D&D General Rules, Rules, Rules: Thoughts on the Past, Present, and Future of D&D

[Bedrockgames]

In my opinion, all tRPGs allow rulings, so achieving that is no great feat of design and hardly worth discussing.

As a GM, what I don't want is a game system where I'm always relying on my own discovery, invention, and design - because all of those things are hard. I want to only have to make rulings in one off edge cases. I don't want to find rules that fail almost immediately when I try to rely on them, and find myself working in the mode of a designer doing play testing and fixing the rules based on evidence gathered. I am quite frankly disgusted that almost every adventure, rulebook, and campaign I purchase requires 100s of hours of my time to fix the broken math, cover the edge cases, and remove and rewrite the badly thought-out rules that are too narrow, too brittle, too likely to produce absurd results, and so forth or (in the case of adventures) depend on unlikely assumptions about player behavior and have no plan b for the adventure continuing.

What I find is that 100% of the time, leaving it up to GM judgment was just laziness on the part of the writer that drains almost all the value of the product. If I have to do the work of play testing design and elaboration of even the most basic areas of the rules, why in the heck am I paying for the product? If winging it is what I'm doing any noticeable percentage of the time, I wasn't saved many hours of work compared to writing my own fantasy heartbreaker, adapting an existing engine, or writing out my own adventure. Declaring that you created a game for me that allows for rulings is telling me you suck as a designer and your product is shite.

I don’t want rulings all the time but it sounds like I would like them more frequently than you. And I prefer when a system is built with rulings in mind. Just my preference. I don’t feel put off by it, I see it as allowing for greater flexibility and creativity

 

[Cadence]

My son and his friends often try things that by raw shouldn't work - say casting a short range cold spell on a friend's arrow to do cold damage to what the arrow hits. I'd hate to stifle that creativity. (Which is not to say that I will let them do anywhere near to everything they would like to try because, wow.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

My son and his friends often try things that by raw shouldn't work - say casting a short range cold spell on a friend's arrow to do cold damage to what the arrow hits. I'd hate to stifle that creativity. (Which is not to say that I will let them do anywhere near to everything they would like to try because, wow.)

This still seems to be based on the idea that "If it doesn't say you can, you can't". I know fairly few games even with fairly rigorous rules that try to do that (and the ones that do lean in that way its usually in areas where someone is trying to get a free lunch by trying to end run the way they can get the result they want because they'd actually have to acquire it).

I mean, I don't doubt there are people rigid enough in their approach where this might be an issue, but its like the claims that feats in various incarnations of D&D and offshoots for doing certain things forbid you doing them without them. When examined carefully, what such things usually do is let you do those things with less constraints about how you have to do them, but some people read them as forbidding doing them at all, and I have to say that seems to be a problem with application, not the rules.

 

[Oofta]

This still seems to be based on the idea that "If it doesn't say you can, you can't". I know fairly few games even with fairly rigorous rules that try to do that (and the ones that do lean in that way its usually in areas where someone is trying to get a free lunch by trying to end run the way they can get the result they want because they'd actually have to acquire it).

I mean, I don't doubt there are people rigid enough in their approach where this might be an issue, but its like the claims that feats in various incarnations of D&D and offshoots for doing certain things forbid you doing them without them. When examined carefully, what such things usually do is let you do those things with less constraints about how you have to do them, but some people read them as forbidding doing them at all, and I have to say that seems to be a problem with application, not the rules.

I saw plenty of "You can't do that because there some rule/power that does something similar" in the the past. If you have a rule that covers some aspect of gameplay, a lot of people insist on using the rule and in my experience it's limited creativity. Thinking outside the box tends to go away when you could do what you want (or close enough) if only you had someone else's box.

In a way it makes sense that people are not going to do something that is a special feature of another class or feat. If everyone can do X, why would you ever take a feat that primarily allows you do to X? You should take some other feat.

 

[overgeeked]

Meanwhile if the players didn't have that chart in front of them maybe they would have tried tricking or bribing the ogre. In my experiences with this over the years having one specific route to achieving a goal spelled out tends to limit the imagination of people when it comes to problem solving.

Exactly this. Mechanics point players to mechanical solutions. Players will do whatever is easiest. It's far easier to memorize a rule and try to apply it than actually be creative in the moment and problem solve diegetically.

Robin Laws said something similar in Over the Edge 2nd Edition:

"And why the simple mechanics? Two reasons: First, complex mechanics invariably channel and limit the imagination; second, my neurons have better things to do than calculate numbers and refer to charts all evening. Complex mechanics, in their effort to tell you what you can do, generally do a fair job of implying what you cannot do."

 

[overgeeked]

Making rulings within the context of a rules lite system is a lot less of a cognitive load for me than running a more codified, rules heavy game. The DM 'support' that I'm looking for in a game is a very simple framework that allows for relatively easy ad hoc rulings. If I have to look anything up during a game or keep track of player information to make sure the game is running correctly, I get tired quickly. Interesting questing beast video today about this topic.

Great video. And good point.

 

[Clint_L]

Making rulings within the context of a rules lite system is a lot less of a cognitive load for me than running a more codified, rules heavy game. The DM 'support' that I'm looking for in a game is a very simple framework that allows for relatively easy ad hoc rulings. If I have to look anything up during a game or keep track of player information to make sure the game is running correctly, I get tired quickly.

Ever played Dread?

 

[overgeeked]

Ever played Dread?

I have. And run it. Fantastic game. What about it?

 

[overgeeked]

A classic case of rules trumping common sense.

But the bigger question even then is why, if two or more participants in a combat roll, say, 15 for their initiative, can't they act at the same time? What is so wrong with my archer shooting an arrow at that Goblin at exactly the same time the wizard resolves a magic missile into the same Goblin, meanwhile simuntaneously a different Goblin swings at the Cleric?

Why can't I do the Big Damn Hero thing and deliver the death stroke to the BBEG just as the BBEG kills me in return?

Yeah. Long-time complaint of mine as well. It makes sense to segment the characters' turns in this way to make running and playing the game easier, but it's so weird and alien to me to then mistake the artifice of the game's mechanics for how the fiction it represents actually works.

As always, Viva La Dirt League has some great videos mocking exactly this.

 

[Clint_L]

I have. And run it. Fantastic game. What about it?

Seems like exactly what they were describing. I was just putting it out there for them.