Waibel's Rule of Interpretation (aka "How to Interpret the Rules")

The only CORRECT interpretation is the one I say!

The sooner the rest of the world gets that, the sooner we can all sit down and have fun...and end all fantasy rpg forum arguments everywhere.

heheheh.

[Seliousry though, nice chart. ]

 

[Sacrosanct]

To be fair though, as kids in the early 80's, we had a LOT of crap games too.

Not in my experience. Sure, there were a couple, but the vast majority of gaming was just going with the flow. I've been playing AD&D since 1981 continuously, and I still don't have half the rules in the DMG memorized. We had a blast just making up and going with it. maybe I just got really lucky and had a great group of friends, because we had a rule: if you don't like the DM's rules, DM yourself. That solved 90% of arguments before they ever happened.

No player should ever be arguing you're using a monster in the "wrong" terrain. This is a good example of "no arguing at the table, leave it to after the session" type thing. I mean come on now, players shouldn't ever be bringing up that sort of information.

Indeed. If I had a player arguing that manticore should be in the desert instead of a forest and wouldn't let it go immediately? There would be issues.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Let's not forget, I was wrong here.

You as the DM putting a manticore in a forest instead of a desert? You are not wrong.


The sooner people start understanding this concept (DM empowerment for reasonable changes), the better.

 

[Hussar]

You as the DM putting a manticore in a forest instead of a desert? You are not wrong.


The sooner people start understanding this concept (DM empowerment for reasonable changes), the better.

Well, no, I was wrong. The rules say that manticores appear in the desert. I was using the manticore in a forested area out of ignorance, not because I had deliberately made any conscious changes to the rules.

Now, was it a reasonable change? Well, I certainly think so. I would change it again in a heartbeat, and certainly have done so. But, that wasn't the situation. I put the monster there because I liked the monster and I wanted to use it, not because the monster should be there. Again, considering the huge amount of angst over the past few years over changes to monsters in 4e, I'd say that this is a fairly important issue to some people.

Not me, mind you, but some people play D&D for the flavour of D&D and want that flavour to be maintained in the game. Are they wrong for doing so?

Now, for your second part, I do not want to play this way. I don't like it as a DM and I don't like it as a player. Again, for me, consensus is much more important than DM empowerment.

 

[Sacrosanct]

sigh...

you as the dm putting a manticore in the forest because you thought it was cool means you were doing it right. That's what I'm trying to say. No rule, not a single one, should prevent you from doing what you have fun doing. Especially if it's entirely reasonable (like a manticore in a forest), and ESPECIALLY if you're the DM.

honestly, the fact that you felt like you had to change your cool idea based on metagaming, makes me pretty sad. You're definitely not wrong by using your imagination. Anyone who argues otherwise misses the whole point of D&D.. Just look at what the official motto of D&D was for all those years

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But, in this particular case, I was wrong and chapter and verse showed that I was wrong. Why should the fact that I'm sitting in the DM's chair mean that my mistakes don't matter. If a player pulled a stunt like this - using something completely wrong by the rules - we'd call him a bad player. Particularly if he insisted that he could continue to use whatever, even though it's wrong, just to "get on with the game". I'm not sure if DM's should get a pass here.

I like this style, and I think (and hope) I use it myself. It's not the DM's game--the DM is just one player who has a special role in running it. It is however the DM's world, so any time he says, "Don't worry, I did that on purpose," I expect the other players to roll with it.

I don't know what I would have done in the case of your plate vs. chain controversy, but I'd like to think I would have discussed it amicably with the player in question and come to some kind of resolution that we can both agree to live with, whether that means, "Okay, you've convinced me, so I'll outlaw chain mail too/allow plate armor" or "Yeah, it's interesting that they invented chain but not plate, huh?"

 

[BryonD]

Not me, mind you, but some people play D&D for the flavour of D&D and want that flavour to be maintained in the game. Are they wrong for doing so?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if anyone is remotely that stressed over a manticore in the forest, then they are not "wrong" but quite ridiculous.

Now, if the mechanics specifically made the issue meaningful, that would be different.
And getting upset over things that have a major impact on heavily established lore is a reasonable concern. But there are reasonable (and I'd dare-say obvious) limits.

Now, for your second part, I do not want to play this way. I don't like it as a DM and I don't like it as a player. Again, for me, consensus is much more important than DM empowerment.

DM empowerment is not an end to itself.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if anyone is remotely that stressed over a manticore in the forest, then they are not "wrong" but quite ridiculous.

Obviously it was important enough to the guy that he memorized what terrains manticores live in. If one of my players was obsessed enough to learn that kind of detail, why wouldn't I want to respect his feelings enough to at least consider changing the encounter (or at least re-flavoring it as a different color of manticore, which lives in different terrain and may have different habits, lifecycle, or stats) instead of dismissing his concerns out of hand?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Obviously it was important enough to the guy that he memorized what terrains manticores live in. If one of my players was obsessed enough to learn that kind of detail, why wouldn't I want to respect his feelings enough to at least consider changing the encounter (or at least re-flavoring it as a different color of manticore, which lives in different terrain and may have different habits, lifecycle, or stats) instead of dismissing his concerns out of hand?

because metagaming with out of character knowledge is generally considered bad form at best?

heck, if I know I'm gaming with someone who wants to memorize everything in the book and apply it when their character would never have such knowledge, I will change things up on purpose.

no one likes a rules lawyer who sucks the fun out of the game. "Products of your imagination" for a reason

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

because metagaming with out of character knowledge is generally considered bad form at best?

heck, if I know I'm gaming with someone who wants to memorize everything in the book and apply it when their character would never have such knowledge, I will change things up on purpose.

no one likes a rules lawyer who sucks the fun out of the game. "Products of your imagination" for a reason

What makes you think the knowledge would be out-of-character? You don't even know what his character was. And, since the character didn't do anything with the knowledge (only the player did), there isn't even an issue there.

Some people just notice things. If my DM tells me that my ship just got sucked into a black hole but I can shoot my way back out of the event horizon using phasers, to me it is immediately obvious that this is a stupid, unphysical plan, and the fact that the DM allows it doesn't make it not-groanworthy. Maybe this guy notices Manticore anomalies in that same way. You don't know the situation, don't judge.

Or do, if you want to. It's your game, YMMV.

 

[Henry]

Now, if it had been a SHARKNADO in a forest... THEN you'd have been totally wrong.