.
Yup. His opinions are rarely seen beasts these days. Even the stuff he seems to be putting a spin on the RAW of, it's pretty much always for the sake of balance, which I doubt is what he values in his home game or w/e.
It is called Sage Advice and not Sage Law.
I don’t experience the same rejection of Jem’s opinions like the single magic missile roll or the resting time. These seem to be blown out of all proportion as like the discussion of what counts as a weapon.
In a game where players invariably want an advantage against their foes in the rules. Having the lead designer chart a middle course between DMs and Players seems like a very sensible approach to me.
I suspect Jem does care about balance a lot more than you give him credit for.