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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9759815" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Forcing "rulings over rules" is really a bad idea.  I mean, it's true that every group is going to play the game that's best for them (we hope!).  But by saying "hey people, we don't expect anyone to play this game as written, so our books are more like guidelines than rules you should take seriously" makes one wonder why you're paying so much money for a "How to game design for Dummies" set of books!  But worse, it's just going to turn any attempt to discuss the game into a veritable Tower of Babel scenario- nobody is speaking the same language anymore!  There's no excuse for having rules as written be inscrutable or just poorly written!  Worse, it's not even like the intent of some rules are even remotely clear, so even if you wanted to make a ruling, you have no idea of knowing if the one you make is the right one!  I just hate how the game seems to be written with the idea of "oh, you've DM'd before, you know what you're doing".  I can assure you, there's a lot of people picking up the game for the first time who have no idea what they're doing, and the fact that YouTube videos about D&D exist is not an excuse for not having guard rails or explaining things!Especially since many of those YouTube videos are based on someone else's interpretation of the rules.  I've recently seen a spat of short form content on YouTube where you're told "hey, here's this exploitative and absolutely rules as written thing you can do" where the interpretation is really dubious.  So the player sees that, comes to the table with it, and the novice DM doesn't know which way is up- the talking head guy sounds like he knows how things work, so who do I trust?  You might say "well obviously, your gut", but let's be honest- many DM's make off the cuff rulings that are way too conservative because their understanding of the game is being challenged.  I remember threads from even late in 3.5 with arguments about stuff in the PHB where they simply refused to believe the rules they were reading (Sneak Attack being a great example of something that was woefully misunderstood, with people trying to say you couldn't use it with a greatsword, couldn't sneak attack more than once, tried to apply AD&D backstab restrictions on it, or felt it was "too powerful" because look at all those dice he's rolling!  All while Clericzilla and Druidzilla are running rampant, Wizards are inventing infinite money and wish exploits in their sleep, and the Barbarian just took a few options from 3-4 different books and now he's charging for hundreds of points of damage each turn!).TLDR: the ability of a DM to "rule zero" the game into shape does not excuse making a game that is less than fully baked.  The better someone understands the situation, the better they can make rulings if they feel the need.</blockquote>

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