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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8732094" data-attributes="member: 6877472">I think ultimately, a lot of the arguing about the game's mechanics come down to the very basic argument about what D&D is.Is D&D a gritty, low magic game where an arrow is a serious threat to most people, and magic is rare and little understood?Is D&D a high magic game of floating castles and dragons, with powerful artifacts and reality warping magic available to players?Is D&D a simulation, trying to map rules to some vague sense of verisimilitude?Or is D&D a game, trying to make rules that are fun and allow for epic shenanigans?The answer is, all of the above.  Any given version of the game attempts to fulfill all of these visions simultaneously.  In the 1e DMG, Gary Gygax stated that D&D is not a simulation, and anyone thinking it was or should be was crazy.  But at the same time, he crafted a great many rules in order to bind D&D to a medieval-inspired world of castles and hamlets, where wizards were inscrutable, and adventurers very mortal (even as he filled the DMG with fantastical magic items and artifacts, and the PHB with 9 levels of miraculous spells).The players have argued about what D&D is ever since it's conception.  Is it a wargame where you take control not of armies or even squads, but lone heroes?Is it a game about a group working together to create amazing stories?The reality is- all of the above.  But as long as opposing viewpoints about what the game is (or should be, in their opinion) persist, of course we're going to quibble about whether or not Fighters should be more fantastical or if there's a problem with out of combat healing or if Wizards need to be limited to 3rd level spells.I've long held the belief that spellcasters are really strong in 5e, despite attempts to ratchet them down in power from 3.5...and yet, recently in a thread about lightning bolt, of all things, I saw some well-reasoned arguments that implied that spellcasters are...not strong enough, of all things, due to limited high level spell slots, spells not improving on their own, and upcasting being weak!And it made me stop and realize that complaints and debates about the game will never cease, and continue probably until the heat death of the universe, since there's no way we can ever come to any consensus about what D&D actually is.</blockquote>

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