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Otto's Irresistible Dance has following effect/end condition:

As an action, a dancing creature makes a Wisdom saving throw to regain control of itself. On a successful save, the spell ends.

I'm unsure how to interpret the indicative(?) mood "makes" here. Is this action optional, "can choose to make", or is it compulsory, "is forced to make", and why?

This's QA suggests it is optional, but none of the answers explain why. My naive reading of the text suggests making the saving throw action happens, ie. to me it sounds like there is no option for it to not happen. So this leaves me confused.

I haven't cast the spell yet, and the DM may of course make their own ruling for this campaign, but I still want to know the correct RAW interpretation. None of us are native English speakers.

WakiNadiVellir
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  • I don’t see how this is different from the linked Q&A. It seems like this is a dupe to me. The other question is asking if using the action is optional. – Thomas Markov Jul 18 '21 at 11:16
  • @ThomasMarkov Can you point me to the part there, which explains how it is optional, when the spell text says it is something which happens (not "may happen", but "happens"). – WakiNadiVellir Jul 18 '21 at 12:46
  • I think the answer’s could do more to justify that ruling, but this is definitely the same question. The thing to do here would be to bounty that question asking for more well supported answers. I can bounty it for you if you like - you’re getting close to 10k and I wouldn’t want you to be set back from that. – Thomas Markov Jul 18 '21 at 12:48
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    A related reddit post – Exempt-Medic Jul 18 '21 at 13:01
  • @Medix2 Thanks, looks like the issue is indeed a bit unclear to many... – WakiNadiVellir Jul 18 '21 at 14:28
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    "I'm not understanding why people make a ruling" is different from "how to rule", but a bounty seems worthwhile. – Akixkisu Jul 18 '21 at 17:26
  • Well, for better or worse, added a bounty to the marked duplicate. – WakiNadiVellir Jul 18 '21 at 22:25

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