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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8748231" data-attributes="member: 4937">For all your taking issue and disagreeing, you just described the process of rules codification that I just described.  I mean you outlined a set of steps that described how rulings become rules and never really tried to defend your claim of the potential difference.  I mean literally the same process can happen with a rule.  A fair and impartial DM might look at to the rules that explicitly cover a table situation and then say, "You know, I know what the RAW say, but I don't think this is really fair.  Let's use the rules like this for now and move on, and then revisit it when we have time to think it through in more detail beyond this specific instance".  Then later when the rules are returned to between sessions, the table and the DM can decide if they can think of a ruling that might be better, or if the "good enough for now" RAW will stay in place until further examples come in.That has everything to do with increasing codification of the game whether you have as a starting point in rules or rulings.Whim or tyranny doesn't come into play in that because you basically described the sort of process I'm thinking of.  Whim or tyranny comes into play when the GM issues a ruling on how a situation will be handled (using Rule Zero), then proceeds to overrule himself when the situation comes up (again, using Rule Zero), without consulting the rest of the table (which admittedly he has the right to do), and with no apparent rhyme or reason to his rulings so that the table couldn't predict the next time the situation comes up what the rules will be.  No of course there is a difference between a rule and a ruling in that you can know the rule before it happens but not the ruling, but my point is that once you have a rule it becomes a known rule because you've experienced it.   The fact that you had the DM explain that the ruling was temporary and conditional is itself part of the ruling so that the player knows what the rule is likely to be in the future.  You DM is actually like putting a marker here on the ruling to say, "I need a rule.  I don't know if this is it.  Please don't be upset if I change the ruling.", precisely because the hypothetical DM understands at some level what I've just outlined.</blockquote>

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