D&D General When do you overrule RAW?

[James Gasik]

So the rules cannot take everything into account and it is perfectly possible, even likely, that sometimes unforeseen edge cases crop up where blindly following the rules would produce particularly implausible outcomes. In such cases it is fine to overrule the rules, and I'd consider this to be one of GM's responsibilities.

But I don't think the example here is that, and I think it was a bad ruling. Some monsters being rather big is not a rare edge case; it is totally expected one and clearly codified in the rules. It was perfectly reasonable for Marisha to expect this to work.

And I even agree with Mercer, that it doesn't make much sense for the movement stopping to work on creatures that big, and that's why I put it on my houserule document that it doesn't, so that the player can make informed decisions on how to employ the feat or indeed whether to choose it in the first place.

This reminds me of another similar bad ruling of Mercer's (again on Marisha's expense,) where he ignored the normal fall rules after the player had already committed to the jump (correctly by the RAW) assuming that that the fall could not be lethal. Buddy, the moment to tell the player that the normal rules won't apply is before they jump!

(Of course what annoyed me more about that than the incident itself, was the internet reaction. There were a lot of "LOL Marisha so dumb" comments, even though her intuition of the rules governing the situation was perfectly correct, Matt just pulled the rug from under her. Smelled like misogyny. )

Oh I remember that. I don't watch CR, but my roommate does, and I happened to be in the room where he suddenly picked up a huge handful of dice to roll for the falling damage.

I even said "that is not how that works".

But I'm not passing judgement on Mr. Mercer. He is an entertainer. He is producing entertainment. In that instance, it was more entertaining to his audience to pick up a ton of dice and roll them, and I would presume all the actors on his show are fully onboard.

If this was done in a regular game I was in, however, there would be words.

 

[Tony Vargas]

"Ability to persuade the DM out of character" shouldn't be a necessary skill to play D&D

Even when it's not strictly necessary, it's extraordinarily powerful. Beats char op system mastery all hollow.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know - they get stuck in their feet and make it difficult to walk? They might lack the ability to be careful to avoid the worst of them, or to kick (or use foot-flexing muscles) to shake them off.


Get sucked up inside them and are uncomfortable/distracting/cumbersome?


I mean, you're fine to rule that way, of course, but there's LOTS of ways the story could be told to make it work.

Sure, if your overriding goal is to make sure players actions work as indicated by the rules. I don't see that as the highest priority in this situation.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"I stab the monster deep in the ankle, making it pause while it figures out what happened."

Wasn't this an action that doesn't do damage?

 

[Mort]

So the rules cannot take everything into account and it is perfectly possible, even likely, that sometimes unforeseen edge cases crop up where blindly following the rules would produce particularly implausible outcomes. In such cases it is fine to overrule the rules, and I'd consider this to be one of GM's responsibilities.

But I don't think the example here is that, and I think it was a bad ruling. Some monsters being rather big is not a rare edge case; it is totally expected one and clearly codified in the rules. It was perfectly reasonable for Marisha to expect this to work.

And I even agree with Mercer, that it doesn't make much sense for the movement stopping to work on creatures that big, and that's why I put it on my houserule document that it doesn't, so that the player can make informed decisions on how to employ the feat or indeed whether to choose it in the first place.

This reminds me of another similar bad ruling of Mercer's (again on Marisha's expense,) where he ignored the normal fall rules after the player had already committed to the jump (correctly by the RAW) assuming that that the fall could not be lethal. Buddy, the moment to tell the player that the normal rules won't apply is before they jump!

(Of course what annoyed me more about that than the incident itself, was the internet reaction. There were a lot of "LOL Marisha so dumb" comments, even though her intuition of the rules governing the situation was perfectly correct, Matt just pulled the rug from under her. Smelled like misogyny. )

I remember that scene. And the ruling was bad, BUT:

From what I remember, Mercer was CLEARLY and very visibly already frustrated with the group for just waffling about for so long instead of just getting on with the actual adventure (must have been an extreme case). I think his ruling there was punitive/punishing out of frustration more than anything else. Doesn't excuse it, but I think that explains it.

Pretty good example of DMs (even great ones) are human and pushing them because "you think it's funny..." Is likely to drive the game somewhere unpleasant!

 

[Vaalingrade]

I am the first guy to do a 360 dunk of RAW into a garbage can, but I disagreed with this ruling when I initially saw it and still disagree with it.

I'm not in favor of changing a rule mid-action.
I'm not in favor of changing a rule in a way that hoses a character's fun action.
And I'm especially not in favor of using the weak argument of 'realism' in a fantasy.

Also, how much or 'Coll Monk S***' does Bo get away with the whole rest of the series but now it's a problem? It's just plain inconsistent.

 

[James Gasik]

Even when it's not strictly necessary, it's extraordinarily powerful. Beats char op system mastery all hollow.

I've had it occur in games, a few months back, I made such a persuasive and logical argument to an NPC that they capitulated to me and only later did we realize that the DM never actually forced my 12 Charisma Wizard to make a die roll!

A lot of people would say "well, that's roleplay", but the fact that someone can bypass the game mechanics and make arguments to the DM basically turns Charisma into a non-ability. Which isn't kosher, IMO.

I mean, I've often seen the opposite scenario, where a player says "I roll Charisma to persuade the NPC!" and the DM asks the socially awkward player "what do you say? Present your character's argument".

A roleplaying game kind of assumes that, at some point, you have to disassociate the player from their character- if I can't play someone who is stronger, smarter, and better looking than I am, it's not roleplaying any more.

It's method acting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's a game.

There are more than enough double standards and unfairness IRL, we don't need them in our escapist entertainment.

It's a fantasy world, that ideally has a measure of internal consistency. That might mean that magical solutions don't suffer the same restrictions as nonmagical ones.

 

[James Gasik]

Wasn't this an action that doesn't do damage?

Sentinel triggers when you hit with an attack, so yeah, it deals damage.

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D Fighters routinely do the impossible, as I referred to in my original post, they can actually fight, harm, and kill creatures of immense size, to whom a sword might as well be a toothpick. If anyone should be forced to give an explanation here, it's the person who wrote the Sentinel Feat, not the player who took it, as the Feat merely refers to you have mastered a vague fighting art.

How could anyone other than the designer be asked to describe how it works, when only the designer presumably knows?

I agree. Not a good feat.