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

[Charlaquin]

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.

Sometimes an “it depends” option prevents a poll from providing useful information. In this instance, it would be the obviously superior answer out of the three, and would likely get close to 100% of the votes. But that wouldn’t reveal any meaningful information about people’s preferences. Of course everyone has situations where they rule permissively and situations where they rule restrictively. What’s more valuable insight is which way people tend to lean.

 

[Oofta]

Sometimes an “it depends” option prevents a poll from providing useful information. In this instance, it would be the obviously superior answer out of the three, and would likely get close to 100% of the votes. But that wouldn’t reveal any meaningful information about people’s preferences. Of course everyone has situations where they rule permissively and situations where they rule restrictively. What’s more valuable insight is which way people tend to lean.

Well, I think we already have a fairly meaningless poll because people are going to check "permissive" if they ever allow anything not covered by the rules. Or, like me, just not answer the poll.

Maybe a better way of doing it would have been a 1-5 scale or similar.

 

[Argyle King]

I want to say "permissive," but the offered definition is too vague.

"The rules don't specifically say that I can't roll a d30 for my attacks."

Yeah... that's gonna be a no for me, dawg.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I answered "permissive" but there are some sharp limits on that. I don't expect a rules set to cover everything a player or group might do, but on the other hand, trying to force a game into areas its rules set pretty clearly doesn't want to go (games that actively avoid thing pertaining to hit locations where someone tries to aim for same is not going to get me to try and engage with that outside a purely narrative approach, for example).

 

[overgeeked]

"The rules don't specifically say that I can't roll a d30 for my attacks."

They do because they specify rolling a d20.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

You're making the same mistake as the OP here, in that it seems you're conflating allowing the action a chance of success with allowing a player to declare the action.

Player - with zero chance of success both by rules and by common sense - declares his character's action to be "I jump across the Grand Canyon".

It's not restrictive to say "Your attempt to jump across the Grand Canyon fails, and unless you have means of slowing your fall you might as well start rolling up your next character".

It is restrictive to say "The rules say you can't possibly jump across the Grand Canyon and thus you cannot declare that as your (attempted) action; please declare a different action".

Permissive means they can declare anything, even if the rules say there is no chance of success. Restrictive means they can't even declare it unless the tules allow a chance of success.

 

[overgeeked]

You're making the same mistake as the OP here, in that it seems you're conflating allowing the action a chance of success with allowing a player to declare the action.

Respectfully, that’s something you’ve added to the OP that isn’t actually there.

 

[Lanefan]

Respectfully, that’s something you’ve added to the OP that isn’t actually there.

As I already noted upthread, the "attempt" piece in fact isn't there in the OP, and its absence makes a very big difference.

"Allowing an action" is NOT the same as "allowing an attempt at an action" or "allowing a player to declare an action"; because the phrase by itself "allowing an action" means you've allowed the action to succeed.

 

[overgeeked]

As I already noted upthread, the "attempt" piece in fact isn't there in the OP, and its absence makes a very big difference.

"Allowing an action" is NOT the same as "allowing an attempt at an action" or "allowing a player to declare an action"; because the phrase by itself "allowing an action" means you've allowed the action to succeed.

You’re reading way too much into this.

 

[Minigiant]

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.

That makes me a rare item.