... There is no reason why your interpretation should be taken as the 'correct' interpretation. This is a meta rule issue. The rules of the game, afaik, do not say "These are all and only the actions your character can take. Anything else you want to do, from picking your nose to blinking your eyes to cooking jambalaya, must be ruled on by the DM." The rules in the books list A) a bunch of things you can do, and B) a bunch of things you cannot do. The rules are not purely exclusive or purely permissive in nature. There's some of both...
The books kinda say it several times though. From the PHB introduction: "the players decide what they want their adventurers to do... Then the DM determines the results of the adventurers’ actions and narrates what they experience." Regarding actions in combat: "When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure."
That doesn't mean that the DM gives explicit rulings on every little thing, but they do give implicit authorisation by allowing it to happen unchallenged. You say you walk across the room and the DM says nothing; you can assume you successfully walked across the room. You say "I light this stuff on fire with my torch" and the DM makes some quick mental calculations (how flammable is that paper/wooden door/building, how long would it take to catch light, is anyone or anything trying to prevent this) and then they make their ruling: "the bookshelf goes up in flames!" or "you'll need to hold the torch against the door for a full minute before it starts to smoulder" or "you assess the building for the best place to start a fire; make a Wisdom (Carpentry Tools) check".
The rules aren't purely permissive or exclusive, but when it comes to a character's possible actions they are almost completely permissive in that they list things you can do (attack, hide, cast this spell for this effect). The exclusive rulings tend to be placing limitations or boundaries on a previously described permitted action. Beyond that the rules explicitly state that anything is possible limited only by imagination; but the player imagines and chooses, the DM decides the outcome.
... There is no reason why your interpretation should be taken as the 'correct' interpretation. This is a meta rule issue. The rules of the game, afaik, do not say "These are all and only the actions your character can take. Anything else you want to do, from picking your nose to blinking your eyes to cooking jambalaya, must be ruled on by the DM." The rules in the books list A) a bunch of things you can do, and B) a bunch of things you cannot do. The rules are not purely exclusive or purely permissive in nature. There's some of both...
The books kinda say it several times though. From the PHB introduction: "the players decide what they want their adventurers to do... Then the DM determines the results of the adventurers’ actions and narrates what they experience." Regarding actions in combat: "When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure."
That doesn't mean that the DM gives explicit rulings on every little thing, but they do give implicit authorisation by allowing it to happen unchallenged. You say you walk across the room and the DM says nothing; you can assume you successfully walked across the room. You say "I light this stuff on fire with my torch" and the DM makes some quick mental calculations (how flammable is that paper/wooden door/building, how long would it take to catch light, is anyone or anything trying to prevent this) and then they make their ruling: "the bookshelf goes up in flames!" or "you'll need to hold the torch against the door for a full minute before it starts to smoulder" or "you assess the building for the best place to start a fire; make a Wisdom (Carpentry Tools) check".
The rules aren't purely permissive or exclusive, but when it comes to a character's possible actions they are almost completely permissive in that they list things you can do (attack, hide, cast this spell for this effect). The exclusive rulings tend to be placing limitations or boundaries on a previously described permitted action. Beyond that the rules explicitly state that anything is possible limited only by imagination; but the player imagines and chooses, the DM decides the outcome.
What the DM can do, and should do, is inform you of any specific limitations that apply to what you are doing at the moment. That's of course necessary for the game. For example:
It's not this:
Fred: Hey DM, can my bard urinate?
DM: Yes, he can.
Fred: Great, my bard will walk behind the tree and urinate.
DM: Wait, you haven't asked whether your bard can walk behind trees. It's not in the rules specifically.
Fred: Can my bard walk behind trees?
DM: Yes.
Fred: Okay, my bard will walk behind the tree and urinate.
DM: When you try to urinate, you find yourself unable. You think it was the old witch's curse!
Fred: Wait, my bard can think about witches? That's not in the rules specifically that I can take that action.
DM: Yes, it's a DM call--you can think about witches.
Fred: And curses?
DM: Yes, and curses.
It's this:
Fred: Hey DM, my bard is going to walk behind the tree and urinate.
DM: When you try to urinate, you find yourself unable. You think it was the old witch's curse!
In other words, if we think of Fred's bard as a person who is living a complete life, the vast majority of what that bard can do is not granted by either explicit rule or GM fiat. Most of what the bard can do is assumed to be able to be done.
That doesn't mean the DM can't decide that, for a reason, the bard cannot do it. But that the DM does not stop it doesn't mean the same thing as saying 'you can urinate as a general action only because the DM says so.'
Take combat: the rules specify that there are certain action categories that we can select. Attack, Help, Cast a Spell, etc. But those categories are not the same thing as the actual actions we take. It's a bit of a problem of verbiage, they maybe shouldn't have used 'action' to mean both 'the categories of actions I take from a list' and 'the action I take after selecting that category'. It lends itself to confusion, just like now.
If I take the Help category of action, I then have to describe what the help is. The rules by and large do not explicitly list what those actions can be. Can I flap my arms around and scream to try to Help by distracting the enemy? Can I howl at the moon to try to Help the ranger befriend a wolf? Can I hold the doorknob turned while the rogue tries to pick the lock? None of these are explicitly granted actions in the rules. And yet none of them are things my character can only do in general if the DM says I can.
What the DM can and should do is inform me when I cannot do those things for certain reasons. "No, at this moment you can't flap your arms--turns out someone paralyzed your arms and you only now realized it." "You go to howl at the moon and realize a silence spell has been cast." But the ability to tell me I cannot do it now, or the ability to determine what happens when I do it, is not the same thing as saying that I can only howl, or wave, or hold things because the DM says so.
In that way, it's similar to laws. In most countries you can say what you want to say for the most part, but not because the laws/constitution specifically grant you the ability to speak. The laws generally restrain other people from stopping you, and describe when you can be stopped. But the laws don't say "Our citizens can speak. They can read. They can own things. They can walk around. They can build furniture." There's no list that we check our actions against, where we cannot do something unless the list says we can. We can do things unless the list says we can't. For the majority of actions in the life of Fred's bard, that's the case.
Spells are different in some aspects, just because they are so important to the game. As is combat. If urination were important as well, there would be clearer rules. But even then, when I'm in combat, no specific rule grants me the ability to stab myself in the foot with my sword. It would fall under a combat action category. But the specific action itself is possible to try, and not explicitly granted.
We agree that the DM has the power to stop you from doing things. We're differing on a somewhat subtle point here, but it's a point that influences how we play the game :) If a DM plops me down Faerun (not a homebrew world where for some reason people can't walk behind trees), what is true from the get-go is that my character can walk behind trees. That particular ability is not a DM decision.
In that way, it's similar to laws. In most countries you can say what you want to say for the most part, but not because the laws/constitution specifically grant you the ability to speak. The laws generally restrain other people from stopping you, and describe when you can be stopped. But the laws don't say "Our citizens can speak. They can read. They can own things. They can walk around. They can build furniture." There's no list that we check our actions against, where we cannot do something unless the list says we can. We can do things unless the list says we can't. For the majority of actions in the life of Fred's bard, that's the case.
Not that it affects your point at all, but laws don't generally state what you can do, nor do they usually state what you can't do, but rather state the consequences for certain actions. There is no law saying you can't kill; there are laws that say what happens when you kill, and under which circumstances. In that sense, real world laws are completely different from game rules: laws that state what you can and can't do are useless, since people will do whatever they want, so laws are written to incentivize or disincentivize certain behavior by ascribing consequences; game rules, on the other hand, do tend to state what you can and/or can't do, since the concept of a game is precisely to adhere to a mostly arbitrary set of rules for entertainment.
Completely unrelated to that, I wanted to point out that there are two types of "DM calls":
Decisions the DM makes to rule on situations not covered by the rules (e.g. "can I burn a bookcase with my torch?", "will howling at the moon Help the Ranger tame the wolf?")
Changes the DM makes to the rules in order to make a fairer, more fun, more interesting, or otherwise "better" game (e.g. "spending a Luck point will give you Advantage, rather than allow you to roll an extra dice", "Silencecan be cast on a creature, and will follow the creature if it moves")
Many of the "Type 1" DM calls can be implicit. This falls under the unwritten contract between the DM and the players. Generally, things in the game will work similarly to how they work in real life, unless otherwise specified. So, unless the DM specifies "in this game, most humanoids cannot urinate", it can be assumed that they can, as an implicit DM call. Similarly, torches will generally burn things. Silence, on the other hand, does not exist in the real world (as a spell), so there shouldn't be any implicit DM calls inferred about it; the rules covering it are what is explicitly stated in the rulebooks, plus any explicit DM calls the DM has made (be they "Type 1" or "Type 2").
In that way, it's similar to laws. In most countries you can say what you want to say for the most part, but not because the laws/constitution specifically grant you the ability to speak. The laws generally restrain other people from stopping you, and describe when you can be stopped. But the laws don't say "Our citizens can speak. They can read. They can own things. They can walk around. They can build furniture." There's no list that we check our actions against, where we cannot do something unless the list says we can. We can do things unless the list says we can't. For the majority of actions in the life of Fred's bard, that's the case.
Not that it affects your point at all, but laws don't generally state what you can do, nor do they usually state what you can't do, but rather state the consequences for certain actions. There is no law saying you can't kill; there are laws that say what happens when you kill, and under which circumstances. In that sense, real world laws are completely different from game rules: laws that state what you can and can't do are useless, since people will do whatever they want, so laws are written to incentivize or disincentivize certain behavior by ascribing consequences; game rules, on the other hand, do tend to state what you can and/or can't do, since the concept of a game is precisely to adhere to a mostly arbitrary set of rules for entertainment.
No, you're right. I should have specified the difference between 'law' and 'constitution'. The constitution (the sort the US and most other countries have) sets limits, not specific actions, and does not generally specify punishment either. It's the laws (made based on the constitution) that set the punishments. I should have made that distinction, but I was being lazy. :)
Nah, your point still stands, I was being pedantic. (I really commented to state the second part of my post, just decided to point that out in the process.)
Btw, I'm not sure I agree completely with the "constitution" part. There are, or must be, consequences attached to violating the limits a constitution sets, otherwise there's no point. The consequence could be as general as "you can no longer be a citizen of this country", or be "offloaded" to latter documentation (e.g. "violating the terms of this constitution will result in punishment to be determined by the People in a document to be formalized before the current year is over", or your example of "laws based on the constitution") or human determination (e.g. "violating the terms of this constitution will result in a punishment to be determined by a jury of your peers in a court of law"), but a document that says "you can't drive go-karts on your neighbor's lawn on alternating Tuesdays" means nothing if my driving a go-kart on my neighbor's lawn on a forbidden Tuesday results in no consequences to me.
You were clear in your original statement, and it supported your point properly... it's just that this is a sort of personal pet subject of mine (how laws don't really say what you can and can't do, but rather what happens when you do certain things. From a certain point of view, the civil code and penal code can be seen not as "rules to follow", but as a catalog of actions you can perform, and the prices to be charged for them.)
Btw, I'm not sure I agree completely with the "constitution" part. There are, or must be, consequences attached to violating the limits a constitution sets, otherwise there's no point. The consequence could be as general as "you can no longer be a citizen of this country", or be "offloaded" to latter documentation (e.g. "violating the terms of this constitution will result in punishment to be determined by the People in a document to be formalized before the current year is over", or your example of "laws based on the constitution") or human determination (e.g. "violating the terms of this constitution will result in a punishment to be determined by a jury of your peers in a court of law"), but a document that says "you can't drive go-karts on your neighbor's lawn on alternating Tuesdays" means nothing if my driving a go-kart on my neighbor's lawn on a forbidden Tuesday results in no consequences to me.
But the function of the Constitution (talking specifically US here) is by and large not setting the punishments. It's structuring the government, which includes detailing how the people in the government will then go on to create laws and punishments.
Article II Section 4 says this: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." So there's a punishment, in the removal from office. And Article 3 Section 3 defines treason. But other than removal from office, there's no punishment for treason specified. Prison? Execution? Article 4 Section 2 specifies the person guilty of treason can be extradited from one state to the next. But then done what with? We need a law for that.
Article 1 Section 3 says: 3: "No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen." What happens if I lie about my age and get elected before I'm 30, and then people find out? No idea, the Constitution doesn't specify the punishment. We need a law.
The 13th Amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Okay, but what punishment do I get if I enslave someone? Not the job of the Constitution to lay that out.
Technically, the 13th Amendment is not a law. It's a boundary, it's the basis for law. But it's not a statute, it doesn't delineate when someone is enslaved (what qualifies as slavery), or what happens to you if you enslave someone. It tells the lawmakers what laws they can make. And the laws provide the punishments.
So yes, the Constitution by itself does not give a person any particular reason to abide by what's in it. The lawmakers need to provide those reasons by supplying laws based on the Constitution. If we had no laws, and just had the Constitution, we would have no criminal or civil punishments at all, only people removed from offices.
The books kinda say it several times though. From the PHB introduction: "the players decide what they want their adventurers to do... Then the DM determines the results of the adventurers’ actions and narrates what they experience." Regarding actions in combat: "When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure."
That doesn't mean that the DM gives explicit rulings on every little thing, but they do give implicit authorisation by allowing it to happen unchallenged. You say you walk across the room and the DM says nothing; you can assume you successfully walked across the room. You say "I light this stuff on fire with my torch" and the DM makes some quick mental calculations (how flammable is that paper/wooden door/building, how long would it take to catch light, is anyone or anything trying to prevent this) and then they make their ruling: "the bookshelf goes up in flames!" or "you'll need to hold the torch against the door for a full minute before it starts to smoulder" or "you assess the building for the best place to start a fire; make a Wisdom (Carpentry Tools) check".
The rules aren't purely permissive or exclusive, but when it comes to a character's possible actions they are almost completely permissive in that they list things you can do (attack, hide, cast this spell for this effect). The exclusive rulings tend to be placing limitations or boundaries on a previously described permitted action. Beyond that the rules explicitly state that anything is possible limited only by imagination; but the player imagines and chooses, the DM decides the outcome.
What the DM can do, and should do, is inform you of any specific limitations that apply to what you are doing at the moment. That's of course necessary for the game. For example:
It's not this:
It's this:
In other words, if we think of Fred's bard as a person who is living a complete life, the vast majority of what that bard can do is not granted by either explicit rule or GM fiat. Most of what the bard can do is assumed to be able to be done.
That doesn't mean the DM can't decide that, for a reason, the bard cannot do it. But that the DM does not stop it doesn't mean the same thing as saying 'you can urinate as a general action only because the DM says so.'
Take combat: the rules specify that there are certain action categories that we can select. Attack, Help, Cast a Spell, etc. But those categories are not the same thing as the actual actions we take. It's a bit of a problem of verbiage, they maybe shouldn't have used 'action' to mean both 'the categories of actions I take from a list' and 'the action I take after selecting that category'. It lends itself to confusion, just like now.
If I take the Help category of action, I then have to describe what the help is. The rules by and large do not explicitly list what those actions can be. Can I flap my arms around and scream to try to Help by distracting the enemy? Can I howl at the moon to try to Help the ranger befriend a wolf? Can I hold the doorknob turned while the rogue tries to pick the lock? None of these are explicitly granted actions in the rules. And yet none of them are things my character can only do in general if the DM says I can.
What the DM can and should do is inform me when I cannot do those things for certain reasons. "No, at this moment you can't flap your arms--turns out someone paralyzed your arms and you only now realized it." "You go to howl at the moon and realize a silence spell has been cast." But the ability to tell me I cannot do it now, or the ability to determine what happens when I do it, is not the same thing as saying that I can only howl, or wave, or hold things because the DM says so.
In that way, it's similar to laws. In most countries you can say what you want to say for the most part, but not because the laws/constitution specifically grant you the ability to speak. The laws generally restrain other people from stopping you, and describe when you can be stopped. But the laws don't say "Our citizens can speak. They can read. They can own things. They can walk around. They can build furniture." There's no list that we check our actions against, where we cannot do something unless the list says we can. We can do things unless the list says we can't. For the majority of actions in the life of Fred's bard, that's the case.
Spells are different in some aspects, just because they are so important to the game. As is combat. If urination were important as well, there would be clearer rules. But even then, when I'm in combat, no specific rule grants me the ability to stab myself in the foot with my sword. It would fall under a combat action category. But the specific action itself is possible to try, and not explicitly granted.
We agree that the DM has the power to stop you from doing things. We're differing on a somewhat subtle point here, but it's a point that influences how we play the game :) If a DM plops me down Faerun (not a homebrew world where for some reason people can't walk behind trees), what is true from the get-go is that my character can walk behind trees. That particular ability is not a DM decision.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Not that it affects your point at all, but laws don't generally state what you can do, nor do they usually state what you can't do, but rather state the consequences for certain actions. There is no law saying you can't kill; there are laws that say what happens when you kill, and under which circumstances. In that sense, real world laws are completely different from game rules: laws that state what you can and can't do are useless, since people will do whatever they want, so laws are written to incentivize or disincentivize certain behavior by ascribing consequences; game rules, on the other hand, do tend to state what you can and/or can't do, since the concept of a game is precisely to adhere to a mostly arbitrary set of rules for entertainment.
Completely unrelated to that, I wanted to point out that there are two types of "DM calls":
Many of the "Type 1" DM calls can be implicit. This falls under the unwritten contract between the DM and the players. Generally, things in the game will work similarly to how they work in real life, unless otherwise specified. So, unless the DM specifies "in this game, most humanoids cannot urinate", it can be assumed that they can, as an implicit DM call. Similarly, torches will generally burn things. Silence, on the other hand, does not exist in the real world (as a spell), so there shouldn't be any implicit DM calls inferred about it; the rules covering it are what is explicitly stated in the rulebooks, plus any explicit DM calls the DM has made (be they "Type 1" or "Type 2").
No, you're right. I should have specified the difference between 'law' and 'constitution'. The constitution (the sort the US and most other countries have) sets limits, not specific actions, and does not generally specify punishment either. It's the laws (made based on the constitution) that set the punishments. I should have made that distinction, but I was being lazy. :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Nah, your point still stands, I was being pedantic. (I really commented to state the second part of my post, just decided to point that out in the process.)
Btw, I'm not sure I agree completely with the "constitution" part. There are, or must be, consequences attached to violating the limits a constitution sets, otherwise there's no point. The consequence could be as general as "you can no longer be a citizen of this country", or be "offloaded" to latter documentation (e.g. "violating the terms of this constitution will result in punishment to be determined by the People in a document to be formalized before the current year is over", or your example of "laws based on the constitution") or human determination (e.g. "violating the terms of this constitution will result in a punishment to be determined by a jury of your peers in a court of law"), but a document that says "you can't drive go-karts on your neighbor's lawn on alternating Tuesdays" means nothing if my driving a go-kart on my neighbor's lawn on a forbidden Tuesday results in no consequences to me.
You were clear in your original statement, and it supported your point properly... it's just that this is a sort of personal pet subject of mine (how laws don't really say what you can and can't do, but rather what happens when you do certain things. From a certain point of view, the civil code and penal code can be seen not as "rules to follow", but as a catalog of actions you can perform, and the prices to be charged for them.)
But the function of the Constitution (talking specifically US here) is by and large not setting the punishments. It's structuring the government, which includes detailing how the people in the government will then go on to create laws and punishments.
Article II Section 4 says this: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." So there's a punishment, in the removal from office. And Article 3 Section 3 defines treason. But other than removal from office, there's no punishment for treason specified. Prison? Execution? Article 4 Section 2 specifies the person guilty of treason can be extradited from one state to the next. But then done what with? We need a law for that.
Article 1 Section 3 says: 3: "No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen." What happens if I lie about my age and get elected before I'm 30, and then people find out? No idea, the Constitution doesn't specify the punishment. We need a law.
The 13th Amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Okay, but what punishment do I get if I enslave someone? Not the job of the Constitution to lay that out.
Technically, the 13th Amendment is not a law. It's a boundary, it's the basis for law. But it's not a statute, it doesn't delineate when someone is enslaved (what qualifies as slavery), or what happens to you if you enslave someone. It tells the lawmakers what laws they can make. And the laws provide the punishments.
So yes, the Constitution by itself does not give a person any particular reason to abide by what's in it. The lawmakers need to provide those reasons by supplying laws based on the Constitution. If we had no laws, and just had the Constitution, we would have no criminal or civil punishments at all, only people removed from offices.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)