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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott Christian" data-source="post: 9082847" data-attributes="member: 6901101">It is definitely established beforehand. 100%. That is part of the point. Circumstances can dictate the feature's accessibility. It could have just as easily been we were inland at the dwarven mine and told we needed to go to the island. So, I would go to the nearest port town and look for passage using my feature. Then surprise! When we get there, it is barricaded. To me, that is legitimate too if the DM had already had plans for that. (Although, a great DM would have foreshadowed or placed it as part of the military dynamics. You know, the old caravan riding empty two days from town complaining about how no goods are coming in or out of the port. But maybe we were stupid and didn't take the road. Maybe we went off-road to search for some ranger herbs or something.)And yes, it can definitely lead to something interesting. But, in my experience, sometimes a DM has to plan for those things. Therefore, I wouldn't mind waiting to see what they had planned. I think here you are placing too much liability on the DM. I have seen many DMs try. I have seen them try to work things in. I have seen them ask questions out of game to see where these types of players wanted to go. And almost all the responses are: "I took it for the skills." I feel you are looking at this as a DM not putting in the work. Sometimes, the work can be put in, and the result is still the same. So could it be the DM? Yes. In my experience (because I have had many great DMs) it never was. It was always the player not caring about their character's background. Mind you, they cared about their character, but they did not care about its background. To them, it was a means to start progressing their character - which can be fun in its own way. Why does there need to be a gain? In their head, they thought logically it doesn't work, had a reason, and then made a judgement call based on that reason. The gain is it made me wary of underwater encounters, which seems suitable to my character. From that point on I was always trepid regarding encounters near water. So I guess there was a gain - it made my character develop a small flaw that acted upon their psyche. Sounds like a character that became well-rounded through adventuring experience. The exact kind of character growth a player might want.I agree, interpretation can go both ways. I have said such. But why fault the DM that interprets it the other way? Because it doesn't allow player exactly what they want? That seems petty to me, especially when every DM I know would have allowed its use 9 out of 10 times. Because, to be clear, we are discussing circumstances that are not normal. We are discussing extraneous circumstances that lead the DM to say no. They are not doing it to just say no. They are not doing it to force their will. They are doing it because there is a circumstances that tells them, not here, not now, or not with this person.</blockquote>

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