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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jackelope King" data-source="post: 2573224" data-attributes="member: 31454">I agree that in principle, making judgement calls is fine. I also don't think the solution is to simply shovel more rules into the game. I do think, however, that the ideal system should minimize the amout of judgement calls a GM has to make, because for every GM making great, consistent calls, there's another half-dozen GMs running the worst sort of GM Fiat games, where the object of a challenge is to, "Figure out how the GM wants this to end."And I have no problem with a GM making rulings during play. I expect it. I expect that when I run a game, I will have to invent the mechanics for at least one type of challenge as I go. No problem there. What I dislike is when the system encourages this as the primary resolution system (i.e. one which demands novel solutions to be playable). I greatly prefer it when the GM and the players are on the same page. And I will agree that in many cases ad hoc rulings by GMs I've known are exactly what I would've done, and all we players agreed it was a good call. However, I feel that encouraging GMs to use this to the exclusion of a codified ruleset is to the detriment of the gaming experience. I don't mind if the GM invents rules for braciation on the fly for me when I'm playing at Tarzan chasing a dire ape through the jungle. I do mind if the GM tells me that my gnome can't intimidate a dragon because it's just silly.I agree. However, I think that the ideal system minimizes the need for this adjudication, or simplifies it with definite guidelines.I agree with the first part of your statement (how to make ad hoc rulings), but disagree that an "air of mystery" is needed for a game. I've never met players who have done as you described, and I couldn't disagree more that having knowledgable players is a bad thing. To the contrary, I'd love to have more knowledgeable players. When I do play with people who know the rules, I can generally spend more time running the game rather than telling them how to accomplish a given task. I honestly can't fathom why you wouldn't want a cooperative player who knows how the game works to take some of the burden of running the mechanics of the game sitting at your table, and I think this is the big disconnect between our points of view. Much to the contrary, I encourage my players to know exactly how the mechanics of their characters work. Thanks to a severe lack of PHBs from the early 3.0 days of our group, I encouraged players to copy and paste the rules for their feats, class abilities, skills, and racial abilities from the SRD into MS Word and print them out alongside their character sheets. It removes a lot of the burden of running the game for me when a player says, "Alright, I want to climb that wall. You said it's a pretty typical masonry wall? The DC for that should be around 25." Now all I have to do is come back and say, "Right. Since it rained last night, it might be a little trickier," and tack a +2 modifier onto the check. I don't need the mechanics of the game to present and "air of mystery" to my players... I can do that just fine with the world they interact with.No problem there, but I'll again point out that "ruling to restore a certain feeling of gameplay" can very, very easily silde into "ruling to restore how I feel the game should be". There's a fine line, and it takes a good GM to walk that line. If successful, the results can be marvelous. But I've seen many, many disasterous games where the GM tried to do just this and failed miserably.It'd certainly be helpful if you had a player there who knew the rules and who could tell you what they say in the situation, eh <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />? But seriously, I agree that too many rules is a bad thing, but I think we have a disagreement as to what constitutes "too many rules". I prefer a system where there is a simple and consistent resolution mechanic (in d20's case, d20 + modifier must beat DC) and a clear set of guidelines for the GM to determine the target (in this case, the DC). The less time I have to spend adjudicating how to climb a wall, the more time I can spend challenging my players with some good encounters.Absolutely, and that's where I think having a consistent resolution system as part of the system is essential.No problem there either. The only way a problem arrises here is if you as the GM fail to get the players on the same page you're on. If you're seeking a grim & gritty game where even a low-damage attack can spell death for a character and your players think they're playing in a hack-fest where they can take all the hit point damage they want and never come out worse for it, then you've got a disconnect. And this is why a ruleset exists: to provide a shared interface for the world between all the players and the GM. No ruleset I know of can do it perfectly (which is why I refer to it as an "ideal"), but that should be the goal of any ruleset.To clarify, when you change the rules to serve your game, you are doing do to help your players experience the game world in the same way you do. In the world you envision, let's say you don't see elves as graceful but frail, and instead see them as beautiful and charming but air-headed. You house rule elves to have a +2 charisma/-2 wisdom instead of a +2 dexterity/-2 consitution. A problem will not arrise here if you and the players all understand what elves are like in your game. A problem will rise, however, if you fail to communicate this change to players, or if the players fail to realize that you've changed elves. Now the guy who thought he was playing a nimble rogue finds out he's playing a ditz instead. The problem here is not that a change was made, but that there is a disconnect between how the player and the GM see the game world. As I've said, the ideal system minimizes this disconnect by providing a consistent (not necssarily overwhelming) ruleset. We'll probably never find that ideal system, but it should be the goal designers strive towards.</blockquote>

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