diff --git a/DOCS/man/mpv.rst b/DOCS/man/mpv.rst
index 64de51d112c13..0fa61c35f768b 100644
--- a/DOCS/man/mpv.rst
+++ b/DOCS/man/mpv.rst
@@ -499,41 +499,62 @@ console controls. (Which makes it suitable for playing data piped to stdin.)
 The special argument ``--`` can be used to stop mpv from interpreting the
 following arguments as options.
 
-When using the client API, you should strictly avoid using ``mpv_command_string``
+For paths passed to mpv suboptions (options that have multiple `:` and
+`,`-separated values), the situation is further complicated by the need to
+escape special characters. To work around this, the path can instead be wrapped
+in the "fixed-length" syntax, e.g. ``%n%string_of_length_n`` (see above).
+
+When using the libmpv API, you should strictly avoid using ``mpv_command_string``
 for invoking the ``loadfile`` command, and instead prefer e.g. ``mpv_command``
 to avoid the need for filename escaping.
 
-For paths passed to suboptions, the situation is further complicated by the
-need to escape special characters. To work this around, the path can be
-additionally wrapped in the fixed-length syntax, e.g. ``%n%string_of_length_n``
-(see above).
+The same applies when you're using the scripting API, where you should avoid using
+``mp.command``, and instead prefer using "separate parameter" APIs, such as
+``mp.commandv`` and ``mp.command_native``.
+
+Some mpv options will interpret special meanings for paths starting with ``~``,
+making it easy to dynamically find special directories, such as referring to the
+current user's home directory or the mpv configuration directory.
+
+When using the special ``~`` prefix, there must always be a trailing ``/`` after
+the special path prefix. In other words, ``~`` doesn't work, but ``~/`` will work.
+
+The following special paths/keywords are currently recognized:
+
+.. warning::
+
+    Beware that if ``--no-config`` is used, all of the "config directory"-based
+    paths (``~~/``, ``~~home/`` and ``~~global/``) will be empty strings.
+
+    This means that ``~~home/`` would expand to an empty string, and that
+    sub-paths such as ``~~home/foo/bar"`` would expand to a relative path
+    (``foo/bar``), which may not be what you expected.
+
+    Furthermore, any commands that search in config directories will fail
+    to find anything, since there won't be any directories to search in.
 
-Some mpv options interpret paths starting with ``~``.
-Currently, the prefix ``~~home/`` expands to the mpv configuration directory
-(usually ``~/.config/mpv/``).
-``~/`` expands to the user's home directory. (The trailing ``/`` is always
-required.) The following paths are currently recognized:
+    Be sure that your scripts can handle these "no config" scenarios.
 
 ================ ===============================================================
 Name             Meaning
 ================ ===============================================================
-``~~/``          If the subpath exists in any of the mpv's config directories
+``~/``           The current user's home directory (equivalent to ``~/`` and
+                 ``$HOME/`` in terminal environments).
+``~~/``          If the sub-path exists in any of mpv's config directories, then
                  the path of the existing file/dir is returned. Otherwise this
                  is equivalent to ``~~home/``.
-                 Note that if --no-config is used ``~~/foobar`` will resolve to
-                 ``foobar`` which can be unexpected.
-``~/``           user home directory root (similar to shell, ``$HOME``)
-``~~home/``      mpv config dir (for example ``~/.config/mpv/``)
-``~~global/``    the global config path, if available (not on win32)
-``~~osxbundle/`` the macOS bundle resource path (macOS only)
-``~~desktop/``   the path to the desktop (win32, macOS)
-``~~exe_dir/``   win32 only: the path to the directory containing the exe (for
-                 config file purposes; ``$MPV_HOME`` overrides it)
-``~~cache/``     the path to application cache data (``~/.cache/mpv/``)
+``~~home/``      mpv's config dir (for example ``~/.config/mpv/``).
+``~~global/``    The global config path (such as ``/etc/mpv``), if available
+                 (not on win32).
+``~~osxbundle/`` The macOS bundle resource path (macOS only).
+``~~desktop/``   The path to the desktop (win32, macOS).
+``~~exe_dir/``   The path to the directory containing ``mpv.exe`` (for config
+                 file purposes, ``$MPV_HOME`` will override this) (win32 only).
+``~~cache/``     The path to application cache data (``~/.cache/mpv/``).
                  On some platforms, this will be the same as ``~~home/``.
-``~~state/``     the path to application state data (``~/.local/state/mpv/``)
+``~~state/``     The path to application state data (``~/.local/state/mpv/``).
                  On some platforms, this will be the same as ``~~home/``.
-``~~old_home/``  do not use
+``~~old_home/``  Do not use.
 ================ ===============================================================