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DMG: hard rules or just DM advice?
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 8047568" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>As per the title, as a DM what is your approach to DMG material (obviously excluding that which is marked explicitly as a variant rule), do you strictly abide to it or do you use it only as advice on running the game?</p><p></p><p>To anticipate fluid answers by many, saying "I strictly abide to something but ignore other parts" practically means to treating it as advice, which sometimes you comply with. Although you can say if you feel like you're not ignoring but rather acknowledging it as hard rules, then purposefully change with a house rule you inform your players about. </p><p></p><p>I am asking this because while the PHB is largely used by the players, and any DM's variation or house rule on something in the PHB is normally communicated to the group, I don't think the players normally read the DMG (and a few threads this year also indicated that besides magic items, planar stuff and a few more things, even many DMs don't read or regularly use the DMG) so if a DM ignores something in the DMG it may not even be necessary to inform the group. </p><p></p><p>I recently realized this has been my case all along. Even though I did read the whole DMG, I rarely use it anymore besides magic items (which I often modify to make unique versions but that's another matter). Because of this, among other things I've basically settled to using passive perception only for noticing <em>threats </em>i.e. monsters hiding making a Stealth check, but nothing else, because that's the only usage of passive perception mentioned in the PHB or Basic rules. Instead, the DMG also extensively talks about using it to notice <em>anything</em>, but since this means using a passive score vs static DCs, it has the potential to remove randomness completely. I never use passive scores against fixed DCs so I am effectively treating this DMG section as advice only.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 8047568, member: 1465"] As per the title, as a DM what is your approach to DMG material (obviously excluding that which is marked explicitly as a variant rule), do you strictly abide to it or do you use it only as advice on running the game? To anticipate fluid answers by many, saying "I strictly abide to something but ignore other parts" practically means to treating it as advice, which sometimes you comply with. Although you can say if you feel like you're not ignoring but rather acknowledging it as hard rules, then purposefully change with a house rule you inform your players about. I am asking this because while the PHB is largely used by the players, and any DM's variation or house rule on something in the PHB is normally communicated to the group, I don't think the players normally read the DMG (and a few threads this year also indicated that besides magic items, planar stuff and a few more things, even many DMs don't read or regularly use the DMG) so if a DM ignores something in the DMG it may not even be necessary to inform the group. I recently realized this has been my case all along. Even though I did read the whole DMG, I rarely use it anymore besides magic items (which I often modify to make unique versions but that's another matter). Because of this, among other things I've basically settled to using passive perception only for noticing [I]threats [/I]i.e. monsters hiding making a Stealth check, but nothing else, because that's the only usage of passive perception mentioned in the PHB or Basic rules. Instead, the DMG also extensively talks about using it to notice [I]anything[/I], but since this means using a passive score vs static DCs, it has the potential to remove randomness completely. I never use passive scores against fixed DCs so I am effectively treating this DMG section as advice only. [/QUOTE]
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