What you call jumping through hoops, provided you fully grasp what we're talking about, is what I call a player holding up their end of the conversation and thereby making it so that my role as DM is not harder than it has to be.
because you are being trollish at this point. You pretend to be the end all be all of logic and reason, but pick and choose what you address and what you don't not to show or educate (as you claim you are here doing) but to try to attack and stop others from sharing what they take away from the rules
and what you call 'holding up there end of the conversation' I find to be nit picky time wasting, and not required by RAW.
I don't agree or disagree with a given style, provided it's fun. The game says to do X, I do X. If X is fun, then great. If it's not, then I house rule or find another game. That D&D 5e seems similar to older editions of the game is irrelevant to me. I care what these rules say, not what those say. As for the rules themselves, I have no problem with how I've read them. They are what they are and doing what the rules support produces a fun game in my experience. What it looks like to me is that you see what we're saying, project your bad experiences from other games onto that, and then interpret and judge accordingly. And we can't even seem to break through that because it appears to be an emotional reaction, not a rational understanding. We're not the DMs who made you do all that terrible pixel-hunting, okay, bud?
It’s really not jumping through hoops to say “I try to do X by Y”. The game runs much more smoothly in my experience when everyone is clear, concise, and reasonably specific to begin with, instead of having to play 20 questions whenever someone states an action vaguely.
I don't pretend that at all. Show me a correct argument and I'll change my mind. Ideas are like house guests - if they overstay their welcome, I kick them out. I don't pin my identity to ideology, so it doesn't hurt me one bit to take one idea out of my head and substitute another.
Nothing is required by RAW since the rules serve the DM, not the other way around. But RAW sets forth a standard of reasonable specificity. It just seems that in your head, reasonable specificity is interpreted to be some kind of unreasonable nonsense. So maybe don't think about it that way?
Ok, so somehow when you’re DMing you understand how intimidating someone works well enough to be able to correctly guess your players’ intentions with no further information than the name of the skill. But once you’re a player, you have no idea how to cause fear in someone else. Something isn’t adding up here.
Setting expectations is literally the point of session 0 - a pretty universally agreed on essential start to a game.
except again it appears YOU are taking older editions in mind, and talorying YOUR reading to it... the diffrence is I understand that everyone is a product of there past experiences, and you seem to think that not only are you above that, BUT that you have some how found some secret truth in how to read the rules.
as I have no issue with how I read them. the same is true for everyone...
but your advice to others when talking on the internet is that 5e RAW is written for it... and I don't believe it is. You have shown your work (in detail) and I understand how you have come to your conclusions, I just do not agree with them.
that depends. I am sure there are times that is the easies most direct way someone would say a thing... but it also will be true that when talking with your friends (and co D&D players) you will use context, and short hand, and slang/jargon. I see no reason for a formal rule (nor do I read about any phrasing rule/template in the PHB DMG or Sage Advice) on how to get the point across.
and I have never in 30 years seen someone HAVE to play 20 questions. NOT EVER. so please, tell me why you think that outcome would EVER be the default of a game run as I described. If anything I would expect MORE stop and rephrase moments in YOUR style of gaming.
