So I was browsing Star City Games and I found this article and its resulting disscussion. It's about a person discouraging a high level of optimization in the casual format he created. That set off a fairly large online discussion where people with different play styles collided; sounds familiar? While I can use this to springboard into a dozen different topics, I'm gonna focus on one specific thing; the pros and cons of centralized and/or local rulings.

Centralized rulings are when a central authority creates the rules. In Dungeons and Dragons, the RPGA would be the most obvious example. Local rulings is just a weird term I made up to mean House Rules. You know, when a group creates their own rules to modify the game more to their liking. Through out D&D’s history, both approaches have been used in varying degrees. Each approach has its advantages and weaknesses.

The main strength of centralized rulings is commonality. Commonality is very important. Having a focused set of ideas is required in order to construct something with a solid foundation. Enworld exists because we have something in common; D&D. We all agree D&D is a fantasy roleplaying game and we all like fantasy roleplaying so we formed this community around that. It’s important to have a common basis to work with.

Centralized rulings does have its flaws though. If you don’t like what the centralized ruling is, you options are limited. Many don’t like 4th Edition because thy disagree with the rules WOTC made. Centralized rulings are also lead to less flexibility. A common basis isn’t common if no one follow it. Centralized rulings does place limits on what you can do.

The alternative is local rulings aka “House rules” or “DM’s judgment.” The strengths of this approach is flexibility and customizability. With this approach, you can get exactly what you want because you make it yourself for yourself. Some people enjoy the “do it yourself” approach.

Local rulings also have their flaws. Making your own rules requires that the rule maker have both the skillset and the time to do so. Not everyone has the time to devote to tinkering nor the ability to do it well. You also have to deal with everyone having different opinions on how to do something. What do you when your friend wants to play a Dwarf in your Dwarf-free game? If you’re gonna customize your game, you’re gonna have to re-explain it every time you get a new player and that can get tiring. Local rulings requires work; too much work for some people.

Obviously, this issue is fairly complex. D&D has never been completely one or other. It has always been some combination of the two. 3.5, despite being hailed for it customizability, probably wasn’t designed with the Batman Wizard or Codzilla in mind. 4th Edition, despite being considered limited, does satisfy a good deal of players and is an another option for play groups to choose from. It’s definitely not as black and white as I may make it appear to be. I wrote it that way to help explain the concepts.

What type of rulings you want to accept depends largely on your goals and gaming philosophy. The author of the mentioned article, being a founder of the format, always had the option of simply banning the elements (aka certain Magic cards) that he felt was hurting the format. Yet he choose not too. He felt that even though those elements were easily abuseable, that banning them would deny people who weren’t abusing them the right to use those elements. It’s suppose to be a casual format, and in the spirit and intention of being a casual format, less formal rules are better. If you know your goal, you can pick the best approach for it.