Did you know people are STILL e-mailing me questions? See, I used to do this semi-regular weekly column called “Ask Angry” where people could submit questions via e-mail and, each week, I’d take the most interesting one I could find and I’d answer it. Well, I’d mostly make fun of the person asking the question, explain to them how they didn’t understand their own question, and then rant and ramble about whatever I wanted to talk about and claim the whole time I was solving “the real issue.” Okay, it wasn’t like that all the time. Mostly, I did answer the question. But I also did make fun of people.

But I stopped doing that ages ago. I wasn’t managing my time well and 90% of the questions were about how I typed with boxing gloves on my hands. Except that, occasionally, I’d discover that people were still emailing me questions. And so, very occasionally, I’d grab several questions from the little pile and answer them in bulk in the form of an article. And apparently, that really rare occurrence was enough to keep people e-mailing me.

Here’s the thing. Things. Here’s a couple of things.

First, it’s been a rough month. And I want to make sure I’m delivering on the content I promised. The last two articles were pretty long and hefty. One was about the psychology of game mastering and how to actually do what you say you’re going to do. The second was about how to build encounters and included a bunch of freebie bonus monsters and general advice about homebrew encounter building. So, to finish up the January content, I want to lighten things up a bit.

Second, there’s still obviously a demand for this Ask Angry s$&%. And I really did enjoy putting it out there. It was lighter, shorter content I could deliver every week and it gave me a chance to interact with people and make fun of them. So, I’m going to start doing it again. Like, as of today: Ask Angry is a regular thing again. Once a week, I’ll put out a little 1,500 to 2,000 word Ask Angry column. Completely separate from the weekly feature articles. So, it’s EXTRA content. A little extra anger for your gaming week. But…

Third, you people have been using an e-mail address that I really don’t use too much anymore. I’ve rolled all of my Angry-related e-mail into Angry Games’ official domain: angry.games. So, I’ve gone ahead and set up a new e-mail address specifically for asking Angry s$&%. It’s ask.angry@angry.games. Easy.

And to celebrate the return of Ask Angry, I’m going to plow through a few questions right here and now. Well, right after I close this Long, Rambling Introduction™. And then, I guess I need an introductory paragraph explaining how to Ask Angry. To make the rules clear so that I am justified in making fun of you when you break them. And for all those people who skip the Long, Rambling Introduction™.

How to Ask Angry

Do you have a burning game-related question for The Angry GM? Is there a problem at your game table that only The Angry GM can resolve? Do you need an answer so badly that you’re willing to endure any amount of personal abuse to get it? But are you also patient enough to wait a week or two or three before your question is the most interesting one in the pile and you actually get an answer? Then you need to Ask Angry!

Send your gaming question to ask.angry@angry.games to add it to the stack of questions The Angry GM might answer in a future Ask Angry column. If your question is used, you’ll get an e-mail letting you know when the answer will be available.

By e-mailing Ask Angry, you obviously give permission for me to reproduce all or part of your e-mail. I will not share your full name, e-mail address, or any other personal information. But that means you need to EXPLICITLY AND CLEARLY tell me what to call you. Otherwise, I’ll have to make up a name to call you by.

I get a lot of questions from a lot of people. If you want to maximize your chances of seeing an answer to the question, the best thing you can do is be brief and be specific. The longer the e-mail, the more likely I am to get bored before I get to the end. And also ask something really interesting. But that last one is kind of subjective and no one is as interesting as they think they are anyway. Especially you.

James asks…

I had a fight with my friend about whether his arcane trickster rogue could use the mage hand to grab the gem that was on a death slaad’s head. Can you help?

… and Zac asks…

I’ve been playing in a homebrew game for a few months now. Recently, we came across an adult white dragon. We managed to roll above its AC to hit with an attack, but the DM said that we didn’t do any damage to it. When questioned, he said, “dragons in my world have a damage threshold.” Is that normal in any way? And if not how should I approach this problem?

Hi James. Hi Zac. Thanks for writing. You might be wondering why I lumped your questions together. They do seem to be about completely different things. But there is an issue underlying both of them that just keeps coming up in the questions people send me. And also in the questions people Tweet at Crawford and the other WotC designers. And I’m going to use you to yell at all those people about the issue. But, because I’m not a complete a$&hole – just an incomplete a$&hole – I’m going to answer both of your questions specifically and individually.

These questions fall into a very specific category I like to call “yell at my GM/player for me.” Basically, some sort of discussion or dispute happens at the game table and someone doesn’t like the way it got resolved and they are looking for some authority figure to tell them “no, no, it’s okay; you’re right and they are wrong and here’s a note that you can bring them to make them agree with you.” Now, this is most definitely what Zac e-mailed me. He wants me to yell at his GM for him. James’ question is a little more iffy. It might have been a discussion between two players. I don’t know. But it’s close enough that I’m just going to err on the side of yelling at him too.

Here’s the thing: ultimately things at the table work however the GM says they work. So, James, if you’re not the GM and you and your friend want to know whether mage hand works that way, you have to ask your GM. That’s the only way to know for sure. And as for you, Zac, it doesn’t matter whether that’s normal or not. That’s how it is. Dragons have such thick, powerful scales that if you don’t deal enough damage, they won’t even feel it. Look for the missing belly scale and send an eagle to your friend Bard the ranger and maybe he can help you out.

Now, I don’t want you to misunderstand things. I am not saying “the GM can make up whatever they want and that’s the way it is.” The GM can’t just say anything works any way they want to. And this whole “the GM is always right” “Rule Zero” bulls$&% isn’t about giving someone absolute authority. I’m not saying it because I’m a GM and so I’m always going to side with the GM and keep you players in your place. I’m saying it because it is the only way the game works.

See, role-playing games are very complex, open-ended things. You can literally do anything you can imagine. And there’s a lot of little rules and abilities and subsystems and things. There is no way to design a game that can account for all the possibilities of everything the players can imagine and the different ways any two parts of the system may rub against each other. It cannot be done. And it’d be impossible to learn a rule system that complex. So, role-playing games came up with a solution: put a human brain in charge that can interpret the rules, make judgment calls, resolve conflicts, and set precedents. Hopefully, that human brain is a nice, impartial referee who considers the different possible answers to every problem and tries to reach the best one. But the problem is, there’s not actually a best answer. Ever. There’s a lot of different angles from which to consider a problem. What’s best for the narrative – the game as a story – may not be best for the gameplay – the game as a game. The players’ agency might get trampled one way, but the consistency of the game world might get ruined another way. And different tables and different players care about different things differently. So, there’s not just one right answer.

There’s a really good example that people also don’t understand in the American legal system that pretty much every internet content creator has an opinion on. It’s called the doctrine of fair use. In the United States, it is illegal to copy the work of an author for any reason without their express permission. That’s called copyright. Except that there’s an exception. The exception is that if you’re copying only limited amounts of an author’s work and you’re specifically doing so to offering criticism, commentary, education, or satire, and you’re not doing anything that might make it look like you’re taking credit for the work, and you’re not doing so in a way that threatens the right of an author to earn money from their creations, then your copying is an exception to the rule.

But the thing is that fair use isn’t an automatic cut and dry thing. Because there’s a spectrum for every one of those factors. And some of those factors might be more important than others. So, the fair use exception is something that can only be determined by examining the specific facts in a specific case and making a judgment call about how all of those factors weigh out. In other words, fair use is something that can only be settled by a judge and a court. And those judgments are all based on interpretations and priorities and, no matter how reasonable and objective a judge tries to be, there is always going to come a point where the judge just has to make a call about all those subjective criteria. And two judges or two juries or two jurisdictions could have three different rulings on the same single set of facts.

When a YouTuber says, “well, my content is covered under fair use,” they are talking out of their a$&. They have no f$&%ing clue. Fair use is an exception to a law. It is “you broke the law but a court has decided the way you broke the law has enough intellectual or artistic merit based on these criteria that we’ll let it slide.” And until a court rules on the case, absolutely no one knows whether your inane reaction video where you basically mug at the camera while someone else’s hard work plays in full across 80% of the screen from beginning to end.

My point is that I am not going to tell your GM – or your player – to change the way they do things. You cannot use me to say, “well, Angry says you have to let me throw fireball spells and drink potions underwater.” Unless I’m sitting at the table and running the game – or at least until I have all the parties present in front of me – I can’t make the call. Or overturn it. Though it would be interesting to take one of these e-mails and see if I can the other person to make their best case and resolve the dispute. Judge Angry anyone?

And let that be a lesson to everyone: if you want me to resolve a dispute at your table, I can save you the trouble of emailing me. The answer is “the GM makes the call and you live by it.” Because that’s the only way the game works. And quite honestly, I would quit running games tomorrow if I thought for a second that I might get an e-mail from Chris Perkins telling me that my players told him what I did and that I was wrong and that I had to correct the call immediately or have my license to run games revoked. Especially if it were Perkins. His gonzo, rule-of-cool bulls$&% makes good YouTube viewing, sure. But that’s about the only thing it’s good for.

Now, with all of that out of the way, let me go ahead and tell you exactly who was right in each of these disputes and provide an authoritative judgment of other GMs.

James asks…

I had a fight with my friend about whether his arcane trickster rogue could use the mage hand to grab the gem that was on a death slaad’s head. Can you help?

I try to do as little editing as possible with these questions. I will let minor grammatical and spelling issues slide unless they actually make things unclear to me. Or unless I’m afraid they’ll make things unclear for my readers.

This question really confused me at first. And if it’s confusing you, that’s because you probably didn’t know – or don’t remember – that there’s this optional rule in the Monster Manual that says that slaads – the chaotic frog demons from Limbo – slaads have a magical crystal embedded in their brains and if you can get the magical crystal out of there without killing the slaad, you can magically control the slaad. Also, autocorrect keeps correcting “slaad” to “salad.” D$&%ing autocorrect. It was only after I looked it up – because, yes, I do take answering these questions seriously enough to actually look up everything, even if I think I know it – after I looked it up, “the gem that was on death slaad’s head,” made a lot more sense.

Now, the correct answer is “whatever the GM running the table says.” But we’ve covered that. But let’s pretend I’m the GM running the table.

The issue is that the whole little Control Gem sidebar on MM274 is a little vague on the specific ways in which the gem can be removed. It does mention that “certain spells” can be used to acquire the gem and goes on to specifically mention imprisonment and wish, both of which are 9th level spells. It also allows for the surgical removal of the gem from the slaad’s brain provided the slaad is incapacitated, but failed attempts injure and might kill the slaad.

Meanwhile, mage hand is also vague, though less so. It is a magical hand that can be used to manipulate objects, open unlocked doors, retrieve objects from unlocked containers, or just to lift and move things. And it can lift and move things up to ten pounds.

I like to call these “the facts of the case.”

Whenever you have to make a judgment call – whenever something isn’t specifically and very clearly allowed or disallowed by the exact words of the rules – there’s a bunch of different directions to consider it from. And a good GM should come at the problem from as many of those directions as possible. In this case, we’ll look at two of them: the fiction of the world and the mechanics of the game. Remember, we want a consistent world that seems like it could really exist – that’s verisimilitude – and we want a balanced and fair gameplay experience.

From a fictional standpoint, first, consider that the crystal is a magically implanted shard of an extremely powerful artifact created by a god and that it is implanted directly into the slaad’s brain as the slaad. Meanwhile, mage hand is a minor magic trick that apprentice wizards learn and that every wizard can sling around with zero effort. In other words, it’s a cantrip. It conjures this little ghostly hand that can do minor things that a disembodied hand can do. But notice that all of the specific examples given in the description involve unattended objects that offer no resistance at all. It can open an unlocked object, it can retrieve items from an open container, pour the liquid from a glass, and so on. It can only exert about ten pounds of force. It can’t do anything that requires brute force. Which makes sense.

So, picture that in your head. You’ve got a magical bit of deity crystal that a slaad’s brain grows around at birth that has to be surgically removed and the surgery is so invasive it might kill the slaad. And you’ve got a little ghost hand that can’t even force open a stuck jar and that apprentice wizards use at Warthog’s School to give each other magical wet willies. The thing probably can’t even pull off a good wedgie. Just from the standpoint of imagining the world and how these things work, it’s a no go. There is nothing in the description of the way these things work that suggest a mage hand could rip any part out of any living body.

Now, let’s forget the world altogether and just consider the game balance issue. The creators of the game designed these monsters to take on entire parties of 5th to 10th level heroes. They are pretty powerful and dangerous creatures. But they also designed ways that you can get your very own pet slaad. They just require you to have access to the highest levels of magic in the game, meaning you have to be at least 17th level. And even at that level, you can only use one of those spells once each day. Well, twice if you’re an 18th level wizard and use arcane recovery, but that’s neither here nor there.

Sure, there’s the surgery option, but that requires you to incapacitate the slaad first. Which basically means you have to actually take the slaad down. You have to win a fight against it.

So those are your options for getting slaad slave of your very own. Either you cast a 9th level spell at it OR you kill it in combat and then do brain surgery on the frog demon.

Or a 1st level wizard can cast a cantrip that costs no resources and enslave a CR 10 death toad. Automatically.

There’s no way that the designers intended that as a solution to the problem of chaos-toad trying to eat your face.

So, from either perspective, the answer is no. You cannot use mage hand to rip the gem out of a slaad’s brain and get yourself a really badass battletoad as a familiar. Sorry.

… and, again, Zac asks…

I’ve been playing in a homebrew game for a few months now. Recently, we came across an adult white dragon. We managed to roll above its AC to hit with an attack, but the DM said that we didn’t do any damage to it. When questioned, he said, “dragons in my world have a damage threshold.” Is that normal in any way? And if not how should I approach this problem?

Okay, Zac, I said I’d answer your actual question once I got done lecturing you about how whatever the GM says is how things work.

First, you asked, “is that normal in way?” And I get the feeling that this is basically a rhetorical question on the order of “can you believe that s$&%” or “have you ever heard such bulls$&%” or “would you get a load of this m$&%$&%&$?!” I mean, what the hell does normal mean? Normal for dragons? Normal for table-top role-playing games about pretend elves? Normal for game design? Normal for game masters?

In my game, for example, the players recently discovered that undead monks regenerate lost hit points. Is that normal? It’s a monster ability. They can be pretty much anything. Dragons have a damage threshold. Fine. That’s no crazier than any other monster ability. I mean, slaads have a rock lodged in their brain that works like a remote control if you can get it out. Is that normal?

But the fact that you referred to it as a “problem” you have to “approach” leads me to believe that this isn’t really about normalcy. It leads me to believe that you don’t like it. For some reason, the fact that dragons have a damage threshold has bothered you. You feel like it’s unfair somehow.

And here’s the thing: I am not saying you’re wrong. I’m not disagreeing with you, per se. I’m just refusing to yell at your GM for you.

There’s nothing that makes the idea of a damage threshold inherently unfair or wrong or bad or broken. It’s just a game mechanic. I know gamers like to fling around the word “broken” like that’s some objective thing. It isn’t. The only time something is really broken is when the designers meant the design to do one and it is doing something else instead. Or doing something else in addition. And even that’s iffy. Because sometimes designs have unintended consequences that actually improve things.

Remember when I said that GM interpretations and judgments are all, at some level, subjective. Because they involve putting different, equally desirable, qualitative criteria in preference order and then determining which is affected more? Well, it’s the same for players playing games. Everyone has their own criteria for what they like and what they don’t like, what they prefer more of, what they prefer less of, and so on. There’s a lot of reasons you might not like the damage threshold mechanic. But, if you cut to the heart of it, that’s all it is: it’s a mechanic you don’t like.

Which is okay. It is okay to like things and not to like things. For completely subjective reasons. If more people accepted that and stopped trying to cake their opinions as objective fact, then just give me forty stout men and cannons and I could rule this community. Bwahahaha… sorry.

Point is, you don’t like the damage threshold thing. Fine. Okay. Why? What bothers you about it? Be honest. And, look, I can’t help you here. All I can do is make guesses. And that won’t help anything. You really need to sit down and figure out what exactly bothers you about the idea that the most powerful fantasy creature in the genre has an extra layer of armor that makes them very difficult to beat my normal means.

And once you’ve figured it out, you can take that to your GM and talk to him. Like one human being to another discussing a subjective preference. “Hey, Game Masterson,” you say, “remember when we had to run away from that white dragon and we attacked and didn’t hurt it at all and you said it had a damage threshold to overcome? Well, I have to tell you I didn’t like that rule because…” And then explain. Without whining. Without complaining. Without insulting. Describe clearly and concisely the actual reason you actually didn’t like it. Whatever it is. And the GM – if he’s a good GM – he’ll listen.

And then he’ll explain his rationale. And this is the f$&%ing important part: YOU LISTEN. You actually listen to what your GM says. Listen like he knows something you don’t. Because he just listened to you as if you knew something he didn’t. He heard you out. Now it’s your turn to hear him out. And don’t interrupt. Let him give you his full explanation. If you’re unclear or confused, you can ask a clarifying question AFTER he’s explained his side.

And then you thank him for explaining and you walk away. Because the conversation is over. This is another part people f$&% up. Even if you don’t agree. Even if you think you have a brilliant counterpoint. You walk the f$&% away. Because you both – you and the GM – need time to process what the other person said. Especially given you’re both just talking about opinions and preferences and goals. There is literally no way for either of you to be RIGHT. No way for either of you to be WRONG. It’s about different preferences, priorities, and criteria.

Got it? Four steps: understand what’s really bothering you about the mechanic, tell your GM honestly and politely, listen to everything your GM says, say thank you and walk away.

“But, Angry,” I can hear you say, “that doesn’t fix the problem!” Well, of course it doesn’t. Because there is no problem to fix. There’s just a disagreement about how the game is being run. That’s not a problem. Unless it is.

See, now that you have talked through your own reasons for not liking the mechanic – and it’s important to do that because talking is how we think – and now that you’ve gotten the GMs reasons for creating the mechanic, you can decide whether your disagreement with the GM over how the game should be run is a deal-breaker. Is it worth quitting the game over or is it something you can live with?

Meanwhile, your GM is thinking about the same thing. Is this disagreement over how the game should be run worth losing a player over? Is it something that the GM is that strongly invested in? Your GM might also even start talking to the other players to see if anyone else shares your concerns. That’s what I do when a player broaches a problem with me. The first thing I do is talk to everyone else, so I get all the perspectives on it.

After a few days pass and you and the GM have both hashed out for yourselves whether the issue is a problem and whether something needs to change, one of you is going to broach the issue to the other. You might say, “hey, remember that talk we had the other day? Well, I don’t think this is the game for me.” Or the GM might say, “remember that talk we had the other day? Well, I talked to the other players and there’s an issue after all so I’m going to make this change.” Or the GM might say, “I’ve decided to keep going with it the way I designed it.”

Yes, that does mean you might end up having to leave the game. But what else can you do? Either you can tolerate the game the GM is running or you leave the game. You really have no other choices. Likewise, the GM can either resolve the issue or lose a player. Or several players. Or all of the players. Depends on how big the problem is and whether it’s a deal-breaker for anyone else. But that’s literally the only way this can play out. There’s no other way to “fix the problem” because the problem is just that two human beings involved in a group game have different opinions on how the game should play. You can’t force the GM to run the game the way you want him to any more than he can force you or anyone else to play his game. The game is an ongoing mutual agreement to keep playing together. That’s all.

Now, I know that you probably didn’t want to hear any of that. I’m sorry. The only way to “fix the problem” is to talk to your GM like a human being, listen to your GM like a human being, and then decide if you really want to play the same game together or not. The end.

And if your GM doesn’t listen to you in the first place, then you should probably just skip to the part where you say the game isn’t for you and quit. Of course, notice I said “listen” and not “agree with.” You can listen to someone and not agree with them. In fact, I guarantee that you and the GM probably WON’T agree with you. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have done the damage threshold thing in the first place. But then, your goal is not to change his mind anyway. Not any more than his goal is to change your mind. The goal is for both of you to get your reasoning out so you can both decide whether and how to move forward with the game for yourselves. So, resolve yourself to the fact that the conversation is not going to change anything in your GM’s mind. But be open to the possibility it might change your mind.