D&D General What is your default approach to the rules, permissive or restrictive?

[Paul Farquhar]

I have a special antipathy for the latter, as it is deeply disingenuous.

We use the Nat 20 is an automatic success house rule, so everything is possible. But I have personally rolled more than 40 on skill checks. I think there has to be a chance for characters who invest highly in skills to show off what they can do.

 

[Andvari]

In my example, I based the DC of the intercept action on the minotaur's level. So probably around DC 20 vs. a PC who at that point had at least a +11 bonus to Athletics. It's always great when there's an opposing creature involved as you get the DC for free, and the ruling made for a heroic moment for the PC.

 

[Meech17]

I think I lean more on the permissive side.

We only recently started using a grid. When it came to movement we quickly ran into the issue diagonal movement. What do?

Board game rules? does the piece move like a king in chest? One square at a time? Or can they move like a queen crossing over the corner of the square?

I went ahead and allowed cross corner movement. We later did some research and it appears that it gives you more movement moving diagonally. I'm not going to change it, because my players understand that this is something that's kind of abstract, so by allowing for this we're making combat a little smoother and quicker. I don't expect that any of them would, but if in the future we start seeing one or more players using diagonal lines to get like 50% more movement speed, then we'll have to have a talk about it.

But if someone moves 32.5 feet instead of 30 feet because they cut a corner because it made sense, then that's fine.

 

[Minigiant]

But these things are not given as specific examples of using it. "Restrictive" means that if it's not specifically mentioned in the rules, you can't do it. If you say "okay, make an athletics* check" you are being permissive, even if you set the DC to 35.

*Or other skill. for example, I would ask for a Religion check to make an improvised holy symbol.

I agree.

I mean restrictive as in "I try to shoot the giant in the eye".

Nope.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Permissive. I don't consider anything "game rules"... they're all just "game guidelines" as far as I'm concerned.

 

[TwoSix]

I can't imagine there are a ton of people who willingly think of themselves as "restrictive" DMs, even when that's probably true to most outside observers.

 

[tetrasodium]

Speaking exclusively about players attempting an action that exists exclusively within the boundaries of player authority with no guarantee of success I'd say generally permissive.

More recently I find players will often expect "permissive" to extend beyond the italicized qualifier and lash out about some form of restrictive play if the gm says no or the player fails despite a "good" roll on what was a long shot at best.

 

[Oofta]

You need an "It depends" middle ground. I'm not an "always say yes" DM, although there are many, many things the PCs can do that are not explicitly covered by the rules. On the other hand, there are some things that just won't work. To use an extreme example you can't jump across the Grand Canyon no matter how high your athletics score is and I don't care if you roll a 20. Where that line falls will always be a judgement call.

But if the rules don't allow you to do something I'll ask the player what they are trying to accomplish. Too often some DMs will assume that the players perfectly understand the situation or simply have a different interpretation of how their features work. In addition, especially with less experienced players, they may not know how to use some feature to achieve their goals.

 

[Umbran]

I aim for being permissive, with two caveats:

1) Not setting precedents - I am cool with allowing a thing once. But when you ask me to allow something in the middle of running a session, maybe it shouldn't become routine. The wackier the attempted action, the more it will be dependent on the situation you were in at the time, and the less you should expect it to work again.

2) Not being exploitive - a new and different approach to something should be about as effective as things available in the rules, overall. Don't aim for permission to hit an "I win" button on one action. If you want to stack up some creative stuff to construct an "I win", expect a skill challenge or two.

I make liberal use of advantage ("Oh, you did new clever thing, you get advantage on this roll to do X."), and skill-challenge-esque structures to enable creative solutions.

Edit to add: There are games that are built out of permissiveness, because they give solid frameworks for it - Fate being a prime example.

 

[Charlaquin]

I can't imagine there are a ton of people who willingly think of themselves as "restrictive" DMs, even when that's probably true to most outside observers.

There seem to be at least 4