The spirit of the game and the Sage

[wedgeski]

As others have said the Sage isn't there to be a roleplaying, atmosphere, 'spirit of the game' guru or anything else, he's there to be a rules guru. The people that write to him want solutions not suggestions. There are plenty of other avenues for different kinds of advice.

 

[Spatula]

What I wonder reading this piece of Sage Advice simply is: what happened to DM adjudication?

If Sage Advice's answers to every question were, "Make shtuff up," there wouldn't be much point to it, would there? And Sage Advice predates 3rd edition - I believe it grew out of stubborn rules questions that people kept sending into TSR and that there were no good answers for (how stoneskin actually worked in practice was a good one).

If you prefer to come up with off-the-cuff rules adjudications, then you shouldn't care what's in the column at all.