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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ranes" data-source="post: 6353121" data-attributes="member: 4826">First of all, I have to repeat my usual disclaimer. The acronym 'RAW' is intellectually bankrupt, although I am sympathetic to posts that use it (including yours). The reason why it's bankrupt is because implicit in it is the idea that the rules as written are somehow divorced from the rules as interpreted. This is simply never, ever the case. It's glib, a conceit that puts an enormous strain on any subsequent discussion of a rule. All this is simply to say that any reading of a rule (as written, obviously) requires interpretation of intent.With that out of the way, here's some sympathy for the concern you express. It is easy for players - new to fantasy games or otherwise - to say, "Yes, I see that this is meant to relate to the real world I recognise, whereas this thing over here is fantastical, so I can excuse the fact that it doesn't relate, but this thing over here isn't explicitly quantified as being something magical and yet it sounds fantastical and therefore I have a problem with it from the point of view of - take a deep breath - verisimilitude."In fact, the specific example you refer to, that being the halfling sniper discussion, caused me just that discomfiture in the thread to which you refer. And another poster took the trouble to make the point to me that it's one of those things that sounds mundane that really isn't. I'm still not overly happy with the rule in question but I got his point and I get yours.I don't want to see characters whose skills and talents aren't clearly based on one side of the 'this is magical' line to be neutered or diminished, at the expense of others. But the tendency is, as you say, understandable. I think third edition came close to addressing it with definitions like spell-like and supernatural abilities but fifth has missed out on an opportunity to give these particular phenomena that you're talking about the permission to occupy the space they do. They could have easily been given the label 'fantastical' in the sense of being that class of ideas that sounds larger than life without being attributable to one of the other definitions.In the meantime, if you find yourself debating the verisimilitudinalization (sorry, couldn't resist) of such phenomena with your players, perhaps such a proposal can help you frame your justification.The corollary to this, however, is that many players take issue with this or that aspect of the game's assumptions about magic and the supernatural. These things often give rise to complaints about believability (hurrah for synonyms); it's not just the otherwise fantastical that people have issues with. And that's for good reason. Some of the ideas employed in D&D, not to mention other fantasy games, are inevitably at odds with what some players will consider too far-fetched to accommodate. I can only suggest that you appeal to such players to consider that, in such games, what the rules call 'magic' is one thing but that the entire game is based upon the fantastic.Where any set of rules lets itself down is where it excuses or gives the fantastical this permission in this context but arbitrarily denies it the same in some other marginally different context, without providing an internally consistent rationale. When you find a system doing that, I can't help you and nor can anyone else.</blockquote>

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