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

[DEFCON 1]

I’m also struggling to see why anyone would follow @Charlaquin ’s advice to ignore this ruling, when it makes a lot of sense.

It's simply because (general) you should never have gotten to the point where you are actually reading the question, the answer, and then coming to a conclusion as to whether JC was right or wrong in his response in the first place.

(General) you should have already known what your ruling was at the time someone in (general) your game tried to use Bardic Inspiration on a Dispel Magic check. (General) you should have known how Bardic Inspiration works at your table, how the Dispel Magic spell works at your table, and thus how the two of them combined together at your table... and thus it doesn't matter at all what JC ultimately says.

B. Dave Walter's question and JC's response should be nothing more than a curiosity. That's it. Giving it any other credence is to go against the central premise of 5E altogether, which is Rulings, Not Rules.

 

[TheSword]

It's simply because (general) you should never have gotten to the point where you are actually reading the question, the answer, and then coming to a conclusion as to whether JC was right or wrong in his response in the first place.

(General) you should have already known what your ruling was at the time someone in (general) your game tried to use Bardic Inspiration on a Dispel Magic check. (General) you should have known how Bardic Inspiration works at your table, how the Dispel Magic spell works at your table, and thus how the two of them combined together at your table... and thus it doesn't matter at all what JC ultimately says.

B. Dave Walter's question and JC's response should be nothing more than a curiosity. That's it. Giving it any other credence is to go against the central premise of 5E altogether, which is Rulings, Not Rules.

Well that’s assuming I have a definite answer.

If I just assumed that bardic knowledge didn’t apply to Dispel checks and a player referred me to Sage Advice I’m probably going to adjust my position. Unless it’s something I feel strongly about. What would be the benefit of bloody mindedly sticking to my guns?

If I haven’t decided yet, or not come across it and unsure, we google... ‘bardic knowledge dispel check’ and see the Sage Advice tweet why would we not adopt this approach. Googling like that takes less than a minute.

In both cases. Sage Advice was useful.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What would be the benefit of bloody mindedly sticking to my guns?

It gets both you and your players in the mindset that no one else's opinions of D&D matter and it's only your own opinions of D&D that do.

If you open the door to letting your players go searching for other people's choices on how the game is played and try and use it to trump your own rulings... you're never going to see the end of it. Plus, you're occasionally going to have situations where you DO feel strongly about a rule and are then going to have shut your player down who brought in another ruling trying to change your mind. Enjoy that confrontation when it happens.

5E's Rulings, Not Rules was intentionally chosen as a credo so that no one would have to spend their time (or as I might say it, waste their time) searching for just the right answer. Whatever you decide in the moment IS the right answer. If others agree with you, cool! But if they don't... it doesn't mean you were wrong.

 

[TheSword]

It gets both you and your players in the mindset that no one else's opinions of D&D matter and it's only your own opinions of D&D that do.

If you open the door to letting your players go searching for other people's choices on how the game is played and try and use it to trump your own rulings... you're never going to see the end of it. Plus, you're occasionally going to have situations where you DO feel strongly about a rule and are then going to have shut your player down who brought in another ruling trying to change your mind. Enjoy that confrontation when it happens.

5E's Rulings, Not Rules was intentionally chosen as a credo so that no one would have to spend their time (or as I might say it, waste their time) searching for just the right answer. Whatever you decide in the moment IS the right answer. If others agree with you, cool! But if they don't... it doesn't mean you were wrong.

I’m a bit more pluralistic than you, I think. I have an open mind when I don’t have a dog in the fight. I’m happy to be led by the lead designer. I suspect most people ... particularly those returning to D&D or the new crop of players feel the same way.

 

[overgeeked]

This idea of products being produced with perfection from day one, is ignoring 50 years of modern business development. Product after product is released in a useable form and refined over time to improve it.

Sage advice is no different to the small clarifications and updates made to any game or technology product over time. Expecting perfection in the first place is doomed and leads to a poorer experience. Partly because perfection is subjective, partly because it takes too long.

The Ratters Guild is the discord community of WFRP. The writers past and present frequently drop by to post comments on rules conflicts. If you think 5e has odd rules combinations, believe me, you haven’t seen anything yet. It’s a game though. I do wish people would stop talking as if sage advice/errata/rule conflicts are some terrible injustice resulting in players being sentenced to life imprisonment.

The fact of the matter is that 95% of Sage advice tweets pass without mention because they’re generally common sense. The ones that tend to be controversial are the ones that close a loophole players have been exploiting or open one a DM objects to.

Nobody is forced to accept any ruling. However if given a choice between listening to Jeremy or ‘random faceless internet dude’ I’m gonna listen to Jem. It wouldn’t stop me changing it if I really disagreed but I’d expect to have to work a little harder to justify that to my players, or convince my DM.

There’s a vast universe of a gulf between “write for clarity” and “produced with perfection from day one.” Humans are imperfect beasts who will never reach perfection in anything, except perhaps needless cruelty. I don’t expect perfection. Errata happens. Writers and editors miss things. Mistakes happen. I do expect the writers of game rules to understand that rulebooks for games are first and foremost technical documents whose primary goal is clarity and precision in the transmission of clear an unambiguous game rules. That’s not expecting perfection, that’s expecting they understand the job they have.

 

[Mort]

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),

Siembieda once wrote that if a PC wilfully jumps on a grenade then that character is 100% dead, no matter his remaining SDC or other considerations. Which is all well and good, but he wrote that in a forward to a SUPERHERO game (the Villains Unlimited supplement of Heroes Unlimited)!?! Some designers miss the intent of their own games.

 

[Parmandur]

I think the greatest part of Sage Advice is that a DM could interpret this sentence to mean something else (because natural language isn't as hard-coded as english professors want you to believe) and the players don't have some sort of actual authoritative evidence to argue with the DM.

If the DM says "Any combat resets long rests, that's how I read it." Then that's how it plays regardless what you try to convince them about the structure of prepositions.

Alternatively, the DM can just allow a Long Rest to happen without having to get into complex calculations.

 

[TheSword]

There’s a vast universe of a gulf between “write for clarity” and “produced with perfection from day one.” Humans are imperfect beasts who will never reach perfection in anything, except perhaps needless cruelty. I don’t expect perfection. Errata happens. Writers and editors miss things. Mistakes happen. I do expect the writers of game rules to understand that rulebooks for games are first and foremost technical documents whose primary goal is clarity and precision in the transmission of clear an unambiguous game rules. That’s not expecting perfection, that’s expecting they understand the job they have.

That’s what you want first and foremost.

I equally want a book that is:

• Physically attractive.
• Conveys a theme and tone of the game through its artwork, sidebars, descriptions and introductory text.
• Inspires me to play the game with evocative language.
• Is fun to read.

 

[overgeeked]

That’s what you want first and foremost.

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 equally want a book that is:

• physically attractive.
• Conveys a theme and tone of the game through its artwork sidebars and introductory text.
• Inspires me to play the game with evocative language.
• Is fun to read.

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

 

[Parmandur]

There’s a vast universe of a gulf between “write for clarity” and “produced with perfection from day one.” Humans are imperfect beasts who will never reach perfection in anything, except perhaps needless cruelty. I don’t expect perfection. Errata happens. Writers and editors miss things. Mistakes happen. I do expect the writers of game rules to understand that rulebooks for games are first and foremost technical documents whose primary goal is clarity and precision in the transmission of clear an unambiguous game rules. That’s not expecting perfection, that’s expecting they understand the job they have.

Game books are toys meant to facilitate fun. That might not always be aided by overly technical language.