D&D General Arbitrary and Capricious: Unpacking Rules and Rulings in the Context of Fairness

[Tony Vargas]

I think muchkin carried, at some point, a connotation of naivete or lack of sophistication in its powergaming. Like, just, "ooh, biggest number" type powergaming. Maybe, later, a connotation of shamelessness... tho I may be thinking of the aforementioned Storyteller community's use of twink....

 

[nevin]

Min-maxing is generally a function of building a character.
Rules-lawyering is an activity seen during a session of play.

Solid min-maxing does not generally require rules argument to function during play. And someone who hasn't done loads of math before play to optimize their character can (and some will) argue over application of rules forever during play - often even when it isn't about them.

in that the more rules you have the more wiggle room they have to exist as a nuisance......

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Cool. Now do one on the idea of sportsmanship in RPGs.

Well, I think that the idea of "fairness" is intertwined with the idea of "good faith," which may or may not be related to sportsmanship.

For example, you'll often see conversations (ahem) about different types of games. And the pressure point is almost always that proponents of game type A will always assume that everyone is playing game A in good faith, but will assume that people playing game B aren't playing it in good faith (AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN THEN!!??!). And contrariwise, proponents of game B will assume that everyone plays game B in good faith, but assume that people playing A aren't playing it in good faith, and ... so on and so forth and rinse and repeat.

Or, more concretely, "Why are you assuming the DM is bad?" "Yeah, well why are you assuming the players are bad?" etc.

Part of the problem is that people refuse to look at how other people actually play, and assume that their own experience is universal. Part of the problem is that people refuse to listen to what other people tell them about their own preferences.

But it's all part and parcel of the same issues. Underlying individual concerns (about rulings, about rules) are often concerns about fairness. And underlying concerns about so-called "bad players" and so-called "bad DMs" are concerns that participants in the game are not playing the game in good faith.

IMO, YMMV, etc. I apologize for going back on topic, as opposed to discussing munchkin.

 

[Voadam]

Or there can even be disagreements on what playing in good faith means.

In D&D some feel it is the players' role to competitively go for every advantage they can for their characters. Others feel that everyone should try and just have a good time and not try to competitively dominate and win. And others feel that you go all out in different parts of the game, say in the adventure itself in combat but not in min maxxing your character design, or that you should go all out with straightforward powerful characters, but not use technical rules exploits.

Some feel that you should play to the stats on the sheet, others feel that the stats are just mechanics and playing the player's concept of the character is what is important.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Or there can even be disagreements on what playing in good faith means.

True.

Which brings us to the point that some rulesets and distributions of authority are better able to handle games in which the participants have different outlooks on what constitutes good-faith playing, and other rulesets and distributions of authority requires a more rigid "buy-in" and more specified rules as to what good-faith playing within that system is.

 

[Reynard]

Well, I think that the idea of "fairness" is intertwined with the idea of "good faith," which may or may not be related to sportsmanship.

Sportsmanship implies competition, and generally* I don't think RPGs benefit from competition, either between players or between the players and the GM. There are better games for that, I think.

*Of course there are exceptions. I have run PvP tournaments at cons for charity, and have played in and run campaigns that focus on outwitting the GM, but these are the exceptions.

 

[billd91]

Sportsmanship implies competition, and generally* I don't think RPGs benefit from competition, either between players or between the players and the GM. There are better games for that, I think.

*Of course there are exceptions. I have run PvP tournaments at cons for charity, and have played in and run campaigns that focus on outwitting the GM, but these are the exceptions.

I don't necessarily think sportsmanship necessarily implies competition. But it does recognize that there are triumphs and setbacks that need to be handled with some grace.

One of the things that I've noticed about Critical Role's players - when Matt's encounters really challenge them and, in particular, kick their asses such as the one where 3 of them are lying dead at the encounter site, you'll see several of them compliment Matt on the good game. This is at a time when they're emotions are probably running their roughest between the excitement and stress of the encounter and the potential to lose characters that have been important to their narrative play. That's sportsmanship. They're acknowledging that it's a game, they're not always going to be winning it, that it's not personal, and they're modeling gracefully accepting when things don't go their way for their viewers.

 

[nevin]

I feel like the min-maxed and rules lawyer became one during the post TSR era, and before those were two distinct categories of player

Oh no. the min-max players were min maxing with gear during TSR era, especially if they played same character with multiple DM's. Or using Dragon, white wolf, other magazines to get more possibilities approved. The Rules Lawyers were busy pulling out the DMG and the players handbooks and arguing about the badly written rules and arguing in the spaces between. (there just wasn't as much to argue about but those types of players were alive and kicking back in the day. )

 

[billd91]

Oh no. the min-max players were min maxing with gear during TSR era, especially if they played same character with multiple DM's. Or using Dragon, white wolf, other magazines to get more possibilities approved. The Rules Lawyers were busy pulling out the DMG and the players handbooks and arguing about the badly written rules and arguing in the spaces between. (there just wasn't as much to argue about but those types of players were alive and kicking back in the day. )

I would agree in the sense that the min-maxer crowd and rules lawyer always had some overlap. But I might argue that once magic item creation became an easily manipulable, player facing rule, the overlap became larger and more pronounced.

 

[nevin]

of course every new system every new rule increases that issue. less is more if you don't want those types of players.