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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ranes" data-source="post: 7656475" data-attributes="member: 4826">If the thread is being reduced to collegial versus 'never question the DM', its wheels have come off.Good stuff. When I'm DMing, I have absolutely no problem with players who correct me on the rules. On the contrary, I appreciate it. It strengthens my understanding of the rules. When I'm a player, I like DMs who feel the same way, unsurprisingly (and I'm not trying to catch out  the DM or prove my superior knowledge here; I bring something up if I think it will cause more of a problem down the road - for DM and players alike - unless I do). And things like courtesy and timing always play their part. My guiding principle is rulings are for the table, debate is for after the game. By your reasoning, that makes me a collegial DM, to an extent at least.A creature showing up outside its preferred or typical habitat is not a rule gone awry. It does not, in my opinion obviously, open the door to a game-stopping debate on the fairness of it turning up elsewhere. My opinion on this does not make me fall into the hyperbolic 'never question the DM' camp as some people who disagree with my opinion (and who are welcome to do so) believe.I was assuming all other things being equal but…Irrelevant unless the DM has deliberately misled the player(s).See above.You're talking about metagaming. Celebrim already addressed this.Not very well. A player suddenly realises his party isn't equipped to deal with flying attackers and that makes the DM's use of the manticore 'unsporting' or in 'bad faith'? Sorry, but unless the DM has previously announced that there will be no flying attackers, this is simply the player's inadequacy and not the DM's fault. Any airborne creature would cause the party as much of a problem. The fact that in this case it's a manticore is completely irrelevant.A DM might take pity on the party, and have the manticore strafe them once before moving on to an even easier meal ticket, just to remind the players that they need to give more thought to preparing for an excursion into a wilderness in which things fly. But even a DM who does that is doing so because he realises the party has poorly prepared, not because he should never have had a manticore fly in on account of their preferred habitat being a desert.Your prior examples are equally poor. The ranger wants to hit the forest trail, because that's where his favoured enemy lives. Well, so what?  Does nothing else live in or venture into the forest? "The only dangerous flier we might encounter is a green dragon and we have protections against poisonous gas?" So nothing else could possibly be in there; you're absolutely certain. Any appearance of another monster is the DM acting in 'bad faith'?None of your examples justify a player derailing the game over something clearly within the DM's purview. Unless the DM has actively misled the players beforehand, and by your own admission, we don't know if that's the case, so let's start by reasonably assuming he didn't, the player's behaviour was unwarranted.This from a reasonable and somewhat collegial DM.</blockquote>

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