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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 8254435" data-attributes="member: 93670">I never considered the didn't read dmg angle" you might have a point there though but I think the dmg itself and 5es paradoxical rulings not rules thing can shoulder some of the blame there.  If you go back to the 2e & 3.x dmg there were a ton of little blurbs like behind the curtain sidebars  that were written to put a hand on the GM's shoulder  & sketch out the important pitfalls links & moving parts to keep in mind when using stufff like <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/giving-an-ad-d-feel-to-5e.679228/post-8241363" target="_blank">GM's best friend & bonus types</a> from 3.x or <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/giving-an-ad-d-feel-to-5e.679228/post-8243611" target="_blank">treasure &magical items from 2e</a>  as till largely word for word great advice & mechanics for 5e show but even areas 5e should shine are quite bad.  Your mention of awarding experience made me decide to start there after skimming a list of behind the curtain entries on dmg XXX.  the 5e dmg has "stuff" about experience in a few places like 82-84 & 260-261 plus a few stray mentions.   The 3.5 dmg has a lot of that same kind of stuff but adds things like this below. I could have done this with topic after topic where 5e is miserably unfinished or lacking dials needed for the gm to manipulate rather than rebuilding entire systems & subsystems, but the act of awarding experience points is a topic critical to even the most basic & rudimentary GMing & it shows just how badly the ball is dropped everywere else where people actually level complaints at.[spoiler="BTC experience points"][ATTACH=full]135971[/ATTACH][/spoiler][spoiler="BTC when a pc falls behind"][ATTACH=full]135972[/ATTACH][/spoiler][spoiler="variant freeform exp"][ATTACH=full]135973[/ATTACH][/spoiler][spoiler="variant faster/lower xp"][ATTACH=full]135974[/ATTACH][/spoiler]I haven't run 3.5/PF in years but feel like I have a better grip on the whole awarding experience process &  things to consider when going for "rulings not rules" for 3.5 just from having skimmed those than I do for 5e despite running  5e for years  & rereading most of the noted 5e dmg bits before I even cracked the 3.5 dmg.This kind of thing extended to almost any area of the rules.   I'm not cherry picking examples though, there was a ton of this[spoiler="3.5dmg list of sidebars"][ATTACH=full]135975[/ATTACH][/spoiler]The 1e dmg might be harder to isolate this kind of stuff because it tended to include a lot of that kind of advice inline, but just quickly skimming experience topics alone it's no slouch there either.Even areas like 5e's much vaunted variant/optional rules rarely even bother noting the kinds of things the GM will need to be aware of, make changes to, & consider when using them. That leaves the GM learning from experience that actually acting as an empowered gm is a dangerous task fraught with frustration & endless trial & error.... Take the "gritty realism<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /><img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🤣" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f923.png" title="Rolling on the floor laughing    :rofl:" data-shortname=":rofl:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" />" dmg267 5e rule where rest durations are changed...short rest classes vrs long rest classes, item recharge periods, spell & class ability durations & a laundry list of other immediately critical problems using it forces the gm to solve aren't even mentioned leaving the GM to run face first into them at the table  with "thrilled" players staring them down.I may not remember reading those old sidebars  all of these years later, but I went into 5e equipped with the skills built up from  the knowledge & understanding the sidebars gave from my very first session running 5e on.  A newer 5e gm won't have that benefit & is flying completely blind in the dark if they try to make changes or even use the optional/variant stuff provided by wotc.  "Rulings not rules" is only useful if the person making them is feels comfortably armed to do more than haphazardly make maybe randomized guesses.I mostly skipped 4e so won't comment on that edition</blockquote>

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