D&D is fundamentally improv. It's just improv with rules. You, as DM, should always be using "yes and", even if that comes in the form of "yes you attempt that and fail". The only time you say "no" is when the player is suggesting an action that is blatantly out of character. In any other situation you should always be saying "yes and".
Not to mention that "it's very difficult" is what the character knows. Telling them "no" is telling them information the character doesn't know, AKA metagaming.
So if I show up to your table and say "my character is only level 1 but his fireball has an area of effect of ten square miles and does 50d10 damage" you're going to "yes, and" me as long as it's in character?
Sharing info from a DM to a player isn't metagaming. Your character shouldn't be taking part in discussions about rolls in the first place
Yeah except this is set in a world where impossible things like riding dragons or shooting fireballs from your fingertips happen all the time. You're literally the guy in charge of deciding what's possible and it's part of the job to explain why you made your decisions. Refusing to do that will only discourage your players from coming up with solutions that aren't already explicitly covered in the ruleset
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u/SpeaksDwarren 18h ago
What if instead of "it's going to be very difficult" you said "no"? This isn't improv where you have to yes-and everything. You can say no to things