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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8432165" data-attributes="member: 42582">I can't judge the GM - not having been there and all that - but I do think it was bad GMing. Which I'm sure won't surprise you.But now I get to shock you by disagreeing a bit!I think it's more than just an upending of authority that is the problem. It's that the way D&D is presented doesn't really give the GM - or even the table as a whole - the conceptual resources to deal with these abilities.Eg is the ranger's favoured terrain ability merely a shaper of colour - so the GM just narrates the party's successful travel through the favoured terrain, and then springs the ambush as soon as the PCs leave the (favoured) forest and enter the (disfavoured) mountains? Or is it a type of action resolution, which generates Let it Ride obligations? Or is it meant to be a trigger for the GM to provide backstory that otherwise wouldn't be (in virtue of the ranger both moving and being stealthy, and being able to read the tracks, etc).Because the ability is presented only in terms of what it means in the fiction, but with no discussion of what it's impact on play is expected to be, I'm not surprised that disputes and confusion arise.The Folk Hero ability is similar. Your GM has taken it as close to a shaper of colour as can be - it changes where the encounter takes place - but also you get the bonus rest. Whereas my response is based on understanding the ability more in Let it Ride terms and also as shaping in an important fashion the nature of your character and their relationships. I think the textual support for my reading is not nothing - it's a bit richer than the favoured terrain case, I think - but it's still pretty incomplete.I'm not saying that a RPG rulebook needs to be a theoretical treatise. But it is helpful if it conveys to the participants the way a particular ability is expected to actually make a difference to play.</blockquote>

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