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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 8256814" data-attributes="member: 6802765">To my understanding, no one in this thread (as of when I had originally posted) had asserted that a close parsing of the spell and rules text requires the ink blot interpretation. Instead the general gist seems to have been limited to opposing your claim that a close parsing favors your interpretation, rather than supporting an alternative close reading. If someone had made the claim that a close reading requires the inkblot interpretation, I missed it.I provided my best guess as to why the other posters believe the opaque ink-blot interpretation is superior because they did not provide that information themselves. Given that many posters' language suggests they view the issue as one of common sense, it makes sense to me that they wouldn't provide additional detail as to where their intuitive sense is coming from.I'll try a different way to explaining. To run Darkness under your interpretation, one has to answer the question: "What if we take a well-lit room and make part of it naturally dark?" But no part of a well-lit room is naturally dark, by definition. So your question has the same fundamental problem as the question: "What if we take an immovable object and move it?" The resulting consequences from magically forcing a part of well-lit room to be dark, or moving an unmovable object can't be answered "naturally" because we're already in the realm of impossible-by-definition.Ergo, magically induced non-magical darkness can't be "just like [natural] darkness in all other respects other than where it can be induced" when it is magically induced in a well-lit area because natural darkness isn't defined in such conditions. Nobody knows what natural darkness in a well-lit area would be like, so Darkness can't be run "just like" natural darkness--instead the DM has to fill in the gaps such an interpretation creates.Examples of such gaps include:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Are backlit creatures/objects in the area of induced non-magical darkness visible by their silhouettes (violating the errata'd rule that makes creatures effectively blind when attempting to see things in the obscured area), or completely unseen (adding functionality to the spell not present in the spell text)?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What does the floor/walls look like in the area of magically induced non-magical darkness? Are they visible as an expanse of pure black (again violating the errata'd rule that would instead make the floor/walls unseen by the effectively blind outside observers), or completely unseen? If the floor/walls are completely unseen, can characters outside the heavily obscured area now see through the unseen floor/walls into lit areas beyond?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Is the extent of the area of magically induced non-magical darkness in a well-lit area evident to those outside it? Or is it only apparent by the effect it has on objects/creatures/walls/floor in the area (i.e. either painting them black or making them invisible based on choices made for how to fill the gaps above)?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If there is a non-magical light source in the area of magically induced non-magical darkness, what does it look like to observers outside the affected area? Is it bright? Is it black? Is it invisible?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If there is a non-magical light source in the area of magically induced non-magical darkness, does it illuminate objects outside of the heavily obscured area?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Can objects and creatures in the area of magically induced non-magical darkness have shadows that extend outside of the heavily obscured area?</li> </ul>So, yes, I am saying that non-magical darkness is "incomplete" (i.e. not enough information for a DM to run it) if induced in a well-lit area, because knowing how natural darkness works doesn't provide a DM definitive answers to any of the above questions. None of the DM's real-life experiences apply, because the situation is impossible in the real world: natural darkness can't exist in a well-lit area. If you force it to with magic, the spell itself needs to provide the definitive answers to fill these gaps or else it too is "incomplete".Because the complex interaction of the darkness and a well-lit background behind the darkness is more likely to be an issue at close ranges. Also, because in the D&D context what the Darkness spell looks like up close is likely to be relevant more often than what it looks like at a distance.Are you arguing that an interpretation held by a majority of the population can still be an outlier interpretation? If so, how are you defining "outlier"?</blockquote>

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