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Message: <blockquote data-quote="deadman1204" data-source="post: 9384613" data-attributes="member: 7045949">I've been seeing alot of instances of "The rule of cool" in games, and while it seems neat at first, I've started to think its actually bad for the players and the game. It lets any one player do practically anything they want, cheating the other players who may have actual abilities and tools to solve the problem. A recent example in a game I was in was one player spent several rounds being up high on pillars and stuff and jumped onto the back of a dragon the bbeg was riding. Another player who had the mcguffin to kill the bbeg wanted up, but didn't wanna spend time moving around. So they used a 5ft stick to somehow polevault up 30 feet (with zero lateral movement) into the bbeg's face.That sure was neat for the player who suddenly developed divine levels of pole vaulting skills, but sure wasn't that great for the player who spent time up above, and all the rest of the party who might've also had ways to solve the problem. With "the rule of cool", you never have to run away or play the right class or do the right thing. Just make up a epic sounding thing and the dm will go along with it. While they make an encounter fun for that player, these actions strip everyone else of both agency and utility. Why spend time on special class abilities or items when someone else can suddenly be 10x better than you because the idea "sounds cool".  Effectievely the bar for winning gets so low that victory starts to lose meaning with "the rule of cool". You never have to run away or regroup because you can suddenly to epic anime crap to overcome any problem. How is winning fun if you cannot actually lose?</blockquote>

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