De canistro textrinum

[Kaelik]

What the fuck do you think, "And you grind them into dust" is if not a fucking call to drive people away from the hobby.

[Mistborn]

Dude, since we're friends now, at least read my entire posts instead getting all butt-rangered by the very premises.

Kids playing cops and robbers have to adjudicate everything. This is a lot of work. In a RPG with more people playing, having to do that would simply cut down the fun. Therefore, I want the legacy material of D&D that me and my group tend to consider cool and iconic (races, classes, spells, wacky polearms, you name it) AND I want to discard whatever parts of the same material that I feel that detract from the fun. This kind of having the cake and eating it too is a completely possible position in this situation. Case in point, I want games where somebody casts Bigby's Crushing Hand and people gasp at the badassness just implied, but then if the story demands there's some appropriate asspull that destroys the hand. You can only break expectations if you build them first.

Yet another character I played was an extra life of another character. Yet again, that started as a "let the dice fall" kind of game, where the DM ran a hard meatgrinder adventure that kind of obviously ground our party down to one surviving PC. Since we were in a hardcore/oldschool mood back then (in fact, since that was way back to 2e days, I think it was not an "oldschool mood", but plain "authentic oldschool"), we laughed at the gruesome deaths, thought that that was awesome, made more characters and came back for more. The result was that the same character survived again, for pure luck (and/or the help of his Bladesinger kit, but since we were like level 2, in 2e and with the enemies casting evocations, mostly luck).

That was when we decided that the situation was precious enough to merit a story: That character was obviously Marked by Fate for some Great Goal. The next chracters rolled were adapted to play that story. My own character was sent by the goddess of fate to watch over "the chosen one" and had the special ability to die irrevocably to grant the hero another chance in life. We had some serious fun with that, and that extra life character is still my favorite character after all those years. She was a surly evoker that absolutely hated the guy she had to protect, but still jumped to guard him at every chance. With that being 2e, a Dex 19 darts throwing evoker could raise some serious hell and yet, about 6 adventures later, she sacrificed herself so that the chosen one could revive. Then I rolled a fighter that got the girl in the end.

When we compare and contrast games like that one (I'm not the only one with experiences like that, right? Right?!) with the Den's favorite target, the self-entitled basketweaver, I think the actual culprit is the lack of communication in a group. If say, a player tried to pull that "chosen one" story on a table without people who were already his friends, that would sound weird and merit accusations of touching the DM's penis. But the inverse is also true, as my new friend knows too well. If you arrive with a character made to play "by the book" to a game where people are busy weaving baskets, there will be conflict, RL drama and hurt butts.

Finally, the SGT50(tm) is an useful tool at the game's designing stage. It's a very cool test that should be used before the actual game ships, so that people can be sure that every class/build is about the same level. It can even be used as an "you have to be this tall to play here" ruler, on games where everybody is alright with that. But it's certainly not a gateway to the Correct Way to Play D&D, mostly because D&D "as is" is unbalanced as hell, and people still had their fun with it.

What the fuck do you think, "And you grind them into dust" is if not a fucking call to drive people away from the hobby.

I'm sorry but people not getting into D&D is a hundred times better than them thinking that they should be playing pretend instead of D&D.

If them DM sends weak challenges that's fine as long as people understand that it's because their characters are not tall enough to play D&D as written.

What should not happen is people get the impression that relying on GM pity and MTP is how it's supposed to work. That does make D&D a worse game for everyone.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Kids playing cops and robbers have to adjudicate everything. This is a lot of work. In a RPG with more people playing, having to do that would simply cut down the fun. Therefore, I want the legacy material of D&D that me and my group tend to consider cool and iconic (races, classes, spells, wacky polearms, you name it) AND I want to discard whatever parts of the same material that I feel that detract from the fun. This kind of having the cake and eating it too is a completely possible position in this situation. Case in point, I want games where somebody casts Bigby's Crushing Hand and people gasp at the badassness just implied, but then if the story demands there's some appropriate asspull that destroys the hand. You can only break expectations if you build them first.

Yet another character I played was an extra life of another character. Yet again, that started as a "let the dice fall" kind of game, where the DM ran a hard meatgrinder adventure that kind of obviously ground our party down to one surviving PC. Since we were in a hardcore/oldschool mood back then (in fact, since that was way back to 2e days, I think it was not an "oldschool mood", but plain "authentic oldschool"), we laughed at the gruesome deaths, thought that that was awesome, made more characters and came back for more. The result was that the same character survived again, for pure luck (and/or the help of his Bladesinger kit, but since we were like level 2, in 2e and with the enemies casting evocations, mostly luck).

That was when we decided that the situation was precious enough to merit a story: That character was obviously Marked by Fate for some Great Goal. The next chracters rolled were adapted to play that story. My own character was sent by the goddess of fate to watch over "the chosen one" and had the special ability to die irrevocably to grant the hero another chance in life. We had some serious fun with that, and that extra life character is still my favorite character after all those years. She was a surly evoker that absolutely hated the guy she had to protect, but still jumped to guard him at every chance. With that being 2e, a Dex 19 darts throwing evoker could raise some serious hell and yet, about 6 adventures later, she sacrificed herself so that the chosen one could revive. Then I rolled a fighter that got the girl in the end.

When we compare and contrast games like that one (I'm not the only one with experiences like that, right? Right?!) with the Den's favorite target, the self-entitled basketweaver, I think the actual culprit is the lack of communication in a group. If say, a player tried to pull that "chosen one" story on a table without people who were already his friends, that would sound weird and merit accusations of touching the DM's penis. But the inverse is also true, as my new friend knows too well. If you arrive with a character made to play "by the book" to a game where people are busy weaving baskets, there will be conflict, RL drama and hurt butts.

I think I can agree with this. 3.5 may involve fewer houserules per game on average than earlier editions, but it still benefits enormously from people sitting down and discussing play styles before starting a campaign.

Finally, the SGT50(tm) is an useful tool at the game's designing stage. It's a very cool test that should be used before the actual game ships, so that people can be sure that every class/build is about the same level. It can even be used as an "you have to be this tall to play here" ruler, on games where everybody is alright with that. But it's certainly not a gateway to the Correct Way to Play D&D, mostly because D&D "as is" is unbalanced as hell, and people still had their fun with it.

Last time I put the PCs for a game through a Same Game Test, they had to beat at least 50% of the challenges, but they were also required to have "probable loss" results on at least 3 entries on the list. SGT certification can be surprisingly versatile for setting PC competency levels.

[Roog]

What the fuck do you think, "And you grind them into dust" is if not a fucking call to drive people away from the hobby.

I'm sorry but people not getting into D&D is a hundred times better than them thinking that they should be playing pretend instead of D&D.

And if they make up more than 1%...

D&D is making the world a worse place, and must be eliminated.

[erik]

Thrice now you have come to the conclusion that playing pretend is not a classification applicable to D&D.

Do you think... D&D is real?

[nockermensch]

Don't confuse me with GC. What I've been saying is that people who want to play magical fairy princess rather than D&D should not be coddled. I didn't spring into existence with all my optimization skills I learned and so can other people.

I was able to turn my first character into something functional even if I made a lot of bad choices at character generation, my third character was fairly good, and by character seven I had mastered basic optimization. That was at age 14-15 without getting advice from the internet. I find it impossible to believe that other people can't pick up just as quickly. There are even sites to give people the 411 on stuff.

The thing is that players of TTRPGs have been conditioned to rely on GM pity and hate optimization. I'm guessing those attitudes drive more people away from RPG than anything I've ever done.

1) First I didn't know how to make optimized characters.

2) Then I learned how to make optimized characters.

3) Then I learned that making optimized characters is not important.

My current state is superficially similar to the initial state, the only difference is that I'm conscious about it.

[Avoraciopoctules]

(I'm not the only one with experiences like that, right? Right?!)

In the endgame of one campaign, my dwarven necromancer had founded a utopian undead kingdom in the middle of the desert. The dimension-hopping hafling mafia sent a hit squad after him, and then I had the MC stop when he described them appearing in my inner sanctum, explaining that he hadn't really appreciated the scope of the air fortress my PC used as his base of operations.

We had a momentary reversal, where I MCed the dungeon crawl of the campaign MC's hit squad trying to find and kill my PC. There was a huge maze filled with traps, and the only way onward involved going through illusionary ceiling. That was a fun game.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Thrice now you have come to the conclusion that playing pretend is not a classification applicable to D&D.

Do you think... D&D is real?

-snip-

He can't risk any of his PCs dying. That could damage his chakras in real life! It all suddenly makes perfect sense.

[name_here]

There was a time when I got an entire town sucked into the plane of shadow because I dispelled the magic jar cast by a Shadow Demon (who completely kicked our asses, because we were clerics and all our spells were divinations for finding out where the hell the town's buildings were going, and not, say, buffs or daylight, and had no way of healing vile damage) and ended up resolving the situation by smacking a new demigod's shield with a mace of random disaster, and the DM decided that was sufficiently ballsy he was going to crack open his old books and track down the cataclysm table instead of using Wand Of Wonder, reroll nondestructive. It came up Meteors.

Since my character worshiped the god of cataclysm, I officially won that round.

[nockermensch]

Thrice now you have come to the conclusion that playing pretend is not a classification applicable to D&D.

Do you think... D&D is real?

I confess I was a bit disappointed when my friend and the clown broke up soon after I pointed that the clown runs a cult. A D&D cult. I had already downloaded Dark Dungeons, fired my trusty MS Paint and was eagerly waiting for the inevitable fallback and drama to create some more parody.

So I was D:, but now Misty is saying that "D&D! is! not! pretend!" so I'm :D again. Maybe there's still chances to use that tract!

[Avoraciopoctules]

In one game, my PC sold part of his soul to an evil ice god. He later sold more of his soul to an evil fire god so that the voices in his head would be too busy berating each other to make him go crazy. Somehow, the powersets that came with each pact synergized really well, and Mashal the guild adventurer fought most of his future battles with a flaming ice sword that could shapeshift into pretty much any spear or straight sword type as a free action.

The campaign died shortly before he managed to buy a tanker full of toxic waste from the enchantment factories of his home country, planning to dump it all over the forests used as cover by the opposing side in a war he had joined.

Oh hey, I still have the character sheet:
http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.p ... tid=143846

If you want to see what a level 6 PC looks like infected with the taint of basketweaving, check it out.

[Avoraciopoctules]

In one game I was running, the xill larvae gestating inside a PC finally burst out and killed him half a year of real time later. He discovered that a magic contract he had signed earlier gave the Hobgoblin Nazis possession of his soul. Since he was now working for them on a quest to defeat the source of Baatezu scry-and-die hit squads killing people for being level 8 or higher, they put him into a weapon made of enchanted quicksilver and gave him back to the party.

I don't remember how he recovered, but he was definitely a lich by the time Akula's first PC joined the devils and came after the rest of the party in a soul-powered battlemech. He narrowly lost, but he went after them again when they were crossing the desert made of sentient Hive Mind Black Sand and dodging legions of shadows on their Phantasmal Steeds. At that point, they were going to the prison built to seal the First Lich, who had secrets they needed to invade the baatezu fortress in the planet core.

[nockermensch]

There was a time when I got an entire town sucked into the plane of shadow because I dispelled the magic jar cast by a Shadow Demon (who completely kicked our asses, because we were clerics and all our spells were divinations for finding out where the hell the town's buildings were going, and not, say, buffs or daylight, and had no way of healing vile damage) and ended up resolving the situation by smacking a new demigod's shield with a mace of random disaster, and the DM decided that was sufficiently ballsy he was going to crack open his old books and track down the cataclysm table instead of using Wand Of Wonder, reroll nondestructive. It came up Meteors.

Since my character worshiped the god of cataclysm, I officially won that round.

The very fact that a mace of random disaster was a thing makes me feel at home already. That the DM dug up some crusty old book to find a Rolemaster style Table of Horrible Happenings makes the situation immediately memorable. You know that that will go down in your group's history as "man, that time we really ended the campaign with a bang" or as "man, that time we really got saved by a bullshit dice roll". Whatever happened, you had already won.

(I'm not the only one with experiences like that, right? Right?!)

In the endgame of one campaign, my dwarven necromancer had founded a utopian undead kingdom in the middle of the desert. The dimension-hopping hafling mafia sent a hit squad after him, and then I had the MC stop when he described them appearing in my inner sanctum, explaining that he hadn't really appreciated the scope of the air fortress my PC used as his base of operations.

We had a momentary reversal, where I MCed the dungeon crawl of the campaign MC's hit squad trying to find and kill my PC. There was a huge maze filled with traps, and the only way onward involved going through illusionary ceiling. That was a fun game.

Then after the NPCs finally find the way through the ceiling, they find themselves facing a huge statue's mouth. It's dark inside. They break down crying.

[Username17]

Lord Mistborn's "stop having fun doing things I don't like!" stance is pretty cringeworthy, but why are you all letting nockermensch's incoherent tirades pass without eyerolling? Is it the TL;DR effect brought about by his monstrously long walls of text?

I mean, let's look at the first post. Actually, let's not because it's way too fucking long and doesn't go anywhere. Let's look at a much shorter version of the first post:

Guys! I've played in MTP-heavy campaigns! Like where we mostly used MTP to cover portions of the story that aren't described well or at all by the rules - like estate management, romance, and bloodline perpetuation. And we were allowed to play nominally unusual character types based on events in the setting!

The correct answer to that is to raise eyebrows and ask "So fucking what? That's how D&D works. To the extent it works at all, it has always been by shunting to MTP when the rules are incomplete. Character options are always supposed to be limited by the setting, so any character option that is made available by the setting is not rule-breaking to have". I have no fucking idea how he thinks any of that is a condemnation of "Den Style" or an endorsement of anything at all really. It's not an argument, it's like someone ranting for a page and a half about the time they found a whole quarter on the sidewalk.

The part it goes off the rails is the part where he talks about deciding that one of the characters is important and then turning on the invincibility codes for that character. That is the part that is fucking insane. I cannot imagine a more juvenile and unfair way to pretend to play D&D than that.

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

Lord Mistborn's "stop having fun doing things I don't like!" stance is pretty cringeworthy, but why are you all letting nockermensch's incoherent tirades pass without eyerolling? Is it the TL;DR effect brought about by his monstrously long walls of text?

I mean, let's look at the first post. Actually, let's not because it's way too fucking long and doesn't go anywhere. Let's look at a much shorter version of the first post:

Guys! I've played in MTP-heavy campaigns! Like where we mostly used MTP to cover portions of the story that aren't described well or at all by the rules - like estate management, romance, and bloodline perpetuation. And we were allowed to play nominally unusual character types based on events in the setting!

The correct answer to that is to raise eyebrows and ask "So fucking what? That's how D&D works. To the extent it works at all, it has always been by shunting to MTP when the rules are incomplete. Character options are always supposed to be limited by the setting, so any character option that is made available by the setting is not rule-breaking to have". I have no fucking idea how he thinks any of that is a condemnation of "Den Style" or an endorsement of anything at all really. It's not an argument, it's like someone ranting for a page and a half about the time they found a whole quarter on the sidewalk.

The part it goes off the rails is the part where he talks about deciding that one of the characters is important and then turning on the invincibility codes for that character. That is the part that is fucking insane. I cannot imagine a more juvenile and unfair way to pretend to play D&D than that.

-Username17

You may have a point. I am primarily reading nockermenschs posts as "D&D campaigns can be cool when people MTP stuff not covered by the rules. Let's share examples." And I am willing to take a few minutes out of my videogaming hour to wax nostalgic about those times I found a quarter and it was just so shiny.

If you want to specifically address the idea of designating one character as "too important to fail", I don't generally like it. If someone really wants to take a character who had a couple of funny moments and then give them the luck of Jar Jar Binks, there are a lot of ways that could mess with a game's tone later on. There generally should be room for doubt as to how a game is going to end (with edge cases for games involving flashbacks, but that's tangential).

Making one guy "the chosen one" doesn't generally make for good group dynamics.

[Kaelik]

why are you all letting nockermensch's incoherent tirades pass without eyerolling? Is it the TL;DR effect brought about by his monstrously long walls of text?

Yes. Very much yes.

[DSMatticus]

Well, nockermensch derailed himself after the first paragraph of his first post. The 'here's my gaming group, look at all the unusual!' doesn't really fit with Mistborn's comment about minimum difficulty that led him to create the thread at all. So yeah; totally skimming it and not caring about it. I wasn't aware there was a point. Reading it confirms that there is, indeed, not a lot of point. Now if you want to criticize the play style his snippets suggest...

The part it goes off the rails is the part where he talks about deciding that one of the characters is important and then turning on the invincibility codes for that character. That is the part that is fucking insane. I cannot imagine a more juvenile and unfair way to pretend to play D&D than that.

Yeah, what Nocker said is definitely a warning flag, but I do want to point out that you're seeing contextless fragments so it's entirely possible there's some redeeming factor we're unaware of. If everyone else's characters had similar Special Snowflake treatment, it's not really a big deal, that's just the character we happen to be hearing about. If you hand that shit out like candy, it's not really unfair. It's just over the top, and some people dig that sort of thing (really, "you don't die, even when you are killed" isn't that great of a class feature to begin with). And I'd like to say that it's possible to handle that sort of thing maturely if you're in a long-running group and the spotlight gets passed around equitably instead of "Bob gives the best head, Bob is always protagonist" and it's never actually a Super Big Deal and everyone else still gets to shine. And even beyond that; I've totally had situations where everyone at the table wanted me to hand Special Snowflake status to an individual for something weird that happened in game. When it happens organically, players are a lot more open to things like that than when it's shoved down their throats by a terrible GM's railroading. Though, yes, it's also your job as GM not to let that go horribly wrong later on, by not letting it dominate the campaign and conquer the spotlight forever and always.

Now, that aside; I'd like to point out that I'm not defending nocker specifically, because I can't. I have no idea what happened at his table. In general, though, that sort of stuff can be handled maturely and to everyone's enjoyment, even though it... usually isn't.

[Red_Rob]

The part it goes off the rails is the part where he talks about deciding that one of the characters is important and then turning on the invincibility codes for that character. That is the part that is fucking insane. I cannot imagine a more juvenile and unfair way to pretend to play D&D than that.

I think you're missing his point.

Mistborn is saying that playing anything other than the One True Way is gaming heresy and ruins D&D FOREVAR!!!!11!!! Nocker is pointing out that if everyone at the table is onboard, then you play however you want.

You might think that is "juvenile and unfair", and therefore I'm sure you wouldn't decide to do that. But as long as everyone at the table acknowledges and agrees to what you are doing, where's the problem? Nocker isn't advocating the MC deciding he likes one PC more and fauning over them, thats terribad. He's saying if everyone at the table decides they want to ignore one or more rules after an informed discussion, who the fuck are you to tell them they're having fun wrong? You're Lord Mistborn apparently, head of the Gaming Secret Police.

The only problem I can see is if people then think the rules-fudged version is the correct rules, or if people think because they fudged it then rules problems don't exist. But neither of those arguments nullify Nocker's main point.

[Mistborn]

I think you're missing his point.

Mistborn is saying that playing anything other than the One True Way is gaming heresy and ruins D&D FOREVAR!!!!11!!! Nocker is pointing out that if everyone at the table is onboard, then you play however you want.

Listen D&D is a game it has rules. If you ignore those rules and just have the DM bullshit the way nocker advocates than you not really playing D&D are you, you're playing fairy tea party. I'm not going to break into you house and piss in your Cheerios if you play in a way I personally dislike. How ever when you pretend your fairy tea party cooperative story session as D&D then there are going to be problems.

The only problem I can see is if people then think the rules-fudged version is the correct rules, or if people think because they fudged it then rules problems don't exist. But neither of those arguments nullify Nocker's main point.

It's more than that. People who play fairy tea party cause problems because either they demand accommodation in actual game of D&D. They spout nonsense about "playing the game not the rules". Or get butthurt when someone comes to their game of "D&D" and expects to play D&D.

[Emerald]

1) First I didn't know how to make optimized characters.

2) Then I learned how to make optimized characters.

3) Then I learned that making optimized characters is not important.

My current state is superficially similar to the initial state, the only difference is that I'm conscious about it.

To play a fighter is to play the game.
To play a wizard is to understand the rules.
To understand the rules, and play a fighter, is to understand the game.


As long as we're sharing anecdotes:

Making one guy "the chosen one" doesn't generally make for good group dynamics.

It can be if it's an NPC.

In one campaign, we were a party of neutral-to-evil sneaky manipulative types (made up of a buffer-spec bard, a debuffer-spec paladin/blackguard, a beguiler/shadowcraft mage, a dread necromancer, and a warlock/ur priest/eldritch theurge, as I recall) and had to deal with a prophecy where the MacGuffin weapon had to be wielded by a Chosen One who was "pure of heart" and "untainted by sin" and blah blah blah. The idea was, I assume, for us to get a Good guy to cooperate with us without coercion, mind control, or our other standard tactics, but we decided that would be too boring.

Instead, we acquired a copy of the prophecy, figured out what dramatic events a person had to accomplish to be anointed the Chosen One by the high priest of Pelor, and went out to a random backwater town disguised as priests of Pelor. We went on stakeout for a few days looking for the lowest-level, weakest-stat, most comically-inept commoner we could find; once we'd made our choice, we set up a few illusions, rode into town with much fanfare, and explained that the Prophecy declared that the Chosen One would be found in this town, indicated by the signs that just happened to have occurred. We found our man, called out "YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE!" and convinced him that he was indeed the Hero of Legend who would defeat the Ultimate Evil.

We then proceeded to lie, cheat, bribe, make illusions, spread rumors, hire mercenaries, read and alter memories, assassinate witnesses, and do everything else in our power to fake the miraculous occurrences necessary for the prophecy, all the while being careful to keep THE CHOSEN ONE and the town priest of Pelor who had accompanied him convinced that he was the one actually accomplishing the twenty-something Heroic Deeds necessary of him. Of course, we kept the evil artifacts that were supposed to have been destroyed, reanimated the evil dragons under our control, promptly re-conquered liberated towns, etc. in our free time.

Finally all the Heroic Deeds were completed, and when THE CHOSEN ONE was subjected to all of the necessary tests, he passed with flying colors because he actually did believe everything was happening as we said it was. He rode out and (once again with our help, since he was still a level 1 commoner at this point) defeated the Ultimate Evil to much rejoicing...at which point we knocked out his companions, disguised them as us, sold THE CHOSEN ONE off to a demon prince in our Bad Guy personas, tipped off some archons about it in our Good Guy personas while framing the good guys disguised as us, helped the archons retrieve THE CHOSEN ONE and capture the "Bad Guys," helped the demons rescue the "Bad Guys," ensured THE CHOSEN ONE was "accidentally" slain in the attempt, and left the archons and demons at each other's throats each convinced that the others were behind the whole thing.

[Mistborn]

To play a fighter is to play the game.
To play a wizard is to understand the rules.
To understand the rules, and play a fighter, is to understand the game.

Your assertion assumes that the game is not the rules. Once again this is D&D not fairy tea party and your characters ability to do anything is defined by what the rules describe. Unless you want to be Prince Philip and only be able to participate in the adventure due to the GM having faeries solve your problems.

Emerald Status
-Not frozen [ ]
-Frozen [ ]
-Frozen fast [x]

[Fuchs]

Listen D&D is a game it has rules. If you ignore those rules and just have the DM bullshit the way nocker advocates than you not really playing D&D are you, you're playing fairy tea party. I'm not going to break into you house and piss in your Cheerios if you play in a way I personally dislike. How ever when you pretend your fairy tea party cooperative story session as D&D then there are going to be problems.

It's more than that. People who play fairy tea party cause problems because either they demand accommodation in actual game of D&D. They spout nonsense about "playing the game not the rules". Or get butthurt when someone comes to their game of "D&D" and expects to play D&D.

No, people who think their own way of playing D&D is the correct one and are unable to accept other ways - and compromise if they want to play together - are what cause problems.

It's not as if there are many if any groups who play by the book D&D anyway, almost every group uses house rules, if only to avoid candle of evocation wish loops.

What matters is, first and foremost, that everyone at the table has fun. If that's the case they are doing it right.

[Mistborn]

No, people who think their own way of playing D&D is the correct one and are unable to accept other ways - and compromise if they want to play together - are what cause problems.

It's not as if there are many if any groups who play by the book D&D anyway, almost every group uses house rules, if only to avoid candle of evocation wish loops.

House rules and MTP are different things. House rules are consistent alterations of the rules. MTP is ignoring the rules entirely

As for wish loops I find it hard to believe that anyone has really sat down at someones table and attempted to pull something like that. This is something I don't get outside the Den people look at Wish loops/farming and say "that shit is bananas" and then pretend that Wish doesn't exist unless your burning a 9th level slot and spending the XP. Only on the Den to people pretend that Wish abuse is valid part of the game.

[Fuchs]

No, people who think their own way of playing D&D is the correct one and are unable to accept other ways - and compromise if they want to play together - are what cause problems.

It's not as if there are many if any groups who play by the book D&D anyway, almost every group uses house rules, if only to avoid candle of evocation wish loops.

House rules and MTP are different things. House rules are consistent alterations of the rules. MTP is ignoring the rules entirely

So, consistently using lower CR encoutners than the party level is not a house rule, but ignoring rules entirely? Picking encounters that the party can handle is ignoring the rules? Care to explain?

[Mistborn]

So, consistently using lower CR encoutners than the party level is not a house rule, but ignoring rules entirely? Picking encounters that the party can handle is ignoring the rules? Care to explain?

Strictly speaking what CR encounters a party faces is something that rules don't cover. At least not in the same way the rules cover what happens when you cast magic missile. There are just guidelines the most people expect to be followed.

That isn't what nocker has been advocating though he's arguing for MTP not easy modo.