No worries, my responses have been with my MAXIMUM VINCE FILTRATION goggles (tm, Midnightplat 2021) on, so I agree he presents his opposition needlessly antagonistically
I'm pretty sure Vince words things the way he does to get the discussion fired up... which you cannot deny he did (got it fired up, I mean).
Well BW, you do know me well enough to know I do believe what I say. Some comes across hyperbole, but I do truly believe that "rule of cool" player are inferior players. You know that I believe that. A lot of this can be traced back to perhaps the idea that I embrace which is that D&D is set of rules. Without those rules, there is no game. A subset of my hatred is the abomination that shall not be named. The rule of "there are no rules", is by definition, not a rule.
D&D has always been a massive canvas that gave enough leeway within the written guardrails for players to write amazing stories, or rather, good players and DM's with true creativity. Weaker players and DM's can't achieve those stories without "rule of cool" aka "there are no rules".
A grandmaster in chess can create magic within the 40 or 50 rules of chess, limited by 64 squares. A "rule of cool" player, needs to have Knights that move 3 up and 2 over to compete with a grandmaster.
No worries, my responses have been with my MAXIMUM VINCE FILTRATION goggles (tm, Midnightplat 2021) on, so I agree he presents his opposition needlessly antagonistically
I'm pretty sure Vince words things the way he does to get the discussion fired up... which you cannot deny he did (got it fired up, I mean).
Insulting people for disagreeing with you is not "getting the discussion fired up."
Here we go again...a precursor to "calling all mods, we need to shut him down". I have insulted no one. Unless you suggest me calling this nebulous "rule of cool players" as inferior, a specific individual.
No worries, my responses have been with my MAXIMUM VINCE FILTRATION goggles (tm, Midnightplat 2021) on, so I agree he presents his opposition needlessly antagonistically
I'm pretty sure Vince words things the way he does to get the discussion fired up... which you cannot deny he did (got it fired up, I mean).
Insulting people for disagreeing with you is not "getting the discussion fired up."
Here we go again...a precursor to "calling all mods, we need to shut him down". I have insulted no one. Unless you suggest me calling this nebulous "rule of cool players" as inferior, a specific individual.
Well, you have. You've called people weak and inferior just for having a different kind of fun than you and you also advocate hatred against these people.
I love the, probably unintentional, irony of your signature, by the way. :)
The chess analogy is not about winners and losers. It's about the fact that a grandmaster can be very creative while still following all the rules of the game. Bobby Fischer is still considered by many (and I am one) to be the greatest chess player of all time. The reason? He was creative. You have to understand some chess to understand why... but he pulled moves that the other grandmasters would mark in notation with a ?! (where a ? means questionable move, a ! means great move, and a ?! means pretty much WTF?). It was a move that everyone else thought was questionable, but Fischer had a completely unconventional idea in mind, and not only did it work, it beat the other grandmasters. Here we go again with competition, but that is not the point -- the point is that he was being creative, within a very restrictive and utterly non-negotiable ruleset.
And if Bobby Fischer could be creative in chess, without having to break the rules of chess to do it, surely we, as D&D players, can be creative within the existing ruleset of D&D, which is far more flexible than the chess ruleset, without having to completely throw the rules out in the name of "creativity."
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The chess analogy is not about winners and losers. It's about the fact that a grandmaster can be very creative while still following all the rules of the game. Bobby Fischer is still considered by many (and I am one) to be the greatest chess player of all time. The reason? He was creative. You have to understand some chess to understand why... but he pulled moves that the other grandmasters would mark in notation with a ?! (where a ? means questionable move, a ! means great move, and a ?! means pretty much WTF?). It was a move that everyone else thought was questionable, but Fischer had a completely unconventional idea in mind, and not only did it work, it beat the other grandmasters. Here we go again with competition, but that is not the point -- the point is that he was being creative, within a very restrictive and utterly non-negotiable ruleset.
And if Bobby Fischer could be creative in chess, without having to break the rules of chess to do it, surely we, as D&D players, can be creative within the existing ruleset of D&D, which is far more flexible than the chess ruleset, without having to completely throw the rules out in the name of "creativity."
2 things are painfully clear reading through all this. First, Vince simply cannot play with anyone who wants to try and put a weird spin on rules, as any breach of RaW makes them inferior in his eyes. If you don't follow them to the letter, OR try to utilize something in a non-written manner (using fire to attack ice) you are tossing the rules and are thus an inferior player.
Secondly, the specifics appear to have enraged him to the point of irrational. The fire VS ice bit is the most profound example. To make a claim that a jet of fire has zero effect on ice is silly, from a RL perspective and a RaW perspective, as indicated where the rules actually say fire has an effect on a wall of ice. The example provided seemed to lack some detail, where the DM can or should have, justified WHY the archer leapt from his perch. Myself, I would have pointed out that a huge steam cloud boiled up from the point of impact and condensed, streaming water down the side of the wall. The archer, noting the steam, jumped down, fearing the foes were about to take his perch from under him. It explains WHY the archer leaped down, while showing the actual effect was minimal. Sometimes the illusion of success is sufficient to frighten someone into doing something.
With this in mind, I believe the "Rule of Cool" has a HUGE place in making the game a lot more exciting, interesting and enjoyable for all. The biggest issue seems to be people not understanding that the "Rule of Cool" can sometimes be confused with the "Rule of Fool" which would be the touching someone with a toe to meet the touch requirement of a spell. The coordinating movement things came off, even reading, as a mechanical nightmare for a DM (I would need some time to sort how I would allow that to work) In some cases, creative player decisions ARE going to slow the game a bit, while the DM sorts how best to address this off the wall, unexpected action the players want to take. I, at least, LOVE it when my players throw a curve ball and I have no issue slowing the game to work out how I will employ (or dismiss) the idea presented.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Kind of silly to be expected to stay strictly within the rules when after the release of a ruleset the publisher spends years adding more mechanics. If the developers get to come up with newfangled stuff, why not the players and DMs? Houserules and homebrew stand as a proud tradition for over four decades. That's not suddenly "bad D&D".
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First, Vince simply cannot play with anyone who wants to try and put a weird spin on rules, as any breach of RaW makes them inferior in his eyes. If you don't follow them to the letter, OR try to utilize something in a non-written manner (using fire to attack ice) you are tossing the rules and are thus an inferior player.
I'm not sure that's really true. The examples seem to be more about tossing the rules for coolness' sake in the moment, rather than making a consistently-applied house rule such as, "I believe that fire should melt ice, so in this campaign, one of our house rules is that any fire spell does triple damage to an ice wall, and will take it down pretty easily." I think if the GM had opened with this from day 1, Vince may not have had an issue with it. The problem is that it is being decided in-session based on how "cool" it would be for it to work, and it may or may not work the same way again next session, which makes the entire thing rather messy.
With this in mind, I believe the "Rule of Cool" has a HUGE place in making the game a lot more exciting, interesting and enjoyable for all.
I think it can, if used in a thoughtful and non-random way.
I also think it should not be a blanket justification for things. A DM who says, "I will occasionally allow things that bend the rules for the sake of narrative coolness" is different from one who thinks that the rules are almost by definition an obstacle for coolness and will toss them out preferentially and frequently as long as cool stuff is going on instead.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I'm not sure that's really true. The examples seem to be more about tossing the rules for coolness' sake in the moment, rather than making a consistently-applied house rule such as, "I believe that fire should melt ice, so in this campaign, one of our house rules is that any fire spell does triple damage to an ice wall, and will take it down pretty easily." I think if the GM had opened with this from day 1, Vince may not have had an issue with it. The problem is that it is being decided in-session based on how "cool" it would be for it to work, and it may or may not work the same way again next session, which makes the entire thing rather messy.
I don't know about other DMs, but at session zero this is not the sort of ruling I think of that needs to be covered. Things that I usually feel need to be covered are
1. Rules on making characters (how stats are determined and any other nuances)
2. Which optional rules I am using (multiclassing, feats, flanking, sanity/honor, etc)
3. Any restrictions on classes, races/lineages, sourcebooks, etc.
4. Any OVERARCHING house rules I have come up with
The capitalized portion in the last part is important. I can usually think of house rules that will be important to the campaign overall, but I do not predict ahead of time every possible and minute object and spell interaction. How magical fire affects ice is not the sort of thing I am thinking about on day 1. For every house rule I have prepared on day 1, there are probably about a dozen or more rulings I have to make as a DM during a session because it is not something I considered on day 1. And thats ok. DMs should not be expected to think ahead of time about every possible way an effect might be used to interact with a myriad of unique dungeons, environments, monsters that haven't even been determined yet. There are hundreds of different spell effects, subclass features, and more that can be combined in ways not covered RAW.
tl;dr : A dm should be straightforward about rulings ahead of time, yes, but they cannot predict everything. How fire spells interact with ice is not the sort of thing that a DM will think to cover on session zero, because it is super niche to begin with imo
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2 things are painfully clear reading through all this. First, Vince simply cannot play with anyone who wants to try and put a weird spin on rules, as any breach of RaW makes them inferior in his eyes. If you don't follow them to the letter, OR try to utilize something in a non-written manner (using fire to attack ice) you are tossing the rules and are thus an inferior player.
Secondly, the specifics appear to have enraged him to the point of irrational. The fire VS ice bit is the most profound example. To make a claim that a jet of fire has zero effect on ice is silly, from a RL perspective and a RaW perspective, as indicated where the rules actually say fire has an effect on a wall of ice. The example provided seemed to lack some detail, where the DM can or should have, justified WHY the archer leapt from his perch. Myself, I would have pointed out that a huge steam cloud boiled up from the point of impact and condensed, streaming water down the side of the wall. The archer, noting the steam, jumped down, fearing the foes were about to take his perch from under him. It explains WHY the archer leaped down, while showing the actual effect was minimal. Sometimes the illusion of success is sufficient to frighten someone into doing something.
With this in mind, I believe the "Rule of Cool" has a HUGE place in making the game a lot more exciting, interesting and enjoyable for all. The biggest issue seems to be people not understanding that the "Rule of Cool" can sometimes be confused with the "Rule of Fool" which would be the touching someone with a toe to meet the touch requirement of a spell. The coordinating movement things came off, even reading, as a mechanical nightmare for a DM (I would need some time to sort how I would allow that to work) In some cases, creative player decisions ARE going to slow the game a bit, while the DM sorts how best to address this off the wall, unexpected action the players want to take. I, at least, LOVE it when my players throw a curve ball and I have no issue slowing the game to work out how I will employ (or dismiss) the idea presented.
I will skip the insults to focus on the mechanical nightmare you touched on.
C= "creative" Cleric, N = NPC Fighter, A = Human Variant Fighter, who took Fighting Style = Protection (triggers on a Reaction) and the Feat Sentinel, which once again, triggers mostly on a Reaction.
Initiative order of the 3 in the shield wall (forget about the other 2 players, who are operating normally) = N, A, and C.
To move as a unit, N has to forgo any attack or movement to Ready the Action of "I will move beside A and C when A or C moves". Naturally, the DM was having N take the Attack while still Readying an Action.
A, operates under the same situation as N, except the trigger is "When C moves, I move." So now A should giving up the Reaction of either Protection or Sentinel. This player is the newest of the bunch to 5e, and had no clue how Readied Actions work, and every turn, tried to use either Protection or Sentinel, sometimes both, while still Readying their Action as described. So that was a minimum of two, sometimes THREE, Reactions in this player's turn
C, the genius who thought this up, well, because his movement was the trigger, he gets to operate normally, including using the Bonus Action associated with Spiritual Weapon.
Oh, and A was under the impression that he could also attack, like N, because he was doing what the DM's N was.
Of course, when I bring up how they are totally shattering the rules, I am considered the bad guy, and such rules are "minutiae".
Meantime, I am playing my char, a Halfling Rogue, by the rules, darting around, sometimes using Cunning Action for extra movement, sometimes not using it at all, because the DM ruled my char could not see past the shield wall (also 100% wrong), and at one point, these 3 entities filled a 15 foot wide opening. I could have darted through the wall, and shot, then darted back, but thought, "this entire encounter is so utterly broken because it is defined by a set of rules, or lack thereof, that I have no idea what will happen, because I have no way to predict anything."
And then the entire exchange about how this is "rule of cool", creative, and fun ensued the next day, as I documented.
Any player that is dropped into this session (and there are zero House Rules made available by the DM) would try to operate by RAW. As was I, since this chaos had never come up before. Then Mr "Creative" had this bright idea, because "It is what his character would do."
A dm should be straightforward about rulings ahead of time, yes, but they cannot predict everything. How fire spells interact with ice is not the sort of thing that a DM will think to cover on session zero, because it is super niche to begin with
Sure, that's true enough.
But once the ruling happens in game, I personally will think it out and write it up as an actual rule, worded with as much technical language as I think necessary, and publish it on your World Anvil site, so that everyone knows how it will work from now on.
Again, I think the lack of thoughtfulness here, and the lack of deliberation, is more troublesome than the individual ruling in the moment.
To move as a unit, N has to forgo any attack or movement to Ready the Action of "I will move beside A and C when A or C moves". Naturally, the DM was having N take the Attack while still Readying an Action.
Yup, that's illegal. It's giving the character 2 actions per turn.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
But once the ruling happens in game, I personally will think it out and write it up as an actual rule, worded with as much technical language as I think necessary, and publish it on your World Anvil site, so that everyone knows how it will work from now on.
Just an FYI, but there's lots of players that will look at such a list and lose any and all interest in playing a game with you. Lots of people just aren't inclined to memorize giant list of house rules - they consider that more homework than playing.
So, suggesting that making a list of every one of your house calls and formalizing it can actually be extremely detrimental to the fun of the game. And its not something most players would consider the norm in a game.
Players have a good reason to think that their characters can move in formation. Whole armies have been doing this for millennia. The Ready action allows this to happen in D&D but the rules for it take some effort to understand and explaining it right then would have been a pain for DM and players. The best course of action in my view would have been for the DM to say that the characters hadn’t practiced it so that couldn’t during this fight and tell the players that they would go through the rules and figure out game mechanics that allow this to happen.
The fact that groups of monsters can use the same initiative roll and essentially do marching in formation without the costs to action economy of Ready action is a problem. It’s something that the players either must accept or the DM has to house rule.
Edit: The halfling rulings are ridiculous and unfair. It’s hard for a DM to make everyone feel that they are being treated fairly 100% of the time but this is clear example of how not to DM.
I will skip the insults to focus on the mechanical nightmare you touched on.
So what do you have a problem with? Players creating a shield wall in order to advance in relative safety, or the way this idea was adjudicated?
The concept of a shield wall, while problematic, breaks no rules. Said shield wall heavily nerfs the group's firepower, while providing zero mechanical benefit, assuming it is played by anything close to the basic rules of the game. But the players involved can do it.
I had a huge problem with the adjudication. I laid out all the ways the adjudication broke rules fundamental to the game, but those objections were waved away because it is not "fun", and stymies "cool stuff".
The player said, and I will quote again:"Its clear we are very different players. Let's agree to disagree on this point. Going forward, you run your character as you see fit. I will do the same. " So, the player is saying "I don't care about what the rules say, I will bloody well do what I want."
And the DM backed him with: "I think that focusing on the minutia of game mechanics slows down the game and takes away from creativity."
So when the DM thinks that fundamental mechanics to the game are "minutia", that DM is a bad DM. And a player not willing to learn or apply fundamental mechanics of the game is a bad player.
2 things are painfully clear reading through all this. First, Vince simply cannot play with anyone who wants to try and put a weird spin on rules, as any breach of RaW makes them inferior in his eyes. If you don't follow them to the letter, OR try to utilize something in a non-written manner (using fire to attack ice) you are tossing the rules and are thus an inferior player.
Secondly, the specifics appear to have enraged him to the point of irrational. The fire VS ice bit is the most profound example. To make a claim that a jet of fire has zero effect on ice is silly, from a RL perspective and a RaW perspective, as indicated where the rules actually say fire has an effect on a wall of ice. The example provided seemed to lack some detail, where the DM can or should have, justified WHY the archer leapt from his perch. Myself, I would have pointed out that a huge steam cloud boiled up from the point of impact and condensed, streaming water down the side of the wall. The archer, noting the steam, jumped down, fearing the foes were about to take his perch from under him. It explains WHY the archer leaped down, while showing the actual effect was minimal. Sometimes the illusion of success is sufficient to frighten someone into doing something.
With this in mind, I believe the "Rule of Cool" has a HUGE place in making the game a lot more exciting, interesting and enjoyable for all. The biggest issue seems to be people not understanding that the "Rule of Cool" can sometimes be confused with the "Rule of Fool" which would be the touching someone with a toe to meet the touch requirement of a spell. The coordinating movement things came off, even reading, as a mechanical nightmare for a DM (I would need some time to sort how I would allow that to work) In some cases, creative player decisions ARE going to slow the game a bit, while the DM sorts how best to address this off the wall, unexpected action the players want to take. I, at least, LOVE it when my players throw a curve ball and I have no issue slowing the game to work out how I will employ (or dismiss) the idea presented.
I will skip the insults to focus on the mechanical nightmare you touched on.
C= "creative" Cleric, N = NPC Fighter, A = Human Variant Fighter, who took Fighting Style = Protection (triggers on a Reaction) and the Feat Sentinel, which once again, triggers mostly on a Reaction.
Since this is at least partly a thread about RAW, I feel that we need to adress the fact that the bolded part is, according to RAW, wrong. Protection doesn't "trigger on a reaction". It triggers a reaction under a certain set of circumstances (AFB so I can't quote the exact prerequisites). Same goes for Sentinel. It doesn't trigger "on a Reaction", it allows for the character with the feat to use their reaction in a certain way, under certain circumstances.
I will skip the insults to focus on the mechanical nightmare you touched on.
So what do you have a problem with? Players creating a shield wall in order to advance in relative safety, or the way this idea was adjudicated?
The concept of a shield wall, while problematic, breaks no rules. Said shield wall heavily nerfs the group's firepower, while providing zero mechanical benefit, assuming it is played by anything close to the basic rules of the game. But the players involved can do it.
Oh, so you're fine with Shield Walls as long as they don't do anything besides look cool, then?
My party has used shield walls before. We've ruled that it takes your Bonus Action every round to sustain, and it grants 3/4ths cover to anyone behind the wall of shields. This is a house rule, but still resembles the core rules.
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2 things are painfully clear reading through all this. First, Vince simply cannot play with anyone who wants to try and put a weird spin on rules, as any breach of RaW makes them inferior in his eyes. If you don't follow them to the letter, OR try to utilize something in a non-written manner (using fire to attack ice) you are tossing the rules and are thus an inferior player.
Secondly, the specifics appear to have enraged him to the point of irrational. The fire VS ice bit is the most profound example. To make a claim that a jet of fire has zero effect on ice is silly, from a RL perspective and a RaW perspective, as indicated where the rules actually say fire has an effect on a wall of ice. The example provided seemed to lack some detail, where the DM can or should have, justified WHY the archer leapt from his perch. Myself, I would have pointed out that a huge steam cloud boiled up from the point of impact and condensed, streaming water down the side of the wall. The archer, noting the steam, jumped down, fearing the foes were about to take his perch from under him. It explains WHY the archer leaped down, while showing the actual effect was minimal. Sometimes the illusion of success is sufficient to frighten someone into doing something.
With this in mind, I believe the "Rule of Cool" has a HUGE place in making the game a lot more exciting, interesting and enjoyable for all. The biggest issue seems to be people not understanding that the "Rule of Cool" can sometimes be confused with the "Rule of Fool" which would be the touching someone with a toe to meet the touch requirement of a spell. The coordinating movement things came off, even reading, as a mechanical nightmare for a DM (I would need some time to sort how I would allow that to work) In some cases, creative player decisions ARE going to slow the game a bit, while the DM sorts how best to address this off the wall, unexpected action the players want to take. I, at least, LOVE it when my players throw a curve ball and I have no issue slowing the game to work out how I will employ (or dismiss) the idea presented.
I will skip the insults to focus on the mechanical nightmare you touched on.
C= "creative" Cleric, N = NPC Fighter, A = Human Variant Fighter, who took Fighting Style = Protection (triggers on a Reaction) and the Feat Sentinel, which once again, triggers mostly on a Reaction.
Since this is at least partly a thread about RAW, I feel that we need to adress the fact that the bolded part is, according to RAW, wrong. Protection doesn't "trigger on a reaction". It triggers a reaction under a certain set of circumstances (AFB so I can't quote the exact prerequisites). Same goes for Sentinel. It doesn't trigger "on a Reaction", it allows for the character with the feat to use their reaction in a certain way, under certain circumstances.
Fair enough. Poor wording on my part. Both Protection and Sentinel use the player's Reaction. A player has one per their turn, and that means all the way around until the DM again says "you go" The Fighter in question was using up to 3 in their turn. That is just wrong.
I will skip the insults to focus on the mechanical nightmare you touched on.
So what do you have a problem with? Players creating a shield wall in order to advance in relative safety, or the way this idea was adjudicated?
The concept of a shield wall, while problematic, breaks no rules. Said shield wall heavily nerfs the group's firepower, while providing zero mechanical benefit, assuming it is played by anything close to the basic rules of the game. But the players involved can do it.
Oh, so you're fine with Shield Walls as long as they don't do anything besides look cool, then?
My party has used shield walls before. We've ruled that it takes your Bonus Action every round to sustain, and it grants 3/4ths cover to anyone behind the wall of shields. This is a house rule, but still resembles the core rules.
I think that shield walls thematically are idiotic, since D&D shields are nothing like a Roman Legion's shields. They are not interlocking and Medium players occupy a 5 foot zone of control, not wield a shield 5 feet wide. But if players want to form a wall that nerfs their capabilities, as long as it conforms to the basic mechanics of the game, I really can't say much about them. I have already explained that they serve no mechanical purpose in the game, and by RAW, completely nerf a group's firepower. But if a player is a selfish player who wants to nerf the group for the sake of something "cool", and follows within the rules of Action Economy, like I said, nothing I can do about that.
This situation was NOT that case. This was something that made a total mockery of Action economy.
As for your group's House Rule, well knock yourself out. As a DM I would never, ever allow anything like you described, because once again, they destroy a basic rule of 5e.
I will skip the insults to focus on the mechanical nightmare you touched on.
So what do you have a problem with? Players creating a shield wall in order to advance in relative safety, or the way this idea was adjudicated?
The concept of a shield wall, while problematic, breaks no rules. Said shield wall heavily nerfs the group's firepower, while providing zero mechanical benefit, assuming it is played by anything close to the basic rules of the game. But the players involved can do it.
What you describe is not a shieldwall. It's literally nothing but negatives. "Walking in tandem", by the rules, comes down to everyone moving at the speed of the slowest member of the party on the initiative of the slowest member of the party in the initiative order, doing nothing else at all, for no benefit whatsoever other than "we're moving in tandem". I can certainly agree the way it was handled by your DM was bad, but I think there's room for some middle ground between that and gimping yourself for no reason. I mean, by the rules it's literally not possible to run across an open field in group or to wait for a signal and both move and act in response to it. If you're ready to move across an open field on my command you can't move more than your speed, while if you move on your own you can move and dash. To me, that seems silly.
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Well BW, you do know me well enough to know I do believe what I say. Some comes across hyperbole, but I do truly believe that "rule of cool" player are inferior players. You know that I believe that. A lot of this can be traced back to perhaps the idea that I embrace which is that D&D is set of rules. Without those rules, there is no game. A subset of my hatred is the abomination that shall not be named. The rule of "there are no rules", is by definition, not a rule.
D&D has always been a massive canvas that gave enough leeway within the written guardrails for players to write amazing stories, or rather, good players and DM's with true creativity. Weaker players and DM's can't achieve those stories without "rule of cool" aka "there are no rules".
A grandmaster in chess can create magic within the 40 or 50 rules of chess, limited by 64 squares. A "rule of cool" player, needs to have Knights that move 3 up and 2 over to compete with a grandmaster.
Here we go again...a precursor to "calling all mods, we need to shut him down". I have insulted no one. Unless you suggest me calling this nebulous "rule of cool players" as inferior, a specific individual.
Well, you have. You've called people weak and inferior just for having a different kind of fun than you and you also advocate hatred against these people.
I love the, probably unintentional, irony of your signature, by the way. :)
The chess analogy is not about winners and losers. It's about the fact that a grandmaster can be very creative while still following all the rules of the game. Bobby Fischer is still considered by many (and I am one) to be the greatest chess player of all time. The reason? He was creative. You have to understand some chess to understand why... but he pulled moves that the other grandmasters would mark in notation with a ?! (where a ? means questionable move, a ! means great move, and a ?! means pretty much WTF?). It was a move that everyone else thought was questionable, but Fischer had a completely unconventional idea in mind, and not only did it work, it beat the other grandmasters. Here we go again with competition, but that is not the point -- the point is that he was being creative, within a very restrictive and utterly non-negotiable ruleset.
And if Bobby Fischer could be creative in chess, without having to break the rules of chess to do it, surely we, as D&D players, can be creative within the existing ruleset of D&D, which is far more flexible than the chess ruleset, without having to completely throw the rules out in the name of "creativity."
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Thanks BW. You lay it out better than I can.
2 things are painfully clear reading through all this. First, Vince simply cannot play with anyone who wants to try and put a weird spin on rules, as any breach of RaW makes them inferior in his eyes. If you don't follow them to the letter, OR try to utilize something in a non-written manner (using fire to attack ice) you are tossing the rules and are thus an inferior player.
Secondly, the specifics appear to have enraged him to the point of irrational. The fire VS ice bit is the most profound example. To make a claim that a jet of fire has zero effect on ice is silly, from a RL perspective and a RaW perspective, as indicated where the rules actually say fire has an effect on a wall of ice. The example provided seemed to lack some detail, where the DM can or should have, justified WHY the archer leapt from his perch. Myself, I would have pointed out that a huge steam cloud boiled up from the point of impact and condensed, streaming water down the side of the wall. The archer, noting the steam, jumped down, fearing the foes were about to take his perch from under him. It explains WHY the archer leaped down, while showing the actual effect was minimal. Sometimes the illusion of success is sufficient to frighten someone into doing something.
With this in mind, I believe the "Rule of Cool" has a HUGE place in making the game a lot more exciting, interesting and enjoyable for all. The biggest issue seems to be people not understanding that the "Rule of Cool" can sometimes be confused with the "Rule of Fool" which would be the touching someone with a toe to meet the touch requirement of a spell. The coordinating movement things came off, even reading, as a mechanical nightmare for a DM (I would need some time to sort how I would allow that to work) In some cases, creative player decisions ARE going to slow the game a bit, while the DM sorts how best to address this off the wall, unexpected action the players want to take. I, at least, LOVE it when my players throw a curve ball and I have no issue slowing the game to work out how I will employ (or dismiss) the idea presented.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Kind of silly to be expected to stay strictly within the rules when after the release of a ruleset the publisher spends years adding more mechanics. If the developers get to come up with newfangled stuff, why not the players and DMs? Houserules and homebrew stand as a proud tradition for over four decades. That's not suddenly "bad D&D".
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I'm not sure that's really true. The examples seem to be more about tossing the rules for coolness' sake in the moment, rather than making a consistently-applied house rule such as, "I believe that fire should melt ice, so in this campaign, one of our house rules is that any fire spell does triple damage to an ice wall, and will take it down pretty easily." I think if the GM had opened with this from day 1, Vince may not have had an issue with it. The problem is that it is being decided in-session based on how "cool" it would be for it to work, and it may or may not work the same way again next session, which makes the entire thing rather messy.
I think it can, if used in a thoughtful and non-random way.
I also think it should not be a blanket justification for things. A DM who says, "I will occasionally allow things that bend the rules for the sake of narrative coolness" is different from one who thinks that the rules are almost by definition an obstacle for coolness and will toss them out preferentially and frequently as long as cool stuff is going on instead.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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I don't know about other DMs, but at session zero this is not the sort of ruling I think of that needs to be covered. Things that I usually feel need to be covered are
1. Rules on making characters (how stats are determined and any other nuances)
2. Which optional rules I am using (multiclassing, feats, flanking, sanity/honor, etc)
3. Any restrictions on classes, races/lineages, sourcebooks, etc.
4. Any OVERARCHING house rules I have come up with
The capitalized portion in the last part is important. I can usually think of house rules that will be important to the campaign overall, but I do not predict ahead of time every possible and minute object and spell interaction. How magical fire affects ice is not the sort of thing I am thinking about on day 1. For every house rule I have prepared on day 1, there are probably about a dozen or more rulings I have to make as a DM during a session because it is not something I considered on day 1. And thats ok. DMs should not be expected to think ahead of time about every possible way an effect might be used to interact with a myriad of unique dungeons, environments, monsters that haven't even been determined yet. There are hundreds of different spell effects, subclass features, and more that can be combined in ways not covered RAW.
tl;dr : A dm should be straightforward about rulings ahead of time, yes, but they cannot predict everything. How fire spells interact with ice is not the sort of thing that a DM will think to cover on session zero, because it is super niche to begin with imo
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I will skip the insults to focus on the mechanical nightmare you touched on.
C= "creative" Cleric, N = NPC Fighter, A = Human Variant Fighter, who took Fighting Style = Protection (triggers on a Reaction) and the Feat Sentinel, which once again, triggers mostly on a Reaction.
Initiative order of the 3 in the shield wall (forget about the other 2 players, who are operating normally) = N, A, and C.
To move as a unit, N has to forgo any attack or movement to Ready the Action of "I will move beside A and C when A or C moves". Naturally, the DM was having N take the Attack while still Readying an Action.
A, operates under the same situation as N, except the trigger is "When C moves, I move." So now A should giving up the Reaction of either Protection or Sentinel. This player is the newest of the bunch to 5e, and had no clue how Readied Actions work, and every turn, tried to use either Protection or Sentinel, sometimes both, while still Readying their Action as described. So that was a minimum of two, sometimes THREE, Reactions in this player's turn
C, the genius who thought this up, well, because his movement was the trigger, he gets to operate normally, including using the Bonus Action associated with Spiritual Weapon.
Oh, and A was under the impression that he could also attack, like N, because he was doing what the DM's N was.
Of course, when I bring up how they are totally shattering the rules, I am considered the bad guy, and such rules are "minutiae".
Meantime, I am playing my char, a Halfling Rogue, by the rules, darting around, sometimes using Cunning Action for extra movement, sometimes not using it at all, because the DM ruled my char could not see past the shield wall (also 100% wrong), and at one point, these 3 entities filled a 15 foot wide opening. I could have darted through the wall, and shot, then darted back, but thought, "this entire encounter is so utterly broken because it is defined by a set of rules, or lack thereof, that I have no idea what will happen, because I have no way to predict anything."
And then the entire exchange about how this is "rule of cool", creative, and fun ensued the next day, as I documented.
Any player that is dropped into this session (and there are zero House Rules made available by the DM) would try to operate by RAW. As was I, since this chaos had never come up before. Then Mr "Creative" had this bright idea, because "It is what his character would do."
Sure, that's true enough.
But once the ruling happens in game, I personally will think it out and write it up as an actual rule, worded with as much technical language as I think necessary, and publish it on your World Anvil site, so that everyone knows how it will work from now on.
Again, I think the lack of thoughtfulness here, and the lack of deliberation, is more troublesome than the individual ruling in the moment.
Yup, that's illegal. It's giving the character 2 actions per turn.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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So what do you have a problem with? Players creating a shield wall in order to advance in relative safety, or the way this idea was adjudicated?
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Just an FYI, but there's lots of players that will look at such a list and lose any and all interest in playing a game with you. Lots of people just aren't inclined to memorize giant list of house rules - they consider that more homework than playing.
So, suggesting that making a list of every one of your house calls and formalizing it can actually be extremely detrimental to the fun of the game. And its not something most players would consider the norm in a game.
Players have a good reason to think that their characters can move in formation. Whole armies have been doing this for millennia. The Ready action allows this to happen in D&D but the rules for it take some effort to understand and explaining it right then would have been a pain for DM and players. The best course of action in my view would have been for the DM to say that the characters hadn’t practiced it so that couldn’t during this fight and tell the players that they would go through the rules and figure out game mechanics that allow this to happen.
The fact that groups of monsters can use the same initiative roll and essentially do marching in formation without the costs to action economy of Ready action is a problem. It’s something that the players either must accept or the DM has to house rule.
Edit: The halfling rulings are ridiculous and unfair. It’s hard for a DM to make everyone feel that they are being treated fairly 100% of the time but this is clear example of how not to DM.
The concept of a shield wall, while problematic, breaks no rules. Said shield wall heavily nerfs the group's firepower, while providing zero mechanical benefit, assuming it is played by anything close to the basic rules of the game. But the players involved can do it.
I had a huge problem with the adjudication. I laid out all the ways the adjudication broke rules fundamental to the game, but those objections were waved away because it is not "fun", and stymies "cool stuff".
The player said, and I will quote again:"Its clear we are very different players. Let's agree to disagree on this point. Going forward, you run your character as you see fit. I will do the same. " So, the player is saying "I don't care about what the rules say, I will bloody well do what I want."
And the DM backed him with: "I think that focusing on the minutia of game mechanics slows down the game and takes away from creativity."
So when the DM thinks that fundamental mechanics to the game are "minutia", that DM is a bad DM. And a player not willing to learn or apply fundamental mechanics of the game is a bad player.
Since this is at least partly a thread about RAW, I feel that we need to adress the fact that the bolded part is, according to RAW, wrong. Protection doesn't "trigger on a reaction". It triggers a reaction under a certain set of circumstances (AFB so I can't quote the exact prerequisites). Same goes for Sentinel. It doesn't trigger "on a Reaction", it allows for the character with the feat to use their reaction in a certain way, under certain circumstances.
Oh, so you're fine with Shield Walls as long as they don't do anything besides look cool, then?
My party has used shield walls before. We've ruled that it takes your Bonus Action every round to sustain, and it grants 3/4ths cover to anyone behind the wall of shields. This is a house rule, but still resembles the core rules.
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Fair enough. Poor wording on my part. Both Protection and Sentinel use the player's Reaction. A player has one per their turn, and that means all the way around until the DM again says "you go" The Fighter in question was using up to 3 in their turn. That is just wrong.
I think that shield walls thematically are idiotic, since D&D shields are nothing like a Roman Legion's shields. They are not interlocking and Medium players occupy a 5 foot zone of control, not wield a shield 5 feet wide. But if players want to form a wall that nerfs their capabilities, as long as it conforms to the basic mechanics of the game, I really can't say much about them. I have already explained that they serve no mechanical purpose in the game, and by RAW, completely nerf a group's firepower. But if a player is a selfish player who wants to nerf the group for the sake of something "cool", and follows within the rules of Action Economy, like I said, nothing I can do about that.
This situation was NOT that case. This was something that made a total mockery of Action economy.
As for your group's House Rule, well knock yourself out. As a DM I would never, ever allow anything like you described, because once again, they destroy a basic rule of 5e.
What you describe is not a shieldwall. It's literally nothing but negatives. "Walking in tandem", by the rules, comes down to everyone moving at the speed of the slowest member of the party on the initiative of the slowest member of the party in the initiative order, doing nothing else at all, for no benefit whatsoever other than "we're moving in tandem". I can certainly agree the way it was handled by your DM was bad, but I think there's room for some middle ground between that and gimping yourself for no reason. I mean, by the rules it's literally not possible to run across an open field in group or to wait for a signal and both move and act in response to it. If you're ready to move across an open field on my command you can't move more than your speed, while if you move on your own you can move and dash. To me, that seems silly.
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