[OOC] Heart of Darkness (Part II)

[secretID]

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Did I mess up using imperial units?

Nope. A brisk walk is about 4 feet per second IRL, so the 700 feet diameter would take about 3 minutes to cross one way. That's a very big cave area, but small for, say, a town. Looks like we're on the same page.

[Mindsiege]

Incidentally, with familiars I think the intent of choosing the origin of the spirit is part of giving the summoner their flavour, more specifically which supernatural force of the universe they are drawing from. For pact of the chain warlocks I'd suggest settling on a flavour that makes sense in regards to the actual thing summoned or their patron, and I'm imagining that WotC expected GMs to be the ones to keep the flavour straight. To be honest, in a fixed setting with a fully defined patron it's probably intended for the GM to not make all the chainlock familiars available equally. Or at least I'm imagining that an imp is supposed to be summoned as a fiend, and not as a fae. That's probably something you'd find me settling by keeping the lore straight in a fleshed-out setting, rather than adding to the Find Familiar rules.

Mind you, Jimmy's concept is fun. And since it seems you're mostly making Tink into an imp for the sake of mechanical benefits, to solve his dilemma I'd probably have reskinned the imp into something fey-like and changed its language to sylvan too. That's probably even something I'd have allowed for this adventure had we talked about it earlier than now.

Btw, I've recently had a session of DnD where we introduced an infernal warmachine to the story, which came with a rather precise stat sheet that included its condition immunities. Specifically, it didn't have immunity to being prone and also extra rules about not being allowed to go un-prone without outside help. That made me mournfully think about ogre howdahs or iron golems, and how all of them have no prone immunity, and PCs RAW have a rather ridiculous shove action. Now I suppose a vehicle isn't a creature so the RAW is sound at least there, but it reminded me how I'm still grimacing about the idea of easily tripping up superheavy-weights without respecting any strength requirements just because d20s are pretty swingy when they roll in a contested skill check. I know this is a pretty old thing to bring up, but seemingly it just won't leave my mind. I am still pondering going around the issue by simply adding extra monster abilities to the statblock which then would impose some STR requirements, but I'm wondering whether since the mountain pass encounter you've landed differently on the topic or have some new insights.

[secretID]

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

To be honest, in a fixed setting with a fully defined patron it's probably intended for the GM to not make all the chainlock familiars available equally. Or at least I'm imagining that an imp is supposed to be summoned as a fiend, and not as a fae. That's probably something you'd find me settling by keeping the lore straight in a fleshed-out setting, rather than adding to the Find Familiar rules.

I think your modification is a good route, and is only slightly nerfing something that is very OP, but I can't agree that it was intended. If that was the intent, they could have easily written that.

There's a few things I think they should have done differently with FF:
- Balance the different forms better. I understand that it's annoying because the animal stat blocks already exist, but the imbalance is terrible.
- Possibly allow only one form for each familiar. If not, maintain their mental stats (and languages, for Chainlock) across all forms.
- For Pact of the Chain, definitely allow only one form, and make the familiar a true version of the form, but one that can be resurrected.
- For regular familiars, just make it essentially an animal possessed by a spirit, instead of this spirit in an animal form.

Really, I think they were just lazy when the wrote the Chainlock ability, which supports your opinion about the actual intent.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

I'd probably have reskinned the imp into something fey-like and changed its language to sylvan too.

Yeah, that's a good fix. It still leaves the funny ability to transform him with 10gp and 70 minutes. Personally, in a long campaign I might disallow Chainlocks entirely.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

I'm wondering whether since the mountain pass encounter you've landed differently on the topic or have some new insights.

Not much. Recently as a DM I did think about it, and applied the lesson I had taken from it. I dislike some things about the visibility rules. In a fight, I basically ruled, “That’s just too dumb; it will work like this in this situation.” The players didn’t complain, but shortly after I reversed that and apologized, because I think it’s unfair to change the rules in the middle of a fight, even if it probably wouldn’t change decisions.

I don’t remember what I said before, but I think were multiple problems with your approach with the ogre:

1) Changing rules or stat blocks in the middle of a fight. I don’t actually remember which way you went at the time, but I think suddenly telling a player that you’re house ruling against their tactic is very unfair. I realize that you can say, “No I didn't change the rule. This isn’t actually an ogre, but just something exactly like an ogre except for this difference.” That's legalistic baloney that is almost giving your players the finger. I.e., I highly doubt that at the beginning of the encounter you imagined the monster as an ogre-thing with a slightly greater challenge level due to this immunity. If you forbade a shove there (I don't remember), you changed the game rules in the middle of a fight.

BTW, I do clearly remember that you did that with the ogre’s language, which ended up being enormously important. I don't really like that on-the-fly change, but it's not as bad as the shove immunity because the language change was clearly particular to the situation, not an unannounced house rule applicable to all shoves. Moreover, I don’t remember whether Jimmy had good reason to know ogres’ languages, but Kosev would know how a shove almost always works. (If Jimmy did have good reason to know ogres’ languages, then I think you should have just added the derro language instead of replacing common.)

I think reskinning monsters, possibly with small modifications, is great to get around conscious and unconscious metagaming. But if you modify every large monster to give them shove immunity, you’re obviously just making the house rule. If you do that, I think you should be honest about it and you should only do it at the beginning of the game/adventure.

2) This seems like a strange hill to die on, that is, to house rule about. I’m sure there are hundreds of things in D&D less realistic than these shoves. A 40-pound gnome can be as strong as a 310-pound goliath, can wield a longsword equally well. That 20 STR gnome can effectively fight with a giant backpack full of gear, but it can’t use a pike because the pike is “heavy.” Meanwhile, that gnome is almost as strong as a hill giant, with a tiny fraction of the giant’s mass (less than 1/27, I would say), but it can’t climb or jump any better, and it’s actually much slower on foot. In that context, who cares about this bit of unrealism? - why start with changing those rules?

Every system balances realism against multiple other factors. Every rule designed to support realism limits what I’ll call I understand that a system with too little realism isn’t fun for some of us, but then I think it’s time to find a new system, like maybe the Hero system.“fun” to some degree. House rules are much more dangerous because they’re harder to remember, harder to plan around, and more likely to imbalance things. E.g, there are fighter builds that rely heavily on shoves.

I seem to value realism more than most, but I still think it’s the least important factor. E.g., my complaint about the move away from race ability differences isn’t about realism but about balance and diversity. Chess has abysmal realism, but most of us would prefer it to a game realistically representing life as the typical citizen of an impoverished, undemocratic country.

I think a house rule that changes a rule, as opposed to clarifying one, is only good when it makes things more sensible and more fun, it doesn't significantly unbalance anything, and the additional realism and fun justifies the additional rules complication. E.g., I’ve been trying out a house rule that gives a party prepared for an encounter initiative ADV over an unprepared party. It makes more sense, it's simple, and it rewards thoughtful play. It does slightly discount the very few PCs with initiative ADV.

[secretID]

Sorry; I just made a few minor edits to the above.

[Mindsiege]

Honestly, I always felt like WotC is pretty big on rule 0, so allowing the FF spell the most freedom it could have and then leaving it to the GMs to restrict it into making sense seems on brand.

Incidentally, the chainlock familiars make for such unique flavours that I think the idea of having them interchangeable needs a bit of attention from the GM unless it's simply handwaved. But there are a few things that a GM has to change to make sense sometimes, so I probably won't ever ban chainlocks. LeDragon made a good point about familiars in PBP, but at a live table, I feel there are plenty of moments where simply being part of the audience won't detract from the game experience. Or at least that's how it is for my tables.

About the mountain pass encounter, I'm glad that I brought it up again. I see that there is still a distinct difference in POV, so let's see if there's something we can agree on. Let me know if the discussion is boring, I don't need to harp on about it.

Originally Posted by secretID

Changing rules or stat blocks in the middle of a fight. I don’t actually remember which way you went at the time, but I think suddenly telling a player that you’re house ruling against their tactic is very unfair. I realize that you can say, “No I didn't change the rule. This isn’t actually an ogre, but just something exactly like an ogre except for this difference.” That's legalistic baloney that is almost giving your players the finger. I.e., I highly doubt that at the beginning of the encounter you imagined the monster as an ogre-thing with a slightly greater challenge level due to this immunity. If you forbade a shove there (I don't remember), you changed the game rules in the middle of a fight.

To recollect how I handled it last time, because I sensed strong resistance at the table during the encounter, this wasn't the hill for me to make my players unhappy over so I think that I just allowed the shove against my better judgement. Looking at the thread purplerook never took the shove in the end though, so maybe I misremember.

Generally, I will fully agree with you that neither rules nor statblocks should change in the middle of the encounter unless something is so massively broken that it couldn't be resolved otherwise. That's not what this situation was though. It wasn't massively broken, but neither did I ever consider changing anything on the fly.

Fifth edition is pretty clear that specific rules beat general rules. With Carrying Capacity and Shove Actions we have two general rules that ignore each other on paper, with neither of them being specific over the other. I think we can at least agree that shoving a Tarrasque prone as a human is bogus, even if it has no immunity to the condition. So at some point, I figure Carrying Capacity should not be overridden by the rules for Shove. That's not a rules change in the middle of the fight, that's just applying all the rules and not just those which are convenient for the player.

So, this was never about making any house rules to suit my vision better, nor was it about customized monsters. But more about that in the next quote.

Originally Posted by secretID

BTW, I do clearly remember that you did that with the ogre’s language, which ended up being enormously important. I don't really like that on-the-fly change, but it's not as bad as the shove immunity because the language change was clearly particular to the situation, not an unannounced house rule applicable to all shoves. Moreover, I don’t remember whether Jimmy had good reason to know ogres’ languages, but Kosev would know how a shove almost always works. (If Jimmy did have good reason to know ogres’ languages, then I think you should have just added the derro language instead of replacing common.)

I think reskinning monsters, possibly with small modifications, is great to get around conscious and unconscious metagaming. But if you modify every large monster to give them shove immunity, you’re obviously just making the house rule. If you do that, I think you should be honest about it and you should only do it at the beginning of the game/adventure.

So, I already cleared up that I don't think the topic about shoves was ever about making a house rule, because strength restrictions for affecting world elements already exist under the Carrying Capacity rules, but let's talk about the ogre.

I suppose this one is what you'll just have to trust me about, but I didn't change his known languages on the fly. I set up the encounter with just enough backstory to support it as something that would reasonably be able to happen to our dear adventurers, and part of that was how all the enemies spoke undercommon instead of common. If Jimmy had made his suggestion in giant, that would have succeeded in all likelihood. I think that on the backend I never settled if the ogre was part of any ogre community before he was enslaved by the derros, so that sounds like something I would have been lenient on. Actually, for the longest time I just assumed Jimmy's suggestion would save the day and only while reading through the Suggestion rules to ensure proper adjudication did I remember that the ogre doesn't speak any common.

So, back to the shove problem, I was contemplating adding something like a "Superheavy-weight" feature to the statblock in order to specifically override the shove and avoid a discussion with players who feel like the Carrying Capacity rules shouldn't make their way into combat. It's something I felt more appropriate for an iron golem than an ogre howdah, but I suppose you are right that this is really just a legal bandaid and not exactly my preference either. Using the Carrying Capacity rules would be much cleaner, but as you pointed out they don't have a proper relationship with the Shove rules and so there will be players that get upset over having had the wrong expectations about how things work.

Just for the example with Kosev though, I naturally would have allowed him to do something else than a shove if I had decided to enforce the strength requirements. He would know what he can shove and what not. Specifically, I think any knight should know that they can't easily shove something that's basically a siege engine on two legs. But again, the whole playgroup was already upset so I remember not wanting to push it then.

Originally Posted by secretID

This seems like a strange hill to die on, that is, to house rule about. I’m sure there are hundreds of things in D&D less realistic than these shoves. A 40-pound gnome can be as strong as a 310-pound goliath, can wield a longsword equally well. That 20 STR gnome can effectively fight with a giant backpack full of gear, but it can’t use a pike because the pike is “heavy.” Meanwhile, that gnome is almost as strong as a hill giant, with a tiny fraction of the giant’s mass (less than 1/27, I would say), but it can’t climb or jump any better, and it’s actually much slower on foot. In that context, who cares about this bit of unrealism? - why start with changing those rules?

Every system balances realism against multiple other factors. Every rule designed to support realism limits what I’ll call I understand that a system with too little realism isn’t fun for some of us, but then I think it’s time to find a new system, like maybe the Hero system.“fun” to some degree. House rules are much more dangerous because they’re harder to remember, harder to plan around, and more likely to imbalance things. E.g, there are fighter builds that rely heavily on shoves.

I seem to value realism more than most, but I still think it’s the least important factor. E.g., my complaint about the move away from race ability differences isn’t about realism but about balance and diversity. Chess has abysmal realism, but most of us would prefer it to a game realistically representing life as the typical citizen of an impoverished, undemocratic country.

I think a house rule that changes a rule, as opposed to clarifying one, is only good when it makes things more sensible and more fun, it doesn't significantly unbalance anything, and the additional realism and fun justifies the additional rules complication. E.g., I’ve been trying out a house rule that gives a party prepared for an encounter initiative ADV over an unprepared party. It makes more sense, it's simple, and it rewards thoughtful play. It does slightly discount the very few PCs with initiative ADV.

Again, in my mind I wasn't making any house rules but just finding a way to properly enforce the rules that already exist. I think allowing the characters to shove things that they wouldn't even be able to push or lift is breaking the balance of the game more than enforcing limits about it.

As an aside, we already had that talk about realism and abstraction. Funnily enough, although I heavily endorse putting verisimilitude into my game world, the exact details of how weights and distances work down to a T are something I feel comfortable glancing past as abstractions that aren't hard lines unless And even then the abstraction of the game world into turn-based combat should be flavoured appropriately. Once my players start narrating to me that their character looks at the floor, imagines a grid and then moves exactly 30ft in 6 seconds in order to approach their enemy, that's when they'll get odd looks from me. In my theatre of the mind, all those details happen differently in the narrative and the exact numbers only exist on paper to adjudicate how the characters' intent resolves in the story.push comes to shove. Goliaths have their carrying capacity doubled by a feature, and that's usually good enough for me to establish that there is a base difference in capability. About "heavy" weapons, I figured the issue isn't the weight but the size. So a crammed backpack of gnome-sized gear Ignoring that I think you should punish characters for fighting with a lot of weight on their back to begin with. I'm still figuring out how exactly I want to adjudicate this because micromanaging the weight of gear and using the encumbrance rules is a lot of tedious bookkeeping. At my current tables I've started telling my folks to please use a free item interaction to drop their stuff at the start of battle so that we don't have to worry about it. Everybody has been happy with that so far.works for me while I'm pretty happy that they won't get to use a 10' reach weapon properly. I will say that 5e does a pretty bad job of handling giant creatures and scaling their abilities appropriately. Fortunately, in most terrains, your giant creatures won't have to use the jumping rules with combat precision. And outside of combat I'll probably let them get away with whatever I imagine a giant should be able to accomplish.

Regarding fun, I enjoy it most when my RPG feels like the story of a book or movie. So when I'm considering how to apply the mechanics of the game aspect of DnD, I like when it doesn't get too gamey and the result of actions taken doesn't come up with something that I don't know how to explain plausibly in the game world. Like shoving a Tarrasque prone. And in this specific instance, I think the cut-off point should be far earlier than with Tarrasque-level creatures. In my experience 5e is a pretty elegant system though, there aren't really too many big holes that create the kind of surrealism that isn't fun for me. I know your point about gnomes, but if my player wants to tell a story about the single gnome that can go toe to toe with goliaths in arm wrestling, somehow that doesn't rub me the wrong way. At least all my other gnomes in the game world won't be able to do that, and the other abstraction inconsistencies that you've mentioned work the same for me. So far I haven't had to narrate scenes that weren't able to make sense in some way or another, and having a freakishly strong gnome as a plot point seems like a pretty fun thing to play around with.

[secretID]

Ogre languages. Like I said, for multiple reasons I had no problem with this. I would if Jimmy had had very good reason to know that ogres speak common, say, a 25 knowledge skill roll.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

With Carrying Capacity and Shove Actions we have two general rules that ignore each other on paper, with neither of them being specific over the other....So at some point, I figure Carrying Capacity should not be overridden by the rules for Shove. That's not a rules change in the middle of the fight, that's just applying all the rules and not just those which are convenient for the player.

CC wouldn’t be “overridden;” there’s no conflict. If you’re thinking of the CC language about "pushing a weight," for multiple reasons I find it very clear that they intended that only to refer to pushing an object along the ground. Shove only has a size restriction.

WOTC didn't forget or ignore physics related to shoving; they just used a very sensible, simple rule. Rather than get into mass, center of gravity, etc., they just limited it by creature size.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

[Kosev] would know what he can shove and what not. Specifically, I think any knight should know that they can't easily shove something that's basically a siege engine on two legs.

Kosev lives in the 5e world, not ours. He knows that he can successfully shove individuals no more than one “size” larger than him. He knows that just like he knows that he can run the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle exactly as quickly as he can run one side.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Goliaths have their carrying capacity doubled by a feature, and that's usually good enough for me to establish that there is a base difference in capability.

But then why can a gnome swing a sword with the same power?

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

if my player wants to tell a story about the single gnome that can go toe to toe with goliaths in arm wrestling, somehow that doesn't rub me the wrong way. At least all my other gnomes in the game world won't be able to do that

My point is that neither the gnome nor the goliath needs to be special for them to have identical STR. There’s nothing strange about a 16 STR gnome or 16 STR goliath, but it would be very strange for them to be the same size. To make things simpler, we all know that IRL no human female can remotely approach the maximum strength of males.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

I think you should punish characters for fighting with a lot of weight on their back to begin with.

…if you want to make up rules. And “should?” I would say “can, if you think it improves the experience” – and only by changing the rules.

[Mindsiege]

 

Originally Posted by secretID

Ogre languages. Like I said, for multiple reasons I had no problem with this. I would if Jimmy had had very good reason to know that ogres speak common, say, a 25 knowledge skill roll.

Sounds appropriate. Though I'd question any GM that gives a PC knowledge that every ogre in their world speaks common. For one that would be a pretty limited setting, but more importantly, there is By default at least. Of course there could be some lore that makes that information credible.no good reason that a character should ever reach such certainty without knowing every ogre in existence and what languages they talk. There can always be an exception, and as a GM I certainly don't treat the MM template statblocks as world truths. If I use them they are common knowledge at best, and I don't mind telling a PC that they can't be certain about what language a creature speaks, no matter how well they roll. More likely I would reward a terrific dice result by pointing out to them that these derros are underground people and that there is a distinct possibility that the ogre might Or in our situation I would remind you of this knowledge if I didn't make it explicitly known before. Then I'd allow you to either gamble or change your action.
But I inferred that we're on the same page about this already, I'm just saying it for the sake of completeness. not speak common. And if Jimmy uses a knowledge result that he got on a different ogre than the one he is facing to inform himself, that's just how the narrative goes and an entirely reasonable mistake to make. I think moments like that make for a good, cohesive story.

 

Originally Posted by secretID

CC wouldn’t be “overridden;” there’s no conflict. If you’re thinking of the CC language about "pushing a weight," for multiple reasons I find it very clear that they intended that only to refer to pushing an object along the ground. Shove only has a size restriction.

WOTC didn't forget or ignore physics related to shoving; they just used a very sensible, simple rule. Rather than get into mass, center of gravity, etc., they just limited it by creature size.

I think this is where we'll have to disagree. I forgot about the size restriction, which is a good measuring stick, to be honest, but if I think back on the King of the Mountain and how freakishly massive it was despite only being a large creature, I am very pressed to comprehend or believe that a medium creature without sufficient STR should be able to topple them. I don't see why we should ignore a creature's mass when there are rules that address what mass a PC can affect only to allow them feats that don't make sense for them to accomplish.

Originally Posted by secretID

Kosev lives in the 5e world, not ours. He knows that he can successfully shove individuals no more than one “size” larger than him. He knows that just like he knows that he can run the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle exactly as quickly as he can run one side.

This made me smile. However, this should only be how it works if we indeed forget about CC like you suggest we should. CC is after all a part of the 5e world in which Kosev lives.

I still don't understand why you think CC should be ignored in combat. Your center of gravity argument might work for the ogre howdah (maybe), but it doesn't really work on the earth elemental. Maybe this is a matter of taste because you would like PCs to not think about CC and more reliably be able to Shove opponents?

 

Originally Posted by secretID

But then why can a gnome swing a sword with the same power?

Who says they can? Damage rolls and HP aren't fictionally real. Any wound or stress inflicted on a creature is only ever to be viewed relative to their tenacity of staying functional in combat. Damage dice let us determine the impact category for a harmful force in the game world, but essentially the damage rolled is never a real translation of how effective or strong the harmful force was executed, only how much harm was actually inflicted. Which is also a completely arbitrary metric considering that HP is not an actual health monitor. Wounded creatures can be at full HP and unwounded creatures may have suffered a loss of HP already.

My point, I don't see a problem telling my gnome player that their gnome isn't able to hit as forcefully as a goliath while also allowing them to make the same damage rolls as a goliath. Unless of course I want to tell my gnome player that their gnome indeed does hit as strong as a goliath. A big part of being able to carry more weight is how sturdy and big goliaths are compared to a gnome, it doesn't necessarily have to describe them to be equally better at swinging their sword. But either way, I think all of this is really just flavour and only depends on how you want to tell the story.

Originally Posted by secretID

My point is that neither the gnome nor the goliath needs to be special for them to have identical STR. There’s nothing strange about a 16 STR gnome or 16 STR goliath, but it would be very strange for them to be the same size. To make things simpler, we all know that IRL no human female can remotely approach the maximum strength of males.

I think about this the same way as the previous topic. I don't take a 16 strength as an absolute truth about the character, it's more like an abstract value to gauge a certain quality of theirs. Are all creatures that have 16 STR equally strong in the narrative? That doesn't sound reasonable to me and I don't think that's what the stat tells me. Additionally, I'm pretty comfortable treating my PCs as thoroughly unordinary. I think world truths like "gnomes are weaker than goliaths" and "women are weaker than men" aren't necessarily violated by treating characters as equals on the abstraction layer of the game. One is the narrative, one is the abstraction to use easy numbers to resolve what happens during contests. But even then, I think narratively we should treat a gnome with 16 STR as very special. Just because character creation doesn't make it difficult to create a 16 STR gnome we don't have to treat it as commonplace, in my opinion.

The final question is probably should there exist a gnome that can beat goliaths in arm wrestling? My answer to that is that by allowing the character to be created we're obviously telling a story about exactly that one gnome who exists. Maybe I'll ask my player if that's the story they want to play, but if they look excited then I don't mind supporting it. Most adventurers are freaks anyways, why else would they choose that life?

 

Originally Posted by secretID

…if you want to make up rules. And “should?” I would say “can, if you think it improves the experience” – and only by changing the rules.

Whether it improves the experience is obviously a discussion you'll need to have with your players, which at my table I had. However there are no rules that have to be made up at all. Aside from encumbrance rules which already exist (optionally), it's very clear in the rules that the GM is supposed to freely determine giving advantage and disadvantage for everything that is advantageous or disadvantageous for a character that's facing a challenge (DC or AC interactions). And to me, it's not any stretch at all to tell my players that their bulky, heavy backpack is creating a lot of disadvantages for them across various interactions during battle. I haven't bothered to figure those out in detail yet because it's really easy to get rid of baggage at the start of combat, but there are no made-up rules required for me to adjudicate a scene like this reasonably. (It's all hypothetical though because I haven't gotten in the situation to enforce anything like this yet.)

As an aside, you'll be happy that there are no parkour challenges involved in HoD. Because I would definitely enforce Jimmy getting inconvenienced by his 10' pole if it would reasonably start getting in his way. But again, dropping equipment in DnD is fairly easy, so enforcing all of this isn't too troublesome for players in the moment. It only becomes troublesome if they fail to retrieve their stuff at the end of an encounter, but I honestly don't think that's my responsibility to ensure. That's just how the story goes and how the dice roll sometimes.

[secretID]

Hm. I'm not sure what I expected, but not this. I guess Jimmy will Boanagh for an opinion.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

Hm. I'm not sure what I expected, but not this. I guess Jimmy will Boanagh for an opinion.

Good idea. Obviously the party still has more opinions to share than I offered initially. Mostly, the last update only covered what they can say about the scroll directly.

[Mindsiege]

By the way, thinking a little more about our other discussion helped me get more inspiration about the CC vs. Shove topic. I figure your concern about a creature's point of gravity and my concern about having too little strength to topple superheavyweights is pretty easy to marry without overriding the Shove rules at all. The Shove rules decide what size of creatures are able to be shoved and we can leave it at that. During the actual combat, I'll just take a short gander at the narrative then and decide whether an actual Shove attempt will be reasonable based on the contestants involved. Based on that and maybe slightly drawing from the CC rules as a guideline I can easily argue to give the medium knight disadvantage and the large earth elemental advantage in the contest. Or maybe in the ogre example, I could only apply disadvantage without giving the ogre advantage. Then all of the rules and the reality of the situation will both be satisfied. If a player then tells me they shouldn't be disadvantaged while attempting unrealistic feats, I'll be able to just politely raise my eyebrow and tell them to please be reasonable.

I feel like this is especially elegant because a disadvantage can be canceled via a Help action, which in case of the ogre makes a lot of sense. And in the case of the elemental, their advantage can't be taken away from them without some kind of debilitating effect being created first. And I will say under just the right circumstances it might be possible to topple the earth elemental, while incredibly unlikely. If the dice decide to make it happen anyways, at least it will be a great upset rather than something that's far too easily achieved by rolling d20s without any handicaps. I'd be entirely comfortable leaning into that narrative then.

[secretID]

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

your concern about a creature's point of gravity

That's a tiny side point for me. My concern is that you're changing the rules. Doing so in the middle of the game is unfair. Announced house rules are OK, but I think unwarranted here and therefore a minor negative.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

The Shove rules decide what size of creatures are able to be shoved and we can leave it at that....I can easily argue to give the medium knight disadvantage and the large earth elemental advantage in the contest. Or maybe in the ogre example, I could only apply disadvantage without giving the ogre advantage. Then all of the rules and the reality of the situation will both be satisfied.

You say you'll "leave it at that" - the Shove rules - but then say you'll compromise the clear rules with ad hoc ADV/disad. As I said about making all new monster blocks, that's just being dishonest about your true actions. I'd wonder if next you'd start giving disad to every STR test from gnomes or female humans because it's unrealistic for them to be strong.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

If a player then tells me they shouldn't be disadvantaged while attempting unrealistic feats, I'll be able to just politely raise my eyebrow and tell them to please be reasonable.

Yeah...this really hammers home the F you to the players - "I'm technically allowed to give disad any time, so you can't complain - ha, ha!" No kidding, that's where I quit on the spot. Make an unnecessary house rule at the beginning of the game? OK; I probably don't care. Change the rules to my detriment in the middle of a game? I consider quitting. Call me unreasonable for complaining about that? I'm out.

I wasn't sure I was going to bother posting my latest dump on these points, but since you bring it up...I haven't edited to account for the above, so there may be some overlap, but here you go:

 

Ogre languages. It's pretty clear that we value realism and fun differently. My analysis is this: if the player chooses proficiency in a knowledge skill, spends their resources in that way, then rolls a 20, but gets no answer or the wrong answer anyway, that’s no fun. Sure, sometimes realism should trump, but in this hypothetical scenario there is no compelling reason, when the ogre could just as realistically know both languages.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

I don't see why we should ignore a creature's mass when there are rules that address what mass a PC can affect only to allow them feats that don't make sense for them to accomplish.

Because the Shove rules are perfectly explicit. We “should” ignore mass to the degree that we “should” follow the rules. (I think that you no longer contend that you were just resolving a conflict within the rules.) We should ignore mass there for the same reason that we constantly ignore all kinds of things while following the rules. If your question is whether to make a house rule, that’s where we started a few posts back – it’s not fair to do it in the middle of a game, and IMO it should only be done when it makes things more sensible and more fun without disrupting the existing mechanics. IMO this aspect of Shove is not such a situation.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

CC is after all a part of the 5e world in which Kosev lives.

Right – a CC that has no bearing whatsoever on his ability to shove targets prone. That’s the CC that is part of his world, that he has expectations about. Those are the physics of his world.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

I still don't understand why you think CC should be ignored in combat.

Because the rules clearly forbid that consideration, and those rules shouldn’t be changed by a house rule unless the change would significantly improve the game experience. We originally disagreed about the first part, and now we disagree about the second part, I guess? But I don’t understand how you can still be wondering about the basis for my position; it’s based on the perfectly clear Shove rules – RAW and RAI.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Maybe this is a matter of taste because you would like PCs to not think about CC and more reliably be able to Shove opponents?

My taste? You’re the one who’s putting personal preference above the rules. And you sound like you think I’m on the minority side of this dispute. I would happily bet huge sums that the designers will tell us that CC is not supposed to be a factor in Shove. Do you doubt that if we tweeted them, “Does CC every limit Shove?” they would say “No?” And I doubt you could easily find a single DM who factors CC the way you want. We could poll WM, or RPGX.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

if I think back on the King of the Mountain and how freakishly massive it was despite only being a large creature, I am very pressed to comprehend or believe that a medium creature without sufficient STR should be able to topple them.

Well, it’s what I consider a side point, but we have very little idea how much most monsters weigh. They happen to mention an ogre’s weight, but how could you reliably calculate it for other creatures? An ogre is only 2.5 time as strong as a deep gnome, so per the square-cube law the deep gnome should weigh about 1000/4=250 pounds, but the rules say that a typical deep gnome PC weighs only 100 pounds. Moreover, we often don’t know a monster’s dimensions other than within a very large range, e.g. 11-15 feet on each side, so even if we apply the very questionable assumption of comparable density, we’ll often miscalculate weight by several times. Regardless, weight is only one factor, so a perfect weight calculation could still leave us far from determining whether a shove is realistic. Which large creature is most massive, a riding horse, a constrictor snake, or a gelatinous cube? Which should be easier to shove, a (large) cow or a (medium) gray ooze? I guess you can just house rule “I decide case-by-case” if you think that makes your game better.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

I think narratively we should treat a gnome with 16 STR as very special. Just because character creation doesn't make it difficult to create a 16 STR gnome we don't have to treat it as commonplace, in my opinion.

Not the point. The point is whether the 16 STR gnome must have some magical/divine explanation for their strength. If you say they must, then fine, though I don’t think that’s the spirit of the rules. If you say they need not have that explanation, then we’re acknowledging that 5e physics generally allow for a 40-pound individual to carry 300 pounds (at 20 STR) without being encumbered. BTW, though, a deep gnome in the monster manual has 15 STR, and a deep gnome PC has an average weight of 100 pounds, so RAW they can carry more than twice their weight all day without problem.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Who says [the gnome and goliath can hit equally hard]? Damage rolls and HP aren't fictionally real…

This is a little detail. The point is that two creatures with 16 STR, absent a special ability like goliath CC, have the exact same strength-based abilities, including carrying capacity, regardless of the fact that it’s not remotely realistic for any 40-pound individual to lift the same any non-disabled 300-pounder, and it’s entirely unrealistic for any human female to match the maximum CC for a male.

If you don’t like those examples of realism issues, what about wielding weapons with a low carrying capacity? It’s crazy that a 1 STR character can barely lift a great club, but can wield it in combat, so should we start considering that? Should we apply relative ACs of different materials when a weapon is used against an armored opponent?

You can nitpick at my individual examples of realism issues in 5e, but I would hope that you would generally agree that there are plenty. Personally, I think Shove is far from the biggest, and no inhibition to fun at all.

BTW – and I know I’m going to regret going here – toppling a two-footed creature can of course be much easier than pushing that weight along the ground. A 16 STR character can always push 480 pounds along the ground; I don’t have a realism complaint about them toppling a biped twice that weight with 43% success.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Are all creatures that have 16 STR equally strong in the narrative?

Of course! What else could it mean to have a score on an established scale?

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

That doesn't sound reasonable to me and I don't think that's what the stat tells me.

This may be the clearest portion of the rules. “Strength measures bodily power, athletic training, and the extent to which you can exert raw physical force.” Equal STR means that they can lift, carry, and push the same amount (absent special abilities like goliath CC). It means they have equal chances of success at strength-based tasks. If all that doesn’t mean that they’re “equally strong,” what does it mean? And again: do you really think that the designers would confirm your take on what they were “tell[ing] you?”

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

there are no rules that have to be made up at all [to limit combat with gear on]….it's very clear in the rules that the GM is supposed to freely determine giving advantage and disadvantage for everything that is advantageous or disadvantageous

Sure, and you could have given Kosev disad on the Shove, and you could give disad to every STR check made by a female PC. IMO that’s all just covering up what you’re really doing: making house rules.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

I would definitely enforce Jimmy getting inconvenienced by his 10' pole if it would reasonably start getting in his way.

I’m glad you mentioned that, because I almost raised 10’ poles as a realism issue, but decided that it’s different because to my knowledge there are no rules about bulk as opposed to mass. I wouldn’t complain if a DM told me that my gnome’s 10’ pole was constantly getting in his way, but I’d complain if the DM told me that my can’t manage the weight of all his gear as well as a half-orc can.

I’m very glad that thus far you haven’t run these adventures according to the approach you advocate here. If you ruled in the middle of a game that my 16 STR gnome couldn’t succeed in a STR contest against a 16 STR half-orc, I’d quit on the spot. Good chance I’d do the same if you told me in the middle of combat that I couldn’t shove a creature one size larger, because you don’t like those rules.

If you were to announce a house rule that my 16 STR gnome wasn’t actually as strong as some other player’s 16 STR half-orc, I’d play a different PC or I wouldn’t play. Actually, I recently read a thread in the rpghorrorstories subreddit about a DM house ruling that female PCs are weaker despite STR scores; I don’t think anyone defended the DM.

If you told me that I had to give you a complicated backstory to explain the gnome's STR, I’d probably make up a sarcastically stupid one to thumb my nose at the requirement. If you formally use those house rules and announce them up front, and players play with you anyway – as I assume almost all would – then there’s no real problem, but I would still wonder how this miniscule supposed increase in realism would justify the complication of a house rule, and I’d seriously doubt that anyone was having more fun.

[Mindsiege]

 

Originally Posted by secretID

if the player chooses proficiency in a knowledge skill, spends their resources in that way, then rolls a 20, but gets no answer or the wrong answer anyway, that's no fun.

I didn't suggest giving the player a wrong answer and I didn't suggest giving no answer. Some knowledge is impossible to know, in which cases I wouldn't even allow a roll and just tell that player that their character doesn't know.

The reason that I would have allowed a roll in this instance would be to give the player a chance to learn that the ogre speaks giant, together with a warning that the player has reason to believe that the ogre might speak undercommon instead of common. I think that would have been a valuable result to receive in that particular scenario. If the rolled result wouldn't have been high enough, I wouldn't have lied to the player either, I would have replied that their character can't be certain.

 

Originally Posted by secretID

Not the point. The point is whether the 16 STR gnome must have some magical/divine explanation for their strength. If you say they must, then fine, though I don't think that's the spirit of the rules. If you say they need not have that explanation, then we're acknowledging that 5e physics generally allow for a 40-pound individual to carry 300 pounds (at 20 STR) without being encumbered. BTW, though, a deep gnome in the monster manual has 15 STR, and a deep gnome PC has an average weight of 100 pounds, so RAW they can carry more than twice their weight all day without problem.

I don't mandate in my games that any gnome character needs any explanation for their strength. I suggested that a GM who is bothered by gnomes being strong could always create lore to fit the vision of a player's character into the vision of their setting. I'm not that GM.

To begin with, I'm not bothered by the mechanical design of gnomes. While talking about DnD races, I usually assume that anything that doesn't match the realism of our mundane world can be explained with magic. Before we've used them as an example, I have never concerned myself with the strength of gnomes. It seems going by WotC's vision, deep gnomes are pretty magical. That doesn't hurt my suspension of disbelief. Actually, it fits my impression of gnomes.

 

Originally Posted by secretID

This may be the clearest portion of the rules. "Strength measures bodily power, athletic training, and the extent to which you can exert raw physical force." Equal STR means that they can lift, carry, and push the same amount (absent special abilities like goliath CC). It means they have equal chances of success at strength-based tasks. If all that doesn't mean that they're "equally strong," what does it mean?

Allow me to clarify. In my previous assertion, I'm differentiating between the narrative layer and the abstraction layer. My point was that yes, on the abstraction layer the strength between two creatures with the same score may be equal. But on the narrative layer, there are far more degrees of strength than just the few which are described by the STR score.

Specifically, the abstraction layer puts two characters with the same STR stat at relatively the same strength. That doesn't make me want to call two creatures with the same STR stat equally strong on the narrative layer. On the narrative layer, the two creatures are unlikely to be equally strong. On the narrative layer, the comparative strength between two creatures with the same STR stat is always ambiguous until we look at it in the moment. But this ambiguity doesn't make me want to call them equally strong in the narrative. To me, two characters are only equally strong if we talk about their game mechanics or if we decided through play that canonically two characters have proven themselves to be equals.

The point that I was making with the differentiation between abstraction and narration is that any ill-fitting truth on the abstraction layer doesn't have to be translated as-is into the narrative. Whatever happens on the abstraction layer may remain ambiguous in the narrative until we look at it in the moment. For me, the suspension of disbelief isn't broken by individual characters accomplishing feats in the moment, even if the setting supports some stereotype about gnomes, men and women, or anything similar. Unless it's intentionally demonstrated that the abstraction layer is true inside of the narration, any of these kinds of minor inaccuracies are very easily glossed over by simply not shining a narrative spotlight on them. This is what I think we call handwaving. I'll get back to that later.

As a general point, I don't allow the ambiguity of the dice to be overridden by any lore or world truths. My stories are about individuals, not stereotypes. Even if I might narrate particular stereotypes to exist in a setting, they will never be treated as absolute truths and they will not be supported mechanically.

 

I don't like to make houserules. That is because I don't feel like I particularly have any need to do so. I'll explain to you how I'm staying entirely in the RAW. And I'm not rules-lawyering this to have my way. I'm entirely forthright trying to interpret the rules correctly, as the GM, judge, and arbiter of the rules is commended to do by any guide that I've ever read.

Originally Posted by Dnd 5e PHB p. 173

You usually gain advantage or disadvantage through the use of special abilities, actions, or spells. Inspiration can also give a character advantage. The GM can also decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result.

Giving advantage and disadvantage based on the circumstances is something that the GM is supposed to judge. The rules are very clear here.

Originally Posted by Dnd 5e PHB p. 195

Shoving a Creature
Using the Attack Action, you can make a Special melee Attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack Action, this Attack replaces one of them.
The target must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Instead of making an Attack roll, you make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you.

The rules of shove do not explicitly tell the GM to ignore a creature's weight. They simply do not make mention of them.

Now it's up to the GM to decide whether the weight of a creature is a circumstance that should influence certain rolls while interacting with said creature. You already know what I think is the right judgment. But please allow me to explain myself further.

You've asked me why I think this is the hill to die on compared to other I'll never debate that DnD 5e is not a physics engine. And I don't require it to be that.abstractions of realism. My clear answer is that the other matters which we've talked about don't hurt my suspension of disbelief. A fighter that easily topples a creature which he couldn't even lift without the aid of magic not only breaks my suspension of disbelief, it even impacts the game's balance. I've explained when I'm comfortable to handwave. I am not comfortable handwaving an aspect of the narration that introduces challenges to the game, unless it's something the table agrees should be handwaved because it introduces annoying bookkeeping or other uninteresting challenges. Dealing with the weight of a creature does not fall into that category of challenge in my estimation.

Following everything above, I'm inclined to believe that it is my responsibility as the GM to judge whether the mass of a creature affects how a player character can interact with it. And then I would make different judgments depending on whether the creature is a wolf, a cow, an ogre, an ogre with a heavy howdah on top, or an earth elemental. A medium creature will be allowed to take a Shove Action against any of these creatures, but the difficulty of the contested checks may differ based on the GM's judgment whether the creature's mass is an influential circumstance while trying to shove a creature. That appears to me as a fully uncompromised interpretation of the rules at hand.

A few outstanding questions that I'm trying to answer for myself:

Does refusing to handwave the mass of a creature create an interesting challenge in the game? - Yes. Many things that aren't handwaved do. For example a slippery slope during heavy rain.
Is respecting the mass of a creature as an influence in the game world unfair? - I honestly didn't think so.
Do I think that respecting the mass of a creature disrupts player fun? - Not intrinsically, no. I'm disappointed that it seems to have done so here, but aside from our very specific game situation, I don't see why it would be generally true.
Do I think it is reasonable to contest the GM's judgment to argue for mechanical benefits? - In the past I've been explained that it isn't. I understand that a GM running rampant with their power to screw with the players isn't fun, but in my POV that isn't what I'm doing at all.

After explaining myself, do you still think that I'm making up any rules here? If my earnest interpretation of the rules earns me titles such as "dishonest", "unfair", or "devaluing player fun", then I am severely taken aback, in all honesty.

 

I will be very blunt. If I don't have your trust to be a fair GM, then I don't think that I can have fun running for you as a GM.
I've enjoyed HoD a lot lately. I don't need you to agree that my ruling is justified, but having my fairness unquestioned at least is non-negotiable.
Before I can continue with the game, I will need a statement from you about this. I would genuinely prefer to continue the game.

Finally, if you want me to create a ruling about ignoring creature weight during combat, I don't actually mind. But I would very much consider this a houserule that we would be only playing to ensure your fun with the game.

[secretID]

 

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

After explaining myself, do you still think that I'm making up any rules here?

I do. The designers did not intend ADV/disad to be I'm not saying that it will always limit Shove, but you seem to be saying that the possibility should always be considered.considered for every use of a game ability. Disad on (or disallowance of) a Shove when someone is tied to a wall is RAI. Consideration of weight (and other characteristics?) for every Shove is not, when the designers made perfectly clear how Shove works.

If the designers intended that any regularly occurring circumstance or characteristic, like weight, would be factored, they would have said so. Silence doesn't equal approval. Nothing says you can't give disad to STR checks because of a PC's weight or gender. Nothing says that you can't give disad to quarterstaff attacks against certain types of armor because they're wood. There's a long list of written criteria I must meet to drive legally; my hair color isn't mentioned, but I don't think I should be pulled over for it.

 

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

If my earnest interpretation of the rules earns me titles such as "dishonest", "unfair", or "devaluing player fun", then I am severely taken aback, in all honesty.

I think you wanted this addressed as part of your below question.

Per above, I disagree that you're not using a loophole here. I took - apparently mistook? - your earlier post as an acknowledgement that you were, with a sly wink. If you sincerely think that RAW and RAI allow for weight to always be considered, then you're obviously not being dishonest.

Re "unfair," as I've said, I think it's unfair to change the Shove rules, as I believe you're proposing, to the players' detriment after the start of the game. It's not unfair at game start. I will note that as I understand it you're only talking about case-by-case adjustments that limit Shove. Since Shove is much more commonly used by players, that's overall a very minor harm to players, so you may want to consider giving ADV sometimes as well, since I think you would agree that RAI is that Shove work normally on the average creature of whatever size. I would also suggest that you give that info on request before each shove attempt, but maybe you already said that.

Re "devaluing player fun"...I'm not sure what the phrase means. As I said, you seem to weigh realism versus fun differently than I do, to consider this particular realism to be vital to fun in a way that I don't, and/or to weigh the negative impact of house rules and big DM tweaks less than I do. That's just a difference of taste/opinion, not an action of yours, and not a terribly important difference anyway. The time we've spent on this would suggest otherwise, but I would think it weird were Of course, we both know someone who definitely would.someone to avoid your games because of this house rule. FWIW, as far as I can tell the typical player cares much less about realism than you do and cares much less about rules tinkering than I do, so I don't know how it will impact the average player's fun.

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

I will be very blunt. If I don't have your trust to be a fair GM, then I don't think that I can have fun running for you as a GM....I don't need you to agree that my ruling is justified, but having my fairness unquestioned at least is non-negotiable.

I'm not sure how to respond to this. I think you're very invested in having and providing fun. I think you're very interested in being fair, but that you sometimes define fairness differently than I do. I think a theme of some of our disagreements is that I prefer judgment calls to be minimized. I've already told you that I think it's unfair to limit Shove in this way after game start - including with regular disad - but it's obviously a very minor unfairness, and likely all the less important in this game. (That said, I guess that ogre Shove looked pretty important at one point, so *shrug*.) So I don't know - I trust you not to deliberately be unfair at all, and not to be unfair in some very important way. Personally, I don't think players could reasonably expect more of me or any other DM.

 

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Finally, if you want me to create a ruling about ignoring creature weight during combat, I don't actually mind. But I would very much consider this a houserule that we would be only playing to ensure your fun with the game

Whoa. So you think the RAW or RAI require that weight be considered, such that you'd have to house rule around that? I'm flabbergasted. I wasn't kidding about a bet. Even if we have no stakes, should we just choose some authority, or some group of DMs, for their judgment?

If you want to continue, I don't really care how you do Shove as long as you let me know, and I think it's unlikely to come up anyway.

[Mindsiege]

 

Originally Posted by secretID

I'm not sure how to respond to this.

I think you've expressed yourself well in your response. You see, I'm inviting these conversations because I think they are beneficial and because I think growing one's GMing skills through exchanges with other GMs is fun. So my goal isn't to make you agree with my position and I certainly don't want to strongarm you into going along with what I'm saying.

During any kind of rules discussion, I'm giving insight into my adjudication process and I'm explaining how exactly I am consulting and interpreting the rules to live up to the role of the GM. You will understand then, that when my adjudication and interpretations are framed or likened to the nightmare GMs from the horror forums who try to find legal loopholes to F with their players, go on power trips while making up rules, and then force their players to quit their table because they don't care about anybody's fun but theirs, well now that doesn't work for me. If sharing my view would be received like this and the response was intended as a vote of no confidence, then in this circumstance I don't think that I would be happy to remain GM.

I never believe that disagreement is inherently something negative. It's a pretty necessary part of any kind of development that has non-trivial outcomes. But in any context, for me to be comfortable while taking part in any clash of opinion about GMing, the golden rule needs to be that it's assumed that as fellow GMs we've firmly ascribed to following the rules of the system with the goal of providing fun for everybody and meeting any reasonable expectations at the table. Given the import that I place on this golden rule, you may see how I could have taken issue with the previous response and needed clarification. And you did provide clarification, to my relief.

 

Originally Posted by secretID

So you think the RAW or RAI require that weight be considered, such that you'd have to house rule around that?

I've been reflecting on this question. Let's look at the RAW first. I've cited the rules in my previous post specifically to clarify this.

Going by the literal language of the rules, what they explicitly say is that a character "can make a Special melee Attack to shove a creature [...] no more than one size larger [...] and [...] within (your) reach". And then the GM is meant to decide if "circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage". This is what the GM should always consider, I reckon.

Now when I am in the role of the GM, this tells me that I am required to judge whether creature mass is a "circumstance that influences" the roll of the contested check during a shove interaction with a particular creature. Following my responsibility as the judge, I then look at the Shove rules, which say nothing about creature mass. Then I look at the shoving character's strength and the creature's weight and notice that there is a conflicting circumstance because the character has insufficient strength to lift or push the creature normally. I then decide that this circumstance influences the dice that need to be rolled.

I really feel like I am not making up any rules here. The entire adjudication seems to be following existing rules to the letter. That's as far as the RAW go, the RAI need more scrutiny.

 

Now, I had hoped that you would address my points about handwaving and interesting challenges. You have taken the shove rules and decided that their ignorance of a creature's mass is intentional design and intends for us to handwave creature mass and that we shouldn't respect it as an influence in the game world. If you want to go by popular opinion, you'll be reassured that Jeremy Crawford agrees with you and tweeted in the past that a creature's weight needn't give disadvantage because that's settled by the creature's size. Unfortunately, while I will let Jeremy Crawford influence my decisions, I don't really follow the maxim of putting his decisions and interpretations above mine. I'm not too reluctant to trust my judgment over his.

In the following wall of text, I'll illuminate my decision-making. First I look at the narrative to see what's happening. For our example, here I find a knight trying to shove a creature that he is too weak to push or lift. Then I look at the rules to see what the mechanics suggest. There I find the rules of Shove allowing the interaction generally, but unfortunately there is no mention of how I'm supposed to resolve that the knight is in fact very ill-equipped to do what he is attempting, due to his puny human arms. So now, going by the RAW I have to make a judgment.

For the sake of this particular judgment, consulting the rules I have figured out that I can either give the knight's attempt disadvantage, maybe even give advantage to the creature's attempt at resisting the shove, or I could handwave the creature's weight entirely and let the action resolve as if the knight indeed does have enough strength to push the creature. If I wanted to minimize judgment calls, I could agree with you and Jeremy Crawford that it should be handwaved. Let's assume then that this is in fact the popular opinion. Before I just blindly follow along though, I ask myself, when do I feel that handwaving significant influences that come up in the narrative is appropriate?

This leads me back to the reasons why I'm looking to the rules at all, instead of making things up all on my own. The reasons I don't do this, even as Rule 0 suggests I can do that, are mainly game balance and game experience.

Looking at the question of whether a disadvantage on a shove breaks the game balance, I pretty easily decide that it doesn't. Large creatures with a lot of weight don't come up that often and no matter what advantages are applied, since shoving will still be possible the game balance isn't even impacted that much. As an aside, even disallowing a shove wouldn't break the game's balance because huge creatures already exit. Either way, I don't see any concerns here.

Looking at the question whether a disadvantage on a shove hurts the game experience, we have to figure out what makes for a good experience. Personally, I think creating interesting challenges is one of the pillars that make for a good game experience. If I ask myself whether a creature's mass disincentivizing shoves makes for an interesting challenge, then I would say yes it does, because it creates a situation that requires adaptive strategizing and dealing with a creature in an appropriate way. Finding the right tool for the right problem or being necessitated to combine them creatively all sounds interesting to me. At this point, I'm inclined to believe that not handwaving the weight influence improves the game experience.

Now, I will agree with you that betraying the player's expectations more often than not hurts their game experience. That doesn't have anything to do with fairness, because the players shouldn't come to the table with the expectation that the GM should always be making judgments in their favor, nor should they hold the expectation that their understanding of the rules is met by the GM. I think as long as the GM sticks to the rules that they've used in the past, they are being fair.

Nonetheless, experiencing setbacks that the players didn't see coming can make for a worse play experience. So I think it's good form to give your players prior notice about what's happening and to avoid the 'gotcha'. And I think that's what you've seen me doing. Having a slippery slope during heavy rain doesn't require me to tell the players that running across it will cause them to slip and slide in all likelihood. I'm doing so anyways because their characters should probably be able to judge this and because I don't want anybody to be upset when they made the mistake of overlooking an obvious danger unwittingly. Or as another example, I didn't let Jimmy send Tink straight into the mission without being aware of the darkling's blindsight. Similarly, you would find me clarifying to a player in the moment of declaring their intent to shove whether this comes with any disadvantages to them. This will allow them to face what I consider to be an interesting challenge and adapt accordingly. By my estimation, this provides a good game experience.

So, going through that entire analysis, I'm now facing the decision to handwave creature weight during a shove or not. What is the best approach? Is it what Jeremy Crawford said or how other GMs are playing it, or is it what creates the best game experience? Obviously I can't make any good guesses about what makes for the best game experience without actually asking my players. However, given everything that I've written above, I would be inclined to judge that handwaving a creature's weight during a shove doesn't come with any benefits to the game experience while for players who embrace the challenges before them, it would. At that point, for myself, it comes down to "know your players" to decide what I will judge. Given my experience with HoD in general, I'm gradually becoming more inclined to follow your approach, at least when I'll be GMing on RPGX because PBP makes knowing your players a lot more difficult. On principle though, I'd argue that not handwaving a creature's weight is the better call because it makes certain challenges more interesting while still retaining that they are solvable.

In conclusion, the RAI may be what Jeremy Crawford says, but only if we want to count him as the authority on that. I'm actually not convinced that the Shove rules disincentivize counting a creature's weight as an influencing circumstance. I don't think we have anything at hand (besides Crawford's opinion) that can really help us decide that being tied to a wall is more of an influencing circumstance than a character moving a creature that they lack the STR requirements to move. The latter presents itself to me as a pretty impactful circumstance that I'm disinclined to handwave. My general interpretation would be that the RAI, in this case, are for the GM to judge for themselves, which is what the RAW described as well.

 

Originally Posted by secretID

If you want to continue, I don't really care how you do Shove as long as you let me know, and I think it's unlikely to come up anyway.

I always preferred to continue. So for the sake of HoD, let's figure out how I'll handle Shove in the future. Crawford agrees with your version of handling Shove, while personally I think not being too handwavy can improve the game experience.

Generally, I think houserules are annoying because I don't want to remember what houserules are in play at which table. Fortunately, I've convinced myself that we don't need any houserules for this. The RAW is clear that I need to make judgment calls, while the RAI could be either following the RAW or following Crawford's take. Neither requires any houserules.

I've reached the conclusion that going along with Crawford is better when I don't know my players well enough. But being too handwavy can eliminate complexity which could have made the game more enjoyable. Moving forward, I think it will be best if I decide based on who I'm playing with what's the better handling of handwaving more or less. Specifically, I will have to consider if I know my players well enough to decide whether they might get upset if a game situation was more difficult than they initially expected, how well they deal with setbacks, and how much they trust me that my judgments are fair even if they aren't favourable for their characters.

You've given me permission to decide how to deal with Shove and to only inform you, but I am a lot less passionate about this particular ruling than you might think. What I am very passionate about is crystallizing my general adjudication process, and how this particular ruling might have influenced multiple players dropping out of my game prematurely. I think for this ruling, it will be better for us to go with your preference. That will also inform me about adjudicating other situations in the game that I will have to judge. At my current stage as a GM, I still naively prefer making a judgment call myself over putting in the research to find out what Jeremy Crawford thinks. For this situation specifically though, I can make myself more handwavy if that's a player preference.

Let's keep it simple. What would you enjoy more if you had to face the exact same situation as before? For Kosev to have disadvantage while shoving the ogre or not? There is no right answer, so just go with your gut.

 

Finally, I want to address realism. As I mentioned before I enjoy DnD most when the game plays out like a movie or a book. The keyword is suspension of disbelief. Now, I don't actually need my fiction to be entirely realistic. I will admit that the tolerance of my suspension of disbelief is smaller than the average person's, and that majorly in movies I regularly find my suspension of disbelief broken when things don't make sense, while other people glance over it just fine. But ultimately, I don't need my game of DnD to be realistic. Generally, I have plenty of fun with fiction that isn't realistic.

What this means for DnD, as a player I leave it to the GM to decide to render their game more or less realistic. I will shape my expectations about what's possible by assuming anything that's realistic is possible, but in the end, it's the GM's job to figure out what's possible and to tell me. If I get a very gamified reasoning about what's possible, then I usually take it for what it is and get over not suspending my disbelief.

When I'm the GM, I look at the narrative first and then find the rules to describe the narrative. In effect, you'll find me referring to the rules constantly, because they are important to maintain game balance and to provide a consistent play experience. When hiccups occur, you'll also find me looking at the rules to describe what's possible in the game world. The inconsistency between shove and weight was only so troublesome for me because the CC rules are very clear about what a character is capable of in regards to moving entities in the game. If the CC rules didn't exist, I would have moved past this conundrum much sooner. They are the reason why handwaving creature weight seems like robbing the game of intended complexity.

I'm not putting realism above the rules on principle. For example, nothing about the whole gender or gnome discussion disturbed my suspension of disbelief. But given our discussion about rules, I wonder how you would deal with much more blatant applications of breaking the narrative by enforcing the rules unchecked. I'm thinking about the example of 100 humans in a row who pass a baton from one end to the other in 6 seconds via readied actions. RAW, to my knowledge it's impossible to disallow that scenario, and I wonder whether Crawford would have any comments about disallowing it RAI. Objects don't have a limit on how fast they can move RAW or RAI, but once the players try to break the game like this, I think it's the GM's responsibility to make judgments that disallow it. I would be very curious to hear your take.

[Mindsiege]

I'm sorry if I reacted too sensitively.

As long as we're clear that I'm not a contentious GM and that I'm predominantly acting in good faith to improve the game, I think that there is no reason for me to be offended.

I know your examples were part hyperbole and served mostly illustrative purposes. No harm done.