Anything to do with sex/gender differences in stat/ability values.

Quote from: RPGPundit on January 14, 2013, 02:34:25 AM
I would nominate how the "sneak" skill (in various systems and editions) is regularly interpreted by players as a kind of invisibility power.

RPGPundit

Agreed. Off-line, anyway, I have seen more arguments started over this than anything. As a Dungeon Master, I have always ruled that Thin Air nor Broad Daylight is going to afford you anything to hide behind from anyone but I regularly receive player arguments about Stealth/Hide/Sneak rules...

Male/female modifiers for ability scores are a perennial dumpster fire.  Not really about interpretation though.

I also remember some discussions about the "Seduction" skill of some games, and what exactly it does. As in, was Hitler seductive? As opposed to, say, the seductiveness of Salma Hayek in From Dusk Till Dawn. But they're clearly not doing the same thing

I bet it also got into "raep" territory but I didn't take part in it for long enough.

The huge debate about invisibility on doors likely made the 5e condition that the spell only is cast on a creature via touch. I think 2e and 3e did it like 100 lbs. per caster level of any object.

Quote from: zend0g on April 15, 2022, 12:16:55 PM
Heh. Kind of funny but I actually agree with the troller. An invisibility spell being an illusion should work more like a blind spot rather than turning yourself transparent. So casting invisibility on a door would just make it appear to be a regular part of the wall rather than seeing through it into the corridor beyond. Now, if the spell was alteration magic...

Of course not. The spell is Invisibility, not Invisibility plus Minor Illusion. You're adding capabilities to the spell that don't exist in the rules.

Quote from: Domina on August 11, 2023, 11:56:45 PM

Quote from: zend0g on April 15, 2022, 12:16:55 PM
Heh. Kind of funny but I actually agree with the troller. An invisibility spell being an illusion should work more like a blind spot rather than turning yourself transparent. So casting invisibility on a door would just make it appear to be a regular part of the wall rather than seeing through it into the corridor beyond. Now, if the spell was alteration magic...

Of course not. The spell is Invisibility, not Invisibility plus Minor Illusion. You're adding capabilities to the spell that don't exist in the rules.

+1

Quote from: talysman on January 10, 2013, 02:25:17 PM

Several arguments around abstraction levels are perennial favorites: Are hit points a measure of damage?

That's weird as the rules state exactly what it is.  Glad I was too busy back then for that.

This is a pretty wild thread, because most of it happened like ten years ago and then we have these pickups, like the April comment with an August +1.

Reading through this, only a few of these are actual rules debates, some of them are just "this is what I want it to be", whether the rules support it or not.  For instance, are hit points abstract?  Very obviously so, according to a variety of period documents.  The contrary points show that there are several spots in the rules where hit points are treated as meat points.  To this day, many games will assure you that a successful hit roll is abstract and may not represent an actual physical blow being struck, but then will have rules for on-hit injection poisons, a rule written with the idea of each physical roll being at least one physical blow if successful, or list hit point values for things like falling or the explosion of a gunpowder barrel or consuming a set amount of cyanide or whatever, usually in values that a high level fighter can shrug off.  So while the intention is clear, and what it is underneath are made clear by rules (or in the case of hit points, rules and an in-PHB High Gygaxian rant about them being abstract), it's equally clear that this intention wasn't kept in place in all places in the rules.  So someone wanting to argue that they are meat-points, while wrong, has been provided with plenty of ground to stand on.  Usually this is part of a two-part argument, and isn't actually about what the rules say.  Usually it's like "Because of argument X, hit points are meat points; therefore fighters should be able to do magical stuff except it's because they're just so fightery, because it's a made up game world", or "Because of argument X, hit points are meat points; therefore I'm going to houserule a variant where hit points don't progress."

So those arguments aren't really about what the rules say. 

Arguments about how stealth works in various games, however, are often honest rules questions.  Stealth rules are really bad in most games.  Usually there will be at least one point stating that you can use some stealth power to sneak up and attack someone, and then there will be some other spot stating that if you try to sneak up to someone you are always detected, or something like that- there's almost always some internal conflict, and some times the game won't even offer a real answer.  Of the ones that do, it's usually "ignore this statement, it's superceded by this other one through a various handwave or hiercarchy".

Finally, there are times where the rules answer is clear, but everyone has to address it because it makes the game awful.  In AD&D 2e, someone wrote in to dragon magazine and was basically asking about why polymorph was so good, with examples that were by-the-book correct and totally bullshit for a mid level spell.  The editorial response was to cope and seethe, and try to smooth it over.  Later versions would change polymorph each and every time, trying to make it possible to be useful and powerful without becoming a hydra with twelve attacks or whatever. 
Similarly, the "invisible door" has a straightforward rules interpretation, but it sucks and leaves open other questions as soon as the DM decides on the first one, ones less covered by the rules.  The door becoming invisible would in fact be transparent, creating the image behind it just as it would allow you to see through an invisible giant to see your friend Sally, otherwise totally obscured.  No "blind spot" or whatever, easy.  But would it allow a laser beam through it, or be burned by the laser beam, or both?  If it would stop and burn the door, would a torch on one side illuminate the otherwise dark room on the other side?  The way this is actually solved is by finding a way to make it so that doors and walls and constructions composed of needle-thin steel spikes cannot be made invisible, something in which the rules are generally helpful (the low and medium level invisibility spells in all versions only affect creatures, most versions have rules for if you drop something it becomes visible again, and generally it's very rare to find a creature that would qualify or a spell that would accomplish it, and if your players persist you have other ways to say no).  You can see why someone would prefer a houserule about a "blind spot"- it avoids questions about optics, heat, and other science crap.  You can also see why a DM would simply state that an object can't be invisible, and then come up with reason why object-like creatures cannot be either (if a door can't be invisible, well, I pay a mimic to be a door and then invis the mimic, or this door is a wood golem now, or I animated this mirror and now it's an invisible mirror creature let me get out my optics set and my laser rifle and then...).

Quote from: Venka on August 12, 2023, 11:12:57 AM
Reading through this, only a few of these are actual rules debates, some of them are just "this is what I want it to be", whether the rules support it or not.

Thank God for rule Zero. The laser question is easy.  If the laser is in the visible part of the spectrum (for any race's vision) it goes through (or around as light is bent).  In over 40 years of DMing there was never any REALLY difficult rule questions I ran into.

Quote from: Scooter on August 12, 2023, 11:20:47 AM
Thank God for rule Zero. The laser question is easy.  If the laser is in the visible part of the spectrum (for any race's vision) it goes through (or around as light is bent).

No it's not easy! 

Ok, obviously the light can't be bent because the door is flush against the wall.  It has to pass through without being absorbed, right, it's transparent?  By making it a question of optics though, now a creature who is invisible can't see, because the light that would normally hit his retina passes through his whole body, eyes included.  Once down the strictly scientific optics interpretation path you go, forever will it consume your destiny!

The rules are easy- you can see through the door.  But the ramifications become undesired.

Quote from: Venka on August 12, 2023, 11:42:26 AM

Quote from: Scooter on August 12, 2023, 11:20:47 AM
Thank God for rule Zero. The laser question is easy.  If the laser is in the visible part of the spectrum (for any race's vision) it goes through (or around as light is bent).

No it's not easy! 

Ok, obviously the light can't be bent because the door is flush against the wall.  I

No, there is HUGE amount of space between the door and the wall in terms of angstroms. Which is all the space needed.  An education is a GMs friend. 

Quote from: Scooter on August 12, 2023, 11:46:03 AM
No, there is HUGE amount of space between the door and the wall in terms of angstroms. Which is all the space needed.  An education is a GMs friend. 

No this is worse!  Now the players can make a flood of light much more easier, because a square meter of luminance is moving around some nearly one dimensional space!  Now the players can invis the door and melt the wall around it ahh you're falling down new pitfalls ahhhhhhhhh!

Edit:  The bigger issue with it causing light to pass through or wraparound is that an invisible creature can no longer see, as no light reaches his eyes.  Now you either need to make the spell create light that he can see, or make him think he sees what is actually there, and both suck for another pile of reasons.  /edit

The optics interpretation is subject to all kinds of crazy stuff.  Of course, you simply rule 0 it- but at that point, why even have an optics interpretation to begin with?

Quote from: Venka on August 12, 2023, 12:46:40 PM

Quote from: Scooter on August 12, 2023, 11:46:03 AM
No, there is HUGE amount of space between the door and the wall in terms of angstroms. Which is all the space needed.  An education is a GMs friend. 

No this is worse!  Now the players can make a flood of light much more easier, because a square meter of luminance is moving around some nearly one dimensional space!  Now the players can invis the door and melt the wall around it ahh you're falling down new pitfalls ahhhhhhhhh!

Edit:  The bigger issue with it causing light to pass through or wraparound is that an invisible creature can no longer see, as no light reaches his eyes.  Now you either need to make the spell create light that he can see, or make him think he sees what is actually there, and both suck for another pile of reasons.  /edit

The optics interpretation is subject to all kinds of crazy stuff.  Of course, you simply rule 0 it- but at that point, why even have an optics interpretation to begin with?

Or... it's fukken MAGIC !!! Don't overthink it and just have fun.

Quote from: Effete on August 12, 2023, 03:19:41 PM

Or... it's fukken MAGIC !!! Don't overthink it and just have fun.

Who said it WASN'T magic?  What are you going on about?