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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6865229" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Sure. But because 5e puts "DM empowerment" front and center, it's not really meaningful to discuss its rules. The rules are, at absolute best, a loose guideline DMs may choose to follow, if and when they feel like it. Fighters' Second Wind doesn't exist because "it's unrealistic"? Perfectly fine in 5e--DM Empowerment! Dragonborn will be treated to constant racist, torches-and-pitchforks mobs because they look so weird? Perfectly fine in 5e--DM Empowerment! Nobody can play Warlocks, because all Warlocks have to be evil and the DM doesn't allow evil PCs? Perfectly fine in 5e--DM Empowerment!It's a lot--a *LOT*--more fundamental than just "DMs can make house rules like they always could." It's "the rules don't matter at all unless you explicitly hear your DM say they do. And maybe not even then."PHB. What it said: stuff I like isn't part of D&D worlds, unless I get special DM dispensation, while all the stuff arch-traditionalists want is fundamentally part of the D&D identity. In fact, they're a fundamental part of fantasy writing, even though two of the most popular fantasy game universes today (Azeroth, Nirn) don't feature one of those things. What it didn't say: Warlords aren't part of D&D's core identity, they're so far from it that they don't even get mentioned in the book, and Fighters are back to having their level of mechanical engagement securely capped well below the simplest of simple casters.Sure. But I've never seen a book that went so far out of its way to empower DM rejection of anything "new" in D&D.Well, for example, the bit about "just treat 8-or-less as auto-fail, 15-or-more as auto-success, and decide whatever you want for the rest, your players will never know the difference" made it pretty clear that this was the edition for DMs who don't care whether their players can learn to play well or not. That plus the (IMO extreme) lethality of the early levels, so you can't afford to make small mistakes or you lose your character, reinforced to me that player latitude is at best a DM sufferance in 5e, and at worst a (more or less) carefully concocted illusion to string players along.If you have the time--it's rather a long read, so I'd totally understand if you don't--check out the "<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?478744-5th-Edition-and-the-quot-true-exotic-quot-races" target="_blank">True Exotic Races</a>" thread sometime, or better yet, a handful of threads from the temporary Warlord forum. That's the attitude I'm reacting to.Sure they are, for a suitable definition of "they." The threads about fudging, changing HP <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?433680-Would-you-change-a-monster-s-hit-points-mid-fight" target="_blank">in the middle of combat</a>, etc. all were exactly that. Player choices only matter up to the point at which the DM decides "Eh, no, that's not what I want to happen, I'd better bend reality to make sure it happens the way I want to see it." And as soon as you cross that line, *none* of the choices matter--because they're always that entirely-arbitrary "That's not what I want to see" (whether it's "unluck got the PCs" or "the monster I made died before it showed off its cool trick") away from being overruled. It's this parentalistic "DM knows best--now run along, players, or you'll be late for meeting the orcs!" attitude that drives me up the wall.And I assert that enjoyment of a game is impossible without agency. Otherwise, you're not playing it, you're watching it. Which can be enjoyable! But it's not the joy provided by a game.You would be wrong. I would feel robbed. My choices do not create consequences; the *DM's* choices create consequences. The DM just happens, in some situations, to choose not to make changes. There was a very, very long <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?474256-To-fudge-or-not-to-fudge-that-is-the-question" target="_blank">thread</a> about fudging (<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?475564-Do-you-want-your-DM-to-fudge" target="_blank">several</a>, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?475788-Fudging-DM-vs-player-preferences" target="_blank">actually</a>, as mentioned earlier) where I articulated exactly that. If the consequences only occur because the DM deigns to let them occur, they aren't the result of *my* choices anymore, and thus the entire process of learning from the relationship between choice and consequence is broken.Mostly, the Race and Class chapters--the former for what it does say, the latter for what it doesn't. See my response above for more.I don't balk at DMs setting DCs for things--that's something I expect, as part of the "active agent behind the obstacles" thing. I do balk at DMs not setting DCs at all, and just looking at the number on the dice to decide if it's a success or a fail, "your players will never know the difference." But that's a thing recommended, if not in the books themselves, at least by 5e's designers during the playtest! (I can't recall if that specific section got put in the DMG--I *think* it did, but not strongly enough to just assert it.) I balk at a game that encourages DMs to deceive their players--not just not revealing everything (which is fine), not just having NPCs that sometimes lie (which is fine), but that actually encourages DMs to use smoke and mirrors about the system itself.If they're trifles, why does it matter what happens either way? Let me have my trifles and be happy--you're only missing out on trifles anyway, so it won't hurt you any but will make me happy. Right? But clearly they're not trifles, or you wouldn't care either way about how they're handled. They're not trifles--for me, anyway--specifically *because* they're small, but meaningful, ways to keep player and DM active in the creation, expression, and development of the world.Dungeon World, for example, is full of places where the rules quite literally say that the DM *must* do something--and I love it for that. If I roll well on a discern realities (essentially 'spot/search/listen/etc.' all rolled into one), I can ask three discrete questions from a specific, narrow list (of 5 total) provided in the rules, and the DM must answer them truthfully. I think that's beautiful and amazing! It gives the player just the tiniest bit of clear, incontrovertible agency, in contrast to the monolithic and pervasive agency provided to the DM. Nothing game-breaking, nothing plot-destroying (a truthful answer need not be a complete answer, after all), but deeply meaningful to me as a player. Or if I roll well on spout lore (essentially 'all knowledge skills' rolled into one), the DM *has* to tell me something "interesting and useful" about whatever situation I'm spouting lore on; if I roll only okay (partial success, 7-9 on 2d6+mod), the DM just has to tell me something *interesting,* and it's up to ME to make it useful. Again--beautiful! These are things that excite me, that inflame my passion to play, even though Dungeon World in general is well below my (usual) tolerance for minimum crunchiness.</blockquote>

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