I DM 95% of the time, but when I am a player, I love it. Sooooooo much less pressure and stuff to do. Just relax and have fun, easy-peasy. If people argue about rules, I will offer my 2 cents but have no problem taking DM rulings.
I usually stay super-quiet if there is a rules discussion. I don't want to "back seat DM."
So, long story short, each player last night to varying degrees, either meta-gamed, or conveniently forgot key elements of spells, or truly misunderstood them, when clearly the DM did not know the spell description, and in some cases, asked for clarification on said spells.
I KNOW I am going to see posts how none of this was my business as a player. Ultimately, it is very very hard to turn off the DM brain when playing a game, and you know the DM is trying to play RAW, at least where spells come into play. Next session will be easier. as we are moving the game in person. My char the Rogue does not have to crack a book open, and I can keep my hard copies beside me shut. Stuff I don't know, will say unknown, unless I can't resist the urge to crack open a book.
It's perfectly fine to point out these missed rules. Where it goes too far is if you want to argue the DM to the mat because you are 100% sure you know every applicable rule and the right way to interpret them.
In most cases, they seemed like finer points of the rules. The DM doesn't sound like they prioritize knowing every fiddly rule, and instead they make up an homebrew rule for a situation they haven't seen before. That's fine.
You also might have to consider that some DMs fudge rules the way others fudge dice. Maybe the Enemies Abound worked out too well and it looked like the PCs were going to lose the fight. So the DM made up a rule on the spot that Enemies Abounds ends when the monster loses line of sight. Or maybe he was just confused on how total cover is a rule that applies to all spells at casting time, but doesn't necessarily end the duration of the spell if it has already been cast.
I know Dennis off-line, so I know he will not be offended by this. Hopefully no one else will be.
I wish I could go into "player mode", and that is easy enough when the DM says "these are my house rules". But when a DM sets no such rules (like the DM I spoke of), and when the DM is clearly trying to play certain aspects of the game by RAW (stopping the game to look up rules), the DM portion kicks in, to move the game along.
At its heart, this is a you problem.
You know the D&D 5e rules better than that DM. From our off-line conversations, I'm well aware that you know them a darn sight better than I do. You are at heart, frustrated that this DM who is, by your description, trying to follow the rules, doesn't know them as well as you do, and is not as good at applying them as you (think you) are.
Well, that is how gaming works. People have different facility, experience, knowledge, familiarity, etc., with the rules. The most familiar one is not always the DM. In my group, I am arguably the 3rd most knowledgeable, maybe 4th most, out of 5 or 6 people. Several times I've asked the guy who has years of AL experience, 'How does this work?' and let him explain the RAW interpretation. There are times when I may say, "Well, OK, that's not how it worked in AD&D, and I like the way AD&D did it better so we're house-ruling that." But most of the time I just go with whatever he says. After a year-plus of DMing I am closing the gap and probably equal or nearly so to most of them now, especially about "DMy" things (but definitely not about PC abilities). I wouldn't be shocked if there were times the others ground their teeth in frustration of me not really knowing how a rule works and my ruling conflicted with RAW (and I didn't realize it).
To some degree, that comes with the territory. Unless you are going to step up and be a Forever DM and never, ever play, you have to accept when you play that not everyone is going to know the rules as well as you, not all DMs will be the most rules-savvy person at the table, and if you can't accept it, you are going to be in for a long series of frustrating evenings.
My problems are far smaller than having encyclopedic knowledge and dealing with someone who only has previous edition encyclopedic knowledge, but my DM can never remember how grapple checks work. Every time I say I want to grapple a creature, he says, "Make an attack roll." I say, "Athletics check?" Sometimes he just goes with it and accepts the Athletics check. Sometimes he asks me, "How does that work, again?" Sometimes he just says back, "Attack roll." I don't argue. If he wants an attack roll, I make an attack roll.
Also, remember, I am the PLAYER that walked his CHAR into a potentially lethal kill zone (cold damage from that Wall of Ice) because my CHAR would not have that information, while the PLAYER knew full well what was about to happen. That is called Role Playing, which so many talk about here.
So, uhh, and I know I'm going to regret this, but your character just didn't notice how much colder it was getting as you got closer to the wall, until you started taking damage?
That doesn't seem like "role playing" (unless your character was genuinely that dumb, to the point of lacking any kind of survival instinct) to me so much as a weird aversion to anything that could be remotely construed as metagaming. Your character might not have known what wall of ice was, but I'm guessing they probably noticed the giant wall of ice and the intense cold surrounding it before trying to move through a gap in it.
That's like saying "my character doesn't know what cloudkill is, so they're just going to stand here while this nasty-looking fog rolls towards me."
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Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Also, remember, I am the PLAYER that walked his CHAR into a potentially lethal kill zone (cold damage from that Wall of Ice) because my CHAR would not have that information, while the PLAYER knew full well what was about to happen. That is called Role Playing, which so many talk about here.
So, uhh, and I know I'm going to regret this, but your character just didn't notice how much colder it was getting as you got closer to the wall, until you started taking damage?
That doesn't seem like "role playing" (unless your character was genuinely that dumb, to the point of lacking any kind of survival instinct) to me so much as a weird aversion to anything that could be remotely construed as metagaming. Your character might not have known what wall of ice was, but I'm guessing they probably noticed the giant wall of ice and the intense cold surrounding it before trying to move through a gap in it.
That's like saying "my character doesn't know what cloudkill is, so they're just going to stand here while this nasty-looking fog rolls towards me."
Well, it's reasonable to say your character wouldn't know how much damage they were going to take. If they decided to brave it and push through, they might be surprised by it being more than they could handle.
Also, remember, I am the PLAYER that walked his CHAR into a potentially lethal kill zone (cold damage from that Wall of Ice) because my CHAR would not have that information, while the PLAYER knew full well what was about to happen. That is called Role Playing, which so many talk about here.
So, uhh, and I know I'm going to regret this, but your character just didn't notice how much colder it was getting as you got closer to the wall, until you started taking damage?
That doesn't seem like "role playing" (unless your character was genuinely that dumb, to the point of lacking any kind of survival instinct) to me so much as a weird aversion to anything that could be remotely construed as metagaming. Your character might not have known what wall of ice was, but I'm guessing they probably noticed the giant wall of ice and the intense cold surrounding it before trying to move through a gap in it.
That's like saying "my character doesn't know what cloudkill is, so they're just going to stand here while this nasty-looking fog rolls towards me."
Well, it's reasonable to say your character wouldn't know how much damage they were going to take. If they decided to brave it and push through, they might be surprised by it being more than they could handle.
Sure, but that's just taking a calculated risk (even if the calculation is flawed) where you know you'll take some damage.
Dennis seemed to be suggesting the fact that a wall of ice did damage at all was information his character wouldn't have.
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Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I think I am okay with either. I think i am about the same skill in both. I invest a lot in my characters and their skills/personality, so I try to RP within that and remember what I know and what I don't know as a character.
As a DM, I enjoy it and I spend a lot of time on making it fun/rewarding for the players.
I DM 95% of the time, but when I am a player, I love it. Sooooooo much less pressure and stuff to do. Just relax and have fun, easy-peasy. If people argue about rules, I will offer my 2 cents but have no problem taking DM rulings.
I usually stay super-quiet if there is a rules discussion. I don't want to "back seat DM."
As a player, I try to keep my mouth shut. I really do. But I realize that sometimes it is just impossible. When other players are either simply getting the rules wrong, or outright cheating, I finally end up saying something. I am sure most will say "not your table, not your problem". But when the DM is clearly struggling with the rules, and is actually stopping the game to look up the actual rule, and by that I mean to actually read the spell, well, then I will jump in.
I played last night. We actually finished up 9 hours ago. This all happened in the session:
First thing we do, we are divvying up magic items from the session before. A couple players cast Identify on each item. One is an Elemental Gem, which triggers the Conjure Elemental Spell, a 5th level spell known only by Druids and Wizards. The Cleric, who is 6th level, states "I will take it, because I know who that spell works." I say nothing. More on that later.
DM uses Enemies Abound in the middle of the BBEG fight. It was brilliant timing, and it really looked like it could be a game-changer as our Fighter fails the save. The Fighter tries to sidestep attacking the other players, but the DM holds him to it, eventually picking a target for the Fighter, who at the time, had a bow in his hands, which was his worst weapon to use, but made sense. No reason for the player to change weapons given the circumstances. I say nothing, silently applauding the DM in my head. Next turn later, the BBEG moves back, out of sight, and the DM says "the spell ends because the BBEG has lost line of sight on the Fighter." There was no concentration save by the BBEG, as the BBEG had not been targeted at that point by anyone. I say nothing, though that is clearly wrong.
The Bard casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter on one of the major minions in this ongoing fight. The DM asks the Bard when the target gets a savings throw with that spell. The Bard explains at the end of the turn, or when the target of the spell takes damage. The Bard leaves out the part about the fact that the target gets to make the save at Advantage when making saves if the save triggers due to damage taken. I keep my mouth shut, even though that lack of information given to the DM changed the course of the fight, as the Major Minion was attacked for 3 rounds in that manner, with the Major Minion dying early in that 3rd round. I kept my mouth shut, but private messaged this to the DM: "I was not going to say anything again in open chat re: Tasha's, but : "The target has advantage on the saving throw if it's triggered by damage". You could have rolled twice more to save. I say this because I want these fights to be as challenging as they can be. I hate watching a DM's work go up in smoke without its max effects."
A number of turns later, we encounter the BBEG again, hammering it for some serious damage, but it escapes. The DM has it throw up a Wall of Ice between us and the itself, cutting off our access to it. Brilliant use of the spell. The Cleric, now smashes the Elemental Gem, and says to the Fire Elemental "Cut through that Wall of Ice, and bring me back the dead body of the BBEG." A reasonable use of the spell. The DM asks the player to look up the stat block on the Fire Elemental. I already know where he is going with this, and note the Water Susceptibility feature, and the DM says the Fire Elemental takes 1 point of damage from water melting from the Wall of Ice. I say nothing more on that subject. The player, the Cleric, further reads the spell out loud for the DM and states that the Fire Elemental only needs a 1 inch crack to get around the Wall of Ice. The DM rules that the seam between the damage done by the Elemental, and the fact that the seam between the cave wall and the Wall of Ice is imperfect, the Elemental can slip through, but players can't. I look up the Wall of Ice at that point, and say nothing more, figuring the ruling is whatever the DM wants at that point.
But I know that my char knows nothing of said Wall of Ice, having never seen the spell before. It does not matter that I personally know what the spell doers. I have my char immediately start chipping at the Wall with my dagger for a couple turns. The Fighter eventually burns all his movement to get to the wall, nails it with a Critical Hit, and a section comes down, since we surpassed the 30 HP threshold for a section. On my turn, I say in open channel to the DM, "I know what is coming" (he knew I was speaking out of character), and then said "My char moves through the opening", where my char then takes 24 Cold Damage from my 43 total at the time. The player running the Fighter, on his turn, hesitates for a second or two, then plunges in through the same opening. Due to him making his save, Boots of the Winterlands, and slightly better damage rolls, he only takes 5 HP damage.
Now, the Bard, who was nowhere near in line of sight to what see what happened to our two chars, comes charging up to the Wall, stops just short of the section, even though he still has movement left, and launches an arrow through the opening at a target, even though he still has movement left. I then say, in char "If you come through there, you will likely die". I say nothing about the blantant meta-gaming with the Bard ending movement instead of going through the opening. Neither does the DM.
A few turns later we encounter the BBEG a third time, as the DM announces the Bard notices a clanking beside body of an unconscious friendly NPC the Bard was checking out. (I assume it was Stealth vs Passive Perception, as the DM has gone way of RAW when it comes to Invisibility in sessions before, and I don't bother saying anything about it). The DM announces the Bard notices the sound is heading towards some shallow water and sees some splashes in the water. The player running the Bard asks if he can get an Opportunity Attack on the Invisible target, and the DM allows it, but at Disadvantage . I keep my mouth shut. The Bard in char screams at the Cleric about the "invisible creature and splashes in the water."
The Cleric on his turn announces that he will cast Sacred Flame on the Invisible target. I keep my mouth shut until the DM hesitates, and asks about that spell, where I then quote the section about "a target you can see". The player playing the Cleric, then says "oh yeah, I will cast Faerie Fire instead". DM then reads up on that spell, reads the 20 foot cube section out loud, and adjudicates that the BBEG is indeed lit up after a failed save. No problem there, but remember that Conjure Elemental spell the Cleric triggered earlier, the one he said his char knew, and the Cleric then quoted chunks of to the DM? The player failed to mention that section about Concentration. I say nothing at the time.
Next turn, the Bard casts Hideous Laughter on the BBEG again, and the BBEG fails again (the DM had a bad night with rolls). The BBEG had been trying to climb a steep, very icy incline to escape, and now, Incapacitated, the DM said the BBEG slides down the slope, ending at the feet of the Cleric. Cleric whacks it on his turn, and once again the DM does not roll with Advantage, and once again, I say nothing. It comes to my turn, and my char, who now has line of sight, rolls really well. The Advantage from Faerie Fire is cancelled out by the fact the target is Prone, but my arrow strikes true, Sneak Attack kicks in, and I say in open channel "BTW, the BBEG gets to roll that savings throw with Advantage as per the spell's description". The DM' says "it does not matter, your arrow killed it."
Hurray, we have killed everything of consequence at this point. The player running the Cleric which in turn running the Fire Elemental, and had said in-char his char knows the spell, and had already read aloud a section of that spell, says "I want to go look for the Fire Elemental". I say, "Sorry, I can't let that slide anymore. Look up the section on "concentration on that spell." The Fighter reads it aloud and groans when he reads the section about "turns hostile". The DM asks if the Cleric had cast another Concentration spell and either the Bard or Cleric said "Faerie Fire". The DM then essentially handwaves the fact that there is a hostile Fire Elemental running around in a large complex that we will likely finish exploring next session. I HOPE the DM will have us deal with that Elemental, but that is his call.
So, long story short, each player last night to varying degrees, either meta-gamed, or conveniently forgot key elements of spells, or truly misunderstood them, when clearly the DM did not know the spell description, and in some cases, asked for clarification on said spells.
I KNOW I am going to see posts how none of this was my business as a player. Ultimately, it is very very hard to turn off the DM brain when playing a game, and you know the DM is trying to play RAW, at least where spells come into play. Next session will be easier. as we are moving the game in person. My char the Rogue does not have to crack a book open, and I can keep my hard copies beside me shut. Stuff I don't know, will say unknown, unless I can't resist the urge to crack open a book.
As a DM if I knew you had kept your mouth shut so much at my table I would probably be asking you to leave as my assumption would be you wanted an easy session. I like to think I wouldn’t generally make the number of basic mistakes your DM did regarding rules but sometimes we all have off days.
Asking for rule clarification is not back seat DMing, ok in this game does tashas hideous laughter not give advantage to the save if damage is caused, is that not a concentration spell at our table, ok that seems like not a lot of damage for the fire elemental not complaining.
The Bard, at my table it would depend does he usually attack from range, if so having the cover of an ice wall to duck behind makes sense. But I might also just give a gentle reminder as DM, you don’t know it causes damage yet. Sometimes players lose track of what there characters might it might not be aware of in the height of battle.
But there is a difference between insisting a DM apply the rules a certain way because that is how they are written, and verifying and clarifying how the rules are written and how the dm intends to apply that and as a DM I have no issue with the latter, my table do it, not very often but sometimes a player will just clarify something mechanically, or ask if I have down something correctly. Generally it is something I have missed or a mistake or sometimes it is just a brain fart or the stress of running a combat with 15 monsters, environmental effects, 3 NPCs and coming up with unique and interesting descriptions of every sword thrust and parry. Sometimes I let things slip and my players are good enough to point those things out, both for themselves but also for the monsters I am running.
So yes as a DM if I got 3-4 sessions into a game and found out you had been keeping your mouth shut letting me mis understand rules generally to your advantage I would have a one to one chat with you and politely ask you to stop keeping quiet about mechanical rules that you think have been got wrong. I run my table like I run my department at work, everyone can have an opinion or point of view they put across, and can use the rules as written to back it up, but the final decision us mine, sometimes I go with the players view, other tubes ibb B will explain why I am going with my version and then go with that.
But just to clarify I don’t dislike playing because I know the rules, cyberpunk was a completely new system and I purposely just read over the broad scope of things so I could simply immerse in the game. I dislike playing because it gives me nothing to do between sessions sions and I don’t have to think as much on my feet in game.
Also, remember, I am the PLAYER that walked his CHAR into a potentially lethal kill zone (cold damage from that Wall of Ice) because my CHAR would not have that information, while the PLAYER knew full well what was about to happen. That is called Role Playing, which so many talk about here.
So, uhh, and I know I'm going to regret this, but your character just didn't notice how much colder it was getting as you got closer to the wall, until you started taking damage?
That doesn't seem like "role playing" (unless your character was genuinely that dumb, to the point of lacking any kind of survival instinct) to me so much as a weird aversion to anything that could be remotely construed as metagaming. Your character might not have known what wall of ice was, but I'm guessing they probably noticed the giant wall of ice and the intense cold surrounding it before trying to move through a gap in it.
That's like saying "my character doesn't know what cloudkill is, so they're just going to stand here while this nasty-looking fog rolls towards me."
Well, it's reasonable to say your character wouldn't know how much damage they were going to take. If they decided to brave it and push through, they might be surprised by it being more than they could handle.
Sure, but that's just taking a calculated risk (even if the calculation is flawed) where you know you'll take some damage.
Dennis seemed to be suggesting the fact that a wall of ice did damage at all was information his character wouldn't have.
The spell is explicit. Once the wall is up, there is no damage to a player. There is no hint of potential damage to a player.
That's not entirely true, as the wall can do damage if it displaces someone as it goes up, but it's also not the point. It's the part that I bolded where you let your character down.
It is a giant wall of ice created by magic, and it would radiate intense cold. If you step into a gap in it, yes, the cold becomes so severe it actually does damage. But are you really arguing that if you stand one inch from that gap, or even one foot, you wouldn't notice how painful the cold was getting? It's entirely reasonable for a character to approach that gap, feel what's happening to the temperature, and nope the heck away from entering it. It would also be reasonable to consider that it might be damaging, but the potential damage would be worth it to get to the other side -- but that's not what you're saying you did.
Again, this just sounds to me like you're so paranoid about being seen as metagaming, you're not actually able to put yourself in your character's shoes and imagine what they're experiencing. In a weird way, your attempts to avoid metagaming just become another form of metagaming -- "my character doesn't know the text of this spell in the PHB, therefore they can know absolutely nothing about it, even though they still have five working senses."
A character choosing not to run through an area of extreme cold in the middle of a magical wall of ice is not metagaming. It's common sense.
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Weirdly, this just reminded me of an Orson Scott Card short story, back from before he went off the deep end, about a society that demands absolutely unsullied creativity from its geniuses. A child gets tested and it's determined they'll be a brilliant musician, so they're dropped in the middle of the woods in a little house with nothing but an organ-like musical instrument that can reproduce a wide array of sounds. As they grow up, they start playing the instrument, and their compositions are secretly recorded and distributed, completely without their knowledge.
One day, a fan of the musician figures out where they live, sneaks into the woods and approaches them with that society's equivalent of an iPod. Loaded onto the device are some works by Bach, which the person thinks the musician will like. The musician knows they aren't supposed to, but eventually gets tempted to listen. Bach's music is alien and glorious and they love it, but then the musician becomes paranoid that they'll be found out if their music becomes too Bach-like, so they try not to make their music sound like Bach.
A few days later, an investigator shows up, searches the house and finds the device. "I don't understand, how did you know?", the musician asked.
"All the Bach-like elements in your music suddenly disappeared," the investigator replied. "I'm afraid your genius has now been corrupted by an outside influence, and you will never again be allowed to make music, because it's just derivative and can no longer be pure."
That's you playing your character, Dennis -- so worried about sounding too much like Bach, you stop sounding anything like Bach at all.
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Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I DM 95% of the time, but when I am a player, I love it. Sooooooo much less pressure and stuff to do. Just relax and have fun, easy-peasy. If people argue about rules, I will offer my 2 cents but have no problem taking DM rulings.
I usually stay super-quiet if there is a rules discussion. I don't want to "back seat DM."
As a player, I try to keep my mouth shut. I really do. But I realize that sometimes it is just impossible. When other players are either simply getting the rules wrong, or outright cheating, I finally end up saying something. I am sure most will say "not your table, not your problem". But when the DM is clearly struggling with the rules, and is actually stopping the game to look up the actual rule, and by that I mean to actually read the spell, well, then I will jump in.
I played last night. We actually finished up 9 hours ago. This all happened in the session:
First thing we do, we are divvying up magic items from the session before. A couple players cast Identify on each item. One is an Elemental Gem, which triggers the Conjure Elemental Spell, a 5th level spell known only by Druids and Wizards. The Cleric, who is 6th level, states "I will take it, because I know who that spell works." I say nothing. More on that later.
DM uses Enemies Abound in the middle of the BBEG fight. It was brilliant timing, and it really looked like it could be a game-changer as our Fighter fails the save. The Fighter tries to sidestep attacking the other players, but the DM holds him to it, eventually picking a target for the Fighter, who at the time, had a bow in his hands, which was his worst weapon to use, but made sense. No reason for the player to change weapons given the circumstances. I say nothing, silently applauding the DM in my head. Next turn later, the BBEG moves back, out of sight, and the DM says "the spell ends because the BBEG has lost line of sight on the Fighter." There was no concentration save by the BBEG, as the BBEG had not been targeted at that point by anyone. I say nothing, though that is clearly wrong.
The Bard casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter on one of the major minions in this ongoing fight. The DM asks the Bard when the target gets a savings throw with that spell. The Bard explains at the end of the turn, or when the target of the spell takes damage. The Bard leaves out the part about the fact that the target gets to make the save at Advantage when making saves if the save triggers due to damage taken. I keep my mouth shut, even though that lack of information given to the DM changed the course of the fight, as the Major Minion was attacked for 3 rounds in that manner, with the Major Minion dying early in that 3rd round. I kept my mouth shut, but private messaged this to the DM: "I was not going to say anything again in open chat re: Tasha's, but : "The target has advantage on the saving throw if it's triggered by damage". You could have rolled twice more to save. I say this because I want these fights to be as challenging as they can be. I hate watching a DM's work go up in smoke without its max effects."
A number of turns later, we encounter the BBEG again, hammering it for some serious damage, but it escapes. The DM has it throw up a Wall of Ice between us and the itself, cutting off our access to it. Brilliant use of the spell. The Cleric, now smashes the Elemental Gem, and says to the Fire Elemental "Cut through that Wall of Ice, and bring me back the dead body of the BBEG." A reasonable use of the spell. The DM asks the player to look up the stat block on the Fire Elemental. I already know where he is going with this, and note the Water Susceptibility feature, and the DM says the Fire Elemental takes 1 point of damage from water melting from the Wall of Ice. I say nothing more on that subject. The player, the Cleric, further reads the spell out loud for the DM and states that the Fire Elemental only needs a 1 inch crack to get around the Wall of Ice. The DM rules that the seam between the damage done by the Elemental, and the fact that the seam between the cave wall and the Wall of Ice is imperfect, the Elemental can slip through, but players can't. I look up the Wall of Ice at that point, and say nothing more, figuring the ruling is whatever the DM wants at that point.
But I know that my char knows nothing of said Wall of Ice, having never seen the spell before. It does not matter that I personally know what the spell doers. I have my char immediately start chipping at the Wall with my dagger for a couple turns. The Fighter eventually burns all his movement to get to the wall, nails it with a Critical Hit, and a section comes down, since we surpassed the 30 HP threshold for a section. On my turn, I say in open channel to the DM, "I know what is coming" (he knew I was speaking out of character), and then said "My char moves through the opening", where my char then takes 24 Cold Damage from my 43 total at the time. The player running the Fighter, on his turn, hesitates for a second or two, then plunges in through the same opening. Due to him making his save, Boots of the Winterlands, and slightly better damage rolls, he only takes 5 HP damage.
Now, the Bard, who was nowhere near in line of sight to what see what happened to our two chars, comes charging up to the Wall, stops just short of the section, even though he still has movement left, and launches an arrow through the opening at a target, even though he still has movement left. I then say, in char "If you come through there, you will likely die". I say nothing about the blantant meta-gaming with the Bard ending movement instead of going through the opening. Neither does the DM.
A few turns later we encounter the BBEG a third time, as the DM announces the Bard notices a clanking beside body of an unconscious friendly NPC the Bard was checking out. (I assume it was Stealth vs Passive Perception, as the DM has gone way of RAW when it comes to Invisibility in sessions before, and I don't bother saying anything about it). The DM announces the Bard notices the sound is heading towards some shallow water and sees some splashes in the water. The player running the Bard asks if he can get an Opportunity Attack on the Invisible target, and the DM allows it, but at Disadvantage . I keep my mouth shut. The Bard in char screams at the Cleric about the "invisible creature and splashes in the water."
The Cleric on his turn announces that he will cast Sacred Flame on the Invisible target. I keep my mouth shut until the DM hesitates, and asks about that spell, where I then quote the section about "a target you can see". The player playing the Cleric, then says "oh yeah, I will cast Faerie Fire instead". DM then reads up on that spell, reads the 20 foot cube section out loud, and adjudicates that the BBEG is indeed lit up after a failed save. No problem there, but remember that Conjure Elemental spell the Cleric triggered earlier, the one he said his char knew, and the Cleric then quoted chunks of to the DM? The player failed to mention that section about Concentration. I say nothing at the time.
Next turn, the Bard casts Hideous Laughter on the BBEG again, and the BBEG fails again (the DM had a bad night with rolls). The BBEG had been trying to climb a steep, very icy incline to escape, and now, Incapacitated, the DM said the BBEG slides down the slope, ending at the feet of the Cleric. Cleric whacks it on his turn, and once again the DM does not roll with Advantage, and once again, I say nothing. It comes to my turn, and my char, who now has line of sight, rolls really well. The Advantage from Faerie Fire is cancelled out by the fact the target is Prone, but my arrow strikes true, Sneak Attack kicks in, and I say in open channel "BTW, the BBEG gets to roll that savings throw with Advantage as per the spell's description". The DM' says "it does not matter, your arrow killed it."
Hurray, we have killed everything of consequence at this point. The player running the Cleric which in turn running the Fire Elemental, and had said in-char his char knows the spell, and had already read aloud a section of that spell, says "I want to go look for the Fire Elemental". I say, "Sorry, I can't let that slide anymore. Look up the section on "concentration on that spell." The Fighter reads it aloud and groans when he reads the section about "turns hostile". The DM asks if the Cleric had cast another Concentration spell and either the Bard or Cleric said "Faerie Fire". The DM then essentially handwaves the fact that there is a hostile Fire Elemental running around in a large complex that we will likely finish exploring next session. I HOPE the DM will have us deal with that Elemental, but that is his call.
So, long story short, each player last night to varying degrees, either meta-gamed, or conveniently forgot key elements of spells, or truly misunderstood them, when clearly the DM did not know the spell description, and in some cases, asked for clarification on said spells.
I KNOW I am going to see posts how none of this was my business as a player. Ultimately, it is very very hard to turn off the DM brain when playing a game, and you know the DM is trying to play RAW, at least where spells come into play. Next session will be easier. as we are moving the game in person. My char the Rogue does not have to crack a book open, and I can keep my hard copies beside me shut. Stuff I don't know, will say unknown, unless I can't resist the urge to crack open a book.
As a DM if I knew you had kept your mouth shut so much at my table I would probably be asking you to leave as my assumption would be you wanted an easy session. I like to think I wouldn’t generally make the number of basic mistakes your DM did regarding rules but sometimes we all have off days.
Asking for rule clarification is not back seat DMing, ok in this game does tashas hideous laughter not give advantage to the save if damage is caused, is that not a concentration spell at our table, ok that seems like not a lot of damage for the fire elemental not complaining.
The Bard, at my table it would depend does he usually attack from range, if so having the cover of an ice wall to duck behind makes sense. But I might also just give a gentle reminder as DM, you don’t know it causes damage yet. Sometimes players lose track of what there characters might it might not be aware of in the height of battle.
But there is a difference between insisting a DM apply the rules a certain way because that is how they are written, and verifying and clarifying how the rules are written and how the dm intends to apply that and as a DM I have no issue with the latter, my table do it, not very often but sometimes a player will just clarify something mechanically, or ask if I have down something correctly. Generally it is something I have missed or a mistake or sometimes it is just a brain fart or the stress of running a combat with 15 monsters, environmental effects, 3 NPCs and coming up with unique and interesting descriptions of every sword thrust and parry. Sometimes I let things slip and my players are good enough to point those things out, both for themselves but also for the monsters I am running.
So yes as a DM if I got 3-4 sessions into a game and found out you had been keeping your mouth shut letting me mis understand rules generally to your advantage I would have a one to one chat with you and politely ask you to stop keeping quiet about mechanical rules that you think have been got wrong. I run my table like I run my department at work, everyone can have an opinion or point of view they put across, and can use the rules as written to back it up, but the final decision us mine, sometimes I go with the players view, other tubes ibb B will explain why I am going with my version and then go with that.
But just to clarify I don’t dislike playing because I know the rules, cyberpunk was a completely new system and I purposely just read over the broad scope of things so I could simply immerse in the game. I dislike playing because it gives me nothing to do between sessions sions and I don’t have to think as much on my feet in game.
I wish more DM's felt like you do. I wish more took clarification of rules as well intentioned help rather than "back seat DM'ing". But to be clear, read my original post again. My char played by the rules. The other players either messed up the rules, or were knowingly withholding information about said rules from the DM.
Read again that private message I sent the DM mid-game. I know he did not read it until after the game was done, or he ignored it:
""I was not going to say anything again in open chat re: Tasha's, but : "The target has advantage on the saving throw if it's triggered by damage". You could have rolled twice more to save. I say this because I want these fights to be as challenging as they can be. I hate watching a DM's work go up in smoke without its max effects."
No DM can ever accuse me of withholding information in order to have an easier session. I am the one at the table always demanding tougher, more restrictive rules on the players, whether I am playing in that game or DM'ing.
Sorry I just re read the start of my post and it came across a bit more combative then I intended or was feeling the problem of answering a post at 3 am when I have a bout of insomnia :).
I am guessing your playing online due to the private messaging thing, are you on voice or just play by text? Having never played with a dm who wasn’t happy with a bit of rules clarification round the table, and myself never having an issue with it, I really don’t understand DMs who do. But I also generally play online or over voice and my players are happy to cut in and ask questions and no one gets irritated when it happens as they all understand we are just tying to have the beat game possible. I do understand some players might get irritated if another player at the table is constantly calling out there mistakes especially if it is a new group.
Hoping the DM understood his mistake afterwards I have had many sessions over the years where I realised post session I got something wrong that made the fight far easier then it should have been.
Check the Blindsight feature of the Dragon, and then read the section on creatures being immune to the Blinded condition in Warding Flare
Blindsight doesn't provide immunity to being Blinded (this is especially noteworthy for perceiving things outside the range of a creature's Blindsight). As DM I'd probably allow the Warding Flare to work just once, but by a literal reading of the RAW it should work as often as it can be used.
Warding Flare takes effect within most dragons' Blindsight radius, however, it doesn't actually impose blindness.
Warding Flare absolutely does impose Blindness. A dragon (or any other creature with Blindsight) can still perceive its surroundings within a limited range when Blinded because it doesn't rely on sight for that, but it still doesn't have sight.
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Check the Blindsight feature of the Dragon, and then read the section on creatures being immune to the Blinded condition in Warding Flare
Blindsight doesn't provide immunity to being Blinded (this is especially noteworthy for perceiving things outside the range of a creature's Blindsight). As DM I'd probably allow the Warding Flare to work just once, but by a literal reading of the RAW it should work as often as it can be used.
I DM 95% of the time, but when I am a player, I love it. Sooooooo much less pressure and stuff to do. Just relax and have fun, easy-peasy. If people argue about rules, I will offer my 2 cents but have no problem taking DM rulings.
I usually stay super-quiet if there is a rules discussion. I don't want to "back seat DM."
As a player, I try to keep my mouth shut. I really do. But I realize that sometimes it is just impossible. When other players are either simply getting the rules wrong, or outright cheating, I finally end up saying something. I am sure most will say "not your table, not your problem". But when the DM is clearly struggling with the rules, and is actually stopping the game to look up the actual rule, and by that I mean to actually read the spell, well, then I will jump in.
I played last night. We actually finished up 9 hours ago. This all happened in the session:
First thing we do, we are divvying up magic items from the session before. A couple players cast Identify on each item. One is an Elemental Gem, which triggers the Conjure Elemental Spell, a 5th level spell known only by Druids and Wizards. The Cleric, who is 6th level, states "I will take it, because I know who that spell works." I say nothing. More on that later.
DM uses Enemies Abound in the middle of the BBEG fight. It was brilliant timing, and it really looked like it could be a game-changer as our Fighter fails the save. The Fighter tries to sidestep attacking the other players, but the DM holds him to it, eventually picking a target for the Fighter, who at the time, had a bow in his hands, which was his worst weapon to use, but made sense. No reason for the player to change weapons given the circumstances. I say nothing, silently applauding the DM in my head. Next turn later, the BBEG moves back, out of sight, and the DM says "the spell ends because the BBEG has lost line of sight on the Fighter." There was no concentration save by the BBEG, as the BBEG had not been targeted at that point by anyone. I say nothing, though that is clearly wrong.
The Bard casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter on one of the major minions in this ongoing fight. The DM asks the Bard when the target gets a savings throw with that spell. The Bard explains at the end of the turn, or when the target of the spell takes damage. The Bard leaves out the part about the fact that the target gets to make the save at Advantage when making saves if the save triggers due to damage taken. I keep my mouth shut, even though that lack of information given to the DM changed the course of the fight, as the Major Minion was attacked for 3 rounds in that manner, with the Major Minion dying early in that 3rd round. I kept my mouth shut, but private messaged this to the DM: "I was not going to say anything again in open chat re: Tasha's, but : "The target has advantage on the saving throw if it's triggered by damage". You could have rolled twice more to save. I say this because I want these fights to be as challenging as they can be. I hate watching a DM's work go up in smoke without its max effects."
A number of turns later, we encounter the BBEG again, hammering it for some serious damage, but it escapes. The DM has it throw up a Wall of Ice between us and the itself, cutting off our access to it. Brilliant use of the spell. The Cleric, now smashes the Elemental Gem, and says to the Fire Elemental "Cut through that Wall of Ice, and bring me back the dead body of the BBEG." A reasonable use of the spell. The DM asks the player to look up the stat block on the Fire Elemental. I already know where he is going with this, and note the Water Susceptibility feature, and the DM says the Fire Elemental takes 1 point of damage from water melting from the Wall of Ice. I say nothing more on that subject. The player, the Cleric, further reads the spell out loud for the DM and states that the Fire Elemental only needs a 1 inch crack to get around the Wall of Ice. The DM rules that the seam between the damage done by the Elemental, and the fact that the seam between the cave wall and the Wall of Ice is imperfect, the Elemental can slip through, but players can't. I look up the Wall of Ice at that point, and say nothing more, figuring the ruling is whatever the DM wants at that point.
But I know that my char knows nothing of said Wall of Ice, having never seen the spell before. It does not matter that I personally know what the spell doers. I have my char immediately start chipping at the Wall with my dagger for a couple turns. The Fighter eventually burns all his movement to get to the wall, nails it with a Critical Hit, and a section comes down, since we surpassed the 30 HP threshold for a section. On my turn, I say in open channel to the DM, "I know what is coming" (he knew I was speaking out of character), and then said "My char moves through the opening", where my char then takes 24 Cold Damage from my 43 total at the time. The player running the Fighter, on his turn, hesitates for a second or two, then plunges in through the same opening. Due to him making his save, Boots of the Winterlands, and slightly better damage rolls, he only takes 5 HP damage.
Now, the Bard, who was nowhere near in line of sight to what see what happened to our two chars, comes charging up to the Wall, stops just short of the section, even though he still has movement left, and launches an arrow through the opening at a target, even though he still has movement left. I then say, in char "If you come through there, you will likely die". I say nothing about the blantant meta-gaming with the Bard ending movement instead of going through the opening. Neither does the DM.
A few turns later we encounter the BBEG a third time, as the DM announces the Bard notices a clanking beside body of an unconscious friendly NPC the Bard was checking out. (I assume it was Stealth vs Passive Perception, as the DM has gone way of RAW when it comes to Invisibility in sessions before, and I don't bother saying anything about it). The DM announces the Bard notices the sound is heading towards some shallow water and sees some splashes in the water. The player running the Bard asks if he can get an Opportunity Attack on the Invisible target, and the DM allows it, but at Disadvantage . I keep my mouth shut. The Bard in char screams at the Cleric about the "invisible creature and splashes in the water."
The Cleric on his turn announces that he will cast Sacred Flame on the Invisible target. I keep my mouth shut until the DM hesitates, and asks about that spell, where I then quote the section about "a target you can see". The player playing the Cleric, then says "oh yeah, I will cast Faerie Fire instead". DM then reads up on that spell, reads the 20 foot cube section out loud, and adjudicates that the BBEG is indeed lit up after a failed save. No problem there, but remember that Conjure Elemental spell the Cleric triggered earlier, the one he said his char knew, and the Cleric then quoted chunks of to the DM? The player failed to mention that section about Concentration. I say nothing at the time.
Next turn, the Bard casts Hideous Laughter on the BBEG again, and the BBEG fails again (the DM had a bad night with rolls). The BBEG had been trying to climb a steep, very icy incline to escape, and now, Incapacitated, the DM said the BBEG slides down the slope, ending at the feet of the Cleric. Cleric whacks it on his turn, and once again the DM does not roll with Advantage, and once again, I say nothing. It comes to my turn, and my char, who now has line of sight, rolls really well. The Advantage from Faerie Fire is cancelled out by the fact the target is Prone, but my arrow strikes true, Sneak Attack kicks in, and I say in open channel "BTW, the BBEG gets to roll that savings throw with Advantage as per the spell's description". The DM' says "it does not matter, your arrow killed it."
Hurray, we have killed everything of consequence at this point. The player running the Cleric which in turn running the Fire Elemental, and had said in-char his char knows the spell, and had already read aloud a section of that spell, says "I want to go look for the Fire Elemental". I say, "Sorry, I can't let that slide anymore. Look up the section on "concentration on that spell." The Fighter reads it aloud and groans when he reads the section about "turns hostile". The DM asks if the Cleric had cast another Concentration spell and either the Bard or Cleric said "Faerie Fire". The DM then essentially handwaves the fact that there is a hostile Fire Elemental running around in a large complex that we will likely finish exploring next session. I HOPE the DM will have us deal with that Elemental, but that is his call.
So, long story short, each player last night to varying degrees, either meta-gamed, or conveniently forgot key elements of spells, or truly misunderstood them, when clearly the DM did not know the spell description, and in some cases, asked for clarification on said spells.
I KNOW I am going to see posts how none of this was my business as a player. Ultimately, it is very very hard to turn off the DM brain when playing a game, and you know the DM is trying to play RAW, at least where spells come into play. Next session will be easier. as we are moving the game in person. My char the Rogue does not have to crack a book open, and I can keep my hard copies beside me shut. Stuff I don't know, will say unknown, unless I can't resist the urge to crack open a book.
As a DM if I knew you had kept your mouth shut so much at my table I would probably be asking you to leave as my assumption would be you wanted an easy session. I like to think I wouldn’t generally make the number of basic mistakes your DM did regarding rules but sometimes we all have off days.
Asking for rule clarification is not back seat DMing, ok in this game does tashas hideous laughter not give advantage to the save if damage is caused, is that not a concentration spell at our table, ok that seems like not a lot of damage for the fire elemental not complaining.
The Bard, at my table it would depend does he usually attack from range, if so having the cover of an ice wall to duck behind makes sense. But I might also just give a gentle reminder as DM, you don’t know it causes damage yet. Sometimes players lose track of what there characters might it might not be aware of in the height of battle.
But there is a difference between insisting a DM apply the rules a certain way because that is how they are written, and verifying and clarifying how the rules are written and how the dm intends to apply that and as a DM I have no issue with the latter, my table do it, not very often but sometimes a player will just clarify something mechanically, or ask if I have down something correctly. Generally it is something I have missed or a mistake or sometimes it is just a brain fart or the stress of running a combat with 15 monsters, environmental effects, 3 NPCs and coming up with unique and interesting descriptions of every sword thrust and parry. Sometimes I let things slip and my players are good enough to point those things out, both for themselves but also for the monsters I am running.
So yes as a DM if I got 3-4 sessions into a game and found out you had been keeping your mouth shut letting me mis understand rules generally to your advantage I would have a one to one chat with you and politely ask you to stop keeping quiet about mechanical rules that you think have been got wrong. I run my table like I run my department at work, everyone can have an opinion or point of view they put across, and can use the rules as written to back it up, but the final decision us mine, sometimes I go with the players view, other tubes ibb B will explain why I am going with my version and then go with that.
But just to clarify I don’t dislike playing because I know the rules, cyberpunk was a completely new system and I purposely just read over the broad scope of things so I could simply immerse in the game. I dislike playing because it gives me nothing to do between sessions sions and I don’t have to think as much on my feet in game.
I wish more DM's felt like you do. I wish more took clarification of rules as well intentioned help rather than "back seat DM'ing". But to be clear, read my original post again. My char played by the rules. The other players either messed up the rules, or were knowingly withholding information about said rules from the DM.
Read again that private message I sent the DM mid-game. I know he did not read it until after the game was done, or he ignored it:
""I was not going to say anything again in open chat re: Tasha's, but : "The target has advantage on the saving throw if it's triggered by damage". You could have rolled twice more to save. I say this because I want these fights to be as challenging as they can be. I hate watching a DM's work go up in smoke without its max effects."
No DM can ever accuse me of withholding information in order to have an easier session. I am the one at the table always demanding tougher, more restrictive rules on the players, whether I am playing in that game or DM'ing.
Sorry I just re read the start of my post and it came across a bit more combative then I intended or was feeling the problem of answering a post at 3 am when I have a bout of insomnia :).
I am guessing your playing online due to the private messaging thing, are you on voice or just play by text? Having never played with a dm who wasn’t happy with a bit of rules clarification round the table, and myself never having an issue with it, I really don’t understand DMs who do. But I also generally play online or over voice and my players are happy to cut in and ask questions and no one gets irritated when it happens as they all understand we are just tying to have the beat game possible. I do understand some players might get irritated if another player at the table is constantly calling out there mistakes especially if it is a new group.
Hoping the DM understood his mistake afterwards I have had many sessions over the years where I realised post session I got something wrong that made the fight far easier then it should have been.
We play online indeed, and use Discord as our voice and visual platform (BTW, Powerpoint is vastly superior to any of the VTT's, at least from the DM's perspective of creating maps, as it takes a tiny fraction of the time). I DM'ed him that immediately after that particular fight. The entire session was a running battle, with BBEG's and Major Minions flitting into combat, then backing away, in a cave complex.
Next session we finally get to play in person, as everyone is now double vaxxed, and totally comfortable with the situation. I will bring along my hard copies of the PHB and XGTE, but doubt I will open them as I play a Scout Rogue with zero magical features, and know my char cold. I will be relying strictly on my memory. I am quite certain that any errors and omissions, be them accidental or purposeful, by other players, will only be discovered at the end of the session.
BUT, there is one that I a damn well will bring up. It is metagaming, but not in the sense most consider. The crazed cleric last week destroyed the eggs of a dragon, though 2 of the other 3 chars pleaded with him not to. There is a very good chance we will be dealing with an enraged mother next session. I can guarantee the Cleric will try to use his Warding Flare feature. If this occurs, I will say to the DM "Check the Blindsight feature of the Dragon, and then read the section on creatures being immune to the Blinded condition in Warding Flare". None of the chars should know anything about a Dragon's Blindsight ability, so that is the metagaming I will do.
So in response to the OP's original question, yeah, some people can't turn off DM'ing when they play.
For me metagaming only happens if you have your character know something they should not, and even then I think it can be a bit null and void when it comes to monsters. Take a troll for example, all my players know trolls regenerate unless hit by fire or such like, now they have level 3 characters and this is the first encounter with trolls. So do I force my players to ignore all there prior knowledge, do I make my party sorceror forgo flame based attacks because “that’s being meta”, do I rely on a dice roll for intelligence or some other such thing to determine if they know this weakness.
No I just let the players hit it with fire, the encounter is set up with an expectation they know trolls regen, if you want a narriative reason why, months of time sat in inns or around camp fires prior to campaign hearing tales about all sorts of monsters, having other adventurers tell their tales and explain how the dragon seemed able to see through anything, or the troll failed to regen when burnt. The characters have knowledge, if you want treat it like passive perception, a level of knowledge of monsters they know and above that CR they don’t. Ot is a sliding scale with more or less info available the higher/lower the monster.
Warding Flare takes effect within most dragons' Blindsight radius, however, it doesn't actually impose blindness.
Warding Flare absolutely does impose Blindness. A dragon (or any other creature with Blindsight) can still perceive its surroundings within a limited range when Blinded because it doesn't rely on sight for that, but it still doesn't have sight.
Poor wording on my part. I am not saying the spell doesn't momentarily blind the creature. I am saying it doesn't leave them with the Blinded condition with an extended duration. At least, I don't see that in the feature's description. That was the differentiation I was making, as opposed to casting Blindness on an Adult Dragon which, even if it lands, wouldn't help you much as you're inside the dragon's Blindsight radius at the time of casting and might not be able to move far enough to get out of it on a single turn.
Poor wording on my part too, as Warding Flare does not impose the Blinded condition. Never mind, I expect we understand one another.
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As to rule disputes, I am blessed with a good table. If a rule is unclear or ambiguous we take 30:ish seconds to reach a consensus, then roll with it and keep on gaming. It's never been a problem. If I or my players miss something it doesn't matter, since we are having fun.
No I just let the players hit it with fire, the encounter is set up with an expectation they know trolls regen, if you want a narriative reason why, months of time sat in inns or around camp fires prior to campaign hearing tales about all sorts of monsters, having other adventurers tell their tales and explain how the dragon seemed able to see through anything, or the troll failed to regen when burnt. The characters have knowledge, if you want treat it like passive perception, a level of knowledge of monsters they know and above that CR they don’t. Ot is a sliding scale with more or less info available the higher/lower the monster.
Or just describe the troll's wounds closing at the beginning of their turn... except when they're hit with fire or acid
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
As to rule disputes, I am blessed with a good table. If a rule is unclear or ambiguous we take 30:ish seconds to reach a consensus, then roll with it and keep on gaming. It's never been a problem. If I or my players miss something it doesn't matter, since we are having fun.
Same here. I speak up often during games, as does another player at the table - often to our own characters' detriment. We bring up the issue but defer to the DM to decide how to handle it. Sometimes that means a short conversation and sometimes it's just a snap ruling, but either way we stay respectful. I think it helps that we all DM at east a little bit so we know how it feels on both sides of the screen.
It seems to me that the negative connotations of the "rules lawyer" stem from 1) people that are overly disruptive or off-putting in the way they bring up an issue and 2) people who only interject with the RAW when it would benefit them. Ultimately we all want to play the fairest and most challenging game we can.
So I've never really considered keeping track of the rules as a part of my "DM brain." That's always running and as a group we agree that it always has value. The truly DM-exclusive stuff about running the game is easy enough for me to turn off, and as a player I enjoy digging in to one character to a depth I simply can't while DMing.
It's perfectly fine to point out these missed rules. Where it goes too far is if you want to argue the DM to the mat because you are 100% sure you know every applicable rule and the right way to interpret them.
In most cases, they seemed like finer points of the rules. The DM doesn't sound like they prioritize knowing every fiddly rule, and instead they make up an homebrew rule for a situation they haven't seen before. That's fine.
You also might have to consider that some DMs fudge rules the way others fudge dice. Maybe the Enemies Abound worked out too well and it looked like the PCs were going to lose the fight. So the DM made up a rule on the spot that Enemies Abounds ends when the monster loses line of sight. Or maybe he was just confused on how total cover is a rule that applies to all spells at casting time, but doesn't necessarily end the duration of the spell if it has already been cast.
My problems are far smaller than having encyclopedic knowledge and dealing with someone who only has previous edition encyclopedic knowledge, but my DM can never remember how grapple checks work. Every time I say I want to grapple a creature, he says, "Make an attack roll." I say, "Athletics check?" Sometimes he just goes with it and accepts the Athletics check. Sometimes he asks me, "How does that work, again?" Sometimes he just says back, "Attack roll." I don't argue. If he wants an attack roll, I make an attack roll.
Dennis, when you play D&D, what do you enjoy about the game?
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
So, uhh, and I know I'm going to regret this, but your character just didn't notice how much colder it was getting as you got closer to the wall, until you started taking damage?
That doesn't seem like "role playing" (unless your character was genuinely that dumb, to the point of lacking any kind of survival instinct) to me so much as a weird aversion to anything that could be remotely construed as metagaming. Your character might not have known what wall of ice was, but I'm guessing they probably noticed the giant wall of ice and the intense cold surrounding it before trying to move through a gap in it.
That's like saying "my character doesn't know what cloudkill is, so they're just going to stand here while this nasty-looking fog rolls towards me."
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Well, it's reasonable to say your character wouldn't know how much damage they were going to take. If they decided to brave it and push through, they might be surprised by it being more than they could handle.
Sure, but that's just taking a calculated risk (even if the calculation is flawed) where you know you'll take some damage.
Dennis seemed to be suggesting the fact that a wall of ice did damage at all was information his character wouldn't have.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I think I am okay with either. I think i am about the same skill in both. I invest a lot in my characters and their skills/personality, so I try to RP within that and remember what I know and what I don't know as a character.
As a DM, I enjoy it and I spend a lot of time on making it fun/rewarding for the players.
As a DM if I knew you had kept your mouth shut so much at my table I would probably be asking you to leave as my assumption would be you wanted an easy session. I like to think I wouldn’t generally make the number of basic mistakes your DM did regarding rules but sometimes we all have off days.
Asking for rule clarification is not back seat DMing, ok in this game does tashas hideous laughter not give advantage to the save if damage is caused, is that not a concentration spell at our table, ok that seems like not a lot of damage for the fire elemental not complaining.
The Bard, at my table it would depend does he usually attack from range, if so having the cover of an ice wall to duck behind makes sense. But I might also just give a gentle reminder as DM, you don’t know it causes damage yet. Sometimes players lose track of what there characters might it might not be aware of in the height of battle.
But there is a difference between insisting a DM apply the rules a certain way because that is how they are written, and verifying and clarifying how the rules are written and how the dm intends to apply that and as a DM I have no issue with the latter, my table do it, not very often but sometimes a player will just clarify something mechanically, or ask if I have down something correctly. Generally it is something I have missed or a mistake or sometimes it is just a brain fart or the stress of running a combat with 15 monsters, environmental effects, 3 NPCs and coming up with unique and interesting descriptions of every sword thrust and parry. Sometimes I let things slip and my players are good enough to point those things out, both for themselves but also for the monsters I am running.
So yes as a DM if I got 3-4 sessions into a game and found out you had been keeping your mouth shut letting me mis understand rules generally to your advantage I would have a one to one chat with you and politely ask you to stop keeping quiet about mechanical rules that you think have been got wrong. I run my table like I run my department at work, everyone can have an opinion or point of view they put across, and can use the rules as written to back it up, but the final decision us mine, sometimes I go with the players view, other tubes ibb B will explain why I am going with my version and then go with that.
But just to clarify I don’t dislike playing because I know the rules, cyberpunk was a completely new system and I purposely just read over the broad scope of things so I could simply immerse in the game. I dislike playing because it gives me nothing to do between sessions sions and I don’t have to think as much on my feet in game.
That's not entirely true, as the wall can do damage if it displaces someone as it goes up, but it's also not the point. It's the part that I bolded where you let your character down.
It is a giant wall of ice created by magic, and it would radiate intense cold. If you step into a gap in it, yes, the cold becomes so severe it actually does damage. But are you really arguing that if you stand one inch from that gap, or even one foot, you wouldn't notice how painful the cold was getting? It's entirely reasonable for a character to approach that gap, feel what's happening to the temperature, and nope the heck away from entering it. It would also be reasonable to consider that it might be damaging, but the potential damage would be worth it to get to the other side -- but that's not what you're saying you did.
Again, this just sounds to me like you're so paranoid about being seen as metagaming, you're not actually able to put yourself in your character's shoes and imagine what they're experiencing. In a weird way, your attempts to avoid metagaming just become another form of metagaming -- "my character doesn't know the text of this spell in the PHB, therefore they can know absolutely nothing about it, even though they still have five working senses."
A character choosing not to run through an area of extreme cold in the middle of a magical wall of ice is not metagaming. It's common sense.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Weirdly, this just reminded me of an Orson Scott Card short story, back from before he went off the deep end, about a society that demands absolutely unsullied creativity from its geniuses. A child gets tested and it's determined they'll be a brilliant musician, so they're dropped in the middle of the woods in a little house with nothing but an organ-like musical instrument that can reproduce a wide array of sounds. As they grow up, they start playing the instrument, and their compositions are secretly recorded and distributed, completely without their knowledge.
One day, a fan of the musician figures out where they live, sneaks into the woods and approaches them with that society's equivalent of an iPod. Loaded onto the device are some works by Bach, which the person thinks the musician will like. The musician knows they aren't supposed to, but eventually gets tempted to listen. Bach's music is alien and glorious and they love it, but then the musician becomes paranoid that they'll be found out if their music becomes too Bach-like, so they try not to make their music sound like Bach.
A few days later, an investigator shows up, searches the house and finds the device. "I don't understand, how did you know?", the musician asked.
"All the Bach-like elements in your music suddenly disappeared," the investigator replied. "I'm afraid your genius has now been corrupted by an outside influence, and you will never again be allowed to make music, because it's just derivative and can no longer be pure."
That's you playing your character, Dennis -- so worried about sounding too much like Bach, you stop sounding anything like Bach at all.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Sorry I just re read the start of my post and it came across a bit more combative then I intended or was feeling the problem of answering a post at 3 am when I have a bout of insomnia :).
I am guessing your playing online due to the private messaging thing, are you on voice or just play by text? Having never played with a dm who wasn’t happy with a bit of rules clarification round the table, and myself never having an issue with it, I really don’t understand DMs who do. But I also generally play online or over voice and my players are happy to cut in and ask questions and no one gets irritated when it happens as they all understand we are just tying to have the beat game possible. I do understand some players might get irritated if another player at the table is constantly calling out there mistakes especially if it is a new group.
Hoping the DM understood his mistake afterwards I have had many sessions over the years where I realised post session I got something wrong that made the fight far easier then it should have been.
Blindsight doesn't provide immunity to being Blinded (this is especially noteworthy for perceiving things outside the range of a creature's Blindsight). As DM I'd probably allow the Warding Flare to work just once, but by a literal reading of the RAW it should work as often as it can be used.
No need to debate it, just point out where it says so in the rules.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Warding Flare absolutely does impose Blindness. A dragon (or any other creature with Blindsight) can still perceive its surroundings within a limited range when Blinded because it doesn't rely on sight for that, but it still doesn't have sight.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
More to the point, when in your game, do that, and leave it at that. Do not debate the DM, even if you disagree with their ruling.
For me metagaming only happens if you have your character know something they should not, and even then I think it can be a bit null and void when it comes to monsters. Take a troll for example, all my players know trolls regenerate unless hit by fire or such like, now they have level 3 characters and this is the first encounter with trolls. So do I force my players to ignore all there prior knowledge, do I make my party sorceror forgo flame based attacks because “that’s being meta”, do I rely on a dice roll for intelligence or some other such thing to determine if they know this weakness.
No I just let the players hit it with fire, the encounter is set up with an expectation they know trolls regen, if you want a narriative reason why, months of time sat in inns or around camp fires prior to campaign hearing tales about all sorts of monsters, having other adventurers tell their tales and explain how the dragon seemed able to see through anything, or the troll failed to regen when burnt. The characters have knowledge, if you want treat it like passive perception, a level of knowledge of monsters they know and above that CR they don’t. Ot is a sliding scale with more or less info available the higher/lower the monster.
Poor wording on my part too, as Warding Flare does not impose the Blinded condition. Never mind, I expect we understand one another.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
As to rule disputes, I am blessed with a good table. If a rule is unclear or ambiguous we take 30:ish seconds to reach a consensus, then roll with it and keep on gaming. It's never been a problem. If I or my players miss something it doesn't matter, since we are having fun.
Or just describe the troll's wounds closing at the beginning of their turn... except when they're hit with fire or acid
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Same here. I speak up often during games, as does another player at the table - often to our own characters' detriment. We bring up the issue but defer to the DM to decide how to handle it. Sometimes that means a short conversation and sometimes it's just a snap ruling, but either way we stay respectful. I think it helps that we all DM at east a little bit so we know how it feels on both sides of the screen.
It seems to me that the negative connotations of the "rules lawyer" stem from 1) people that are overly disruptive or off-putting in the way they bring up an issue and 2) people who only interject with the RAW when it would benefit them. Ultimately we all want to play the fairest and most challenging game we can.
So I've never really considered keeping track of the rules as a part of my "DM brain." That's always running and as a group we agree that it always has value. The truly DM-exclusive stuff about running the game is easy enough for me to turn off, and as a player I enjoy digging in to one character to a depth I simply can't while DMing.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm