I think the deeper issue is that even when they have it explained, they often don't care or see it as impeding fun out of stuffy principle rather than creating a different kind of enjoyment.

I've started to suspect a lot of it comes down to people who want Combat as Sports vs Combat as Spectacle.

I legitimately wonder how many times a person who makes this sort of complaint has actually been screwed over by and enemy bumping over the spell DC by 1 and how much is them just crashing out because the end result isn't one of ten different flavours of save or suck.

Like if I point out regrip rules for 2h weapons exist to not let people just make easy Athletics actions that can invalidate 1h builds, or how having 1-action draw and consume lets you buff better than a spellcaster, and the answer is 'so what?', we have entirely different litmuses we've valuing by.

Like I legitimately didn't make the thread as a sealion trap or to mock specific ideas, but it not only goes to show how many people don't understand the consequences of certain designs, but how a big part of the difference in opinion is which of those consequences are considered a negative.

There were some understandable ones like getting rid of the weird reach rules on mounts or the fascinated condition being less easily removed, but then there were others that would *definitely* alter the game's base tuning or drastically alter how the game would be played in some ways.

As much as Defenders was very disappointing, one of my favourite things was how they colour-coded each character's scenes.

The moment when Matt walks into the room with Jessica and the red light shines through the door, that was PEAK cinematography.

I should just go on a P5 soundtrack binge, really. More regularly, too.

Tenfold when it comes to the DnD-onliers who swear you can play whatever style of game you want in DnD while you basically just handwave or ignore most of the rules and treat the limitations it imposes as bad design...but when you suggest a different system they go 'stop telling us how to play.'

It definitely seems to me like a lot of the RPG scene treats rules as an impediment to fun and something that must be broken to achieve it, when the truth is they just want more narrative-first systems over gamist or simulationist ones.

Which is fine, but the lack of awareness is troubling.

I am becoming increasingly convinced it is actually Democratic cowardice that's killing America, not Trumpist bullying.

...you're kind of stuck in this weird middle ground where you have to find the sweet spot without going to either extreme of poisons being completely useless and not worth it, or gimping your damage output unnecessarily unless you *do* use poisons since there's no disincentive not to.

...like in the way you can't stack same type bonuses, or how spellhearts share the attachment slot with talismans. They just stack on top of your damage.

Without fundamentally revamping poison mechanics entirely - which is explicitly outside the scope of what I'm doing here...

That said, I think this comes back to a greater holistic issue, which is that poisons are in this weird space where they stack with everything else strike-related in the game. They don't have a progression or damage boost track they share with another bonus or mechanic...