Psion
Adventurer
Re: Reply from the "3E Promotes Imagination" Thread
This may allude to something said earlier in the thread, but it sounds to me like the problem may be that your players are hinging on their rules empowerment a little too strongly.
What I think you need (though I have missed some details, as I haven't kept up with this thread since the self destruction of the other thread) is a bit of GROUP policy. Some have prescribed trying something else, but you say you like D&D, so the only solution if this is your problem is to deal with the rules wrangling directly.
Rules debates have not been a big deal in my game, but I generally make a quick ruling if I cannot find the rule quickly and worry about the way to really do it. Then, after the game, I familiarize myself with the way that the rule is supposed to go (and make any adjustments) so I don't have to deal with the problem in the future. Through this method, I have been able to minimize any rules bickering.
It sounds to me like either or both you have an obsessive need to do things by the book (as I do), or you have some aggressive rules lawyers. That being the case, it sounds like you need to clearly set forth that if a rule takes more than a minute to resolve or argue, you make a spot ruling and resolve the details after the game... period. The flow of the game is more important than the letter of the law, generally. You might make exceptions where the life of death of a PC hinge on it. (For example, in my last game, I had a player fail both saves for a phantasmal killer by 1 point, and I gave him a moment to MAKE SURE he didn't have a +1 to a save hiding somewhere, as I am loath to reverse such a significant event after the fact.) But wrangling over rules where the outcome is not significant is not worth the time invested.
Another policy I have is that mistakes are final. For example, in the last session, I totally forgot that the area I was in was a "chaos magic" zone, and I forgot to inflict it on the spells. I just remembered it for all future spells in the area. No big loss, as it was perfectly possible that they would have made their spellcraft checks anyways.
At any rate, to detour from the problem solving aspect of this thread and back to the defending D&D bit, I find that I have to worry about this type of stuff far less in 3e than before, simply because of convetions like the consistent core system and the named-bonuses convention, usually most little arguments become obvious. Things like
Tom Cashel said:
This may allude to something said earlier in the thread, but it sounds to me like the problem may be that your players are hinging on their rules empowerment a little too strongly.
What I think you need (though I have missed some details, as I haven't kept up with this thread since the self destruction of the other thread) is a bit of GROUP policy. Some have prescribed trying something else, but you say you like D&D, so the only solution if this is your problem is to deal with the rules wrangling directly.
Rules debates have not been a big deal in my game, but I generally make a quick ruling if I cannot find the rule quickly and worry about the way to really do it. Then, after the game, I familiarize myself with the way that the rule is supposed to go (and make any adjustments) so I don't have to deal with the problem in the future. Through this method, I have been able to minimize any rules bickering.
It sounds to me like either or both you have an obsessive need to do things by the book (as I do), or you have some aggressive rules lawyers. That being the case, it sounds like you need to clearly set forth that if a rule takes more than a minute to resolve or argue, you make a spot ruling and resolve the details after the game... period. The flow of the game is more important than the letter of the law, generally. You might make exceptions where the life of death of a PC hinge on it. (For example, in my last game, I had a player fail both saves for a phantasmal killer by 1 point, and I gave him a moment to MAKE SURE he didn't have a +1 to a save hiding somewhere, as I am loath to reverse such a significant event after the fact.) But wrangling over rules where the outcome is not significant is not worth the time invested.
Another policy I have is that mistakes are final. For example, in the last session, I totally forgot that the area I was in was a "chaos magic" zone, and I forgot to inflict it on the spells. I just remembered it for all future spells in the area. No big loss, as it was perfectly possible that they would have made their spellcraft checks anyways.
At any rate, to detour from the problem solving aspect of this thread and back to the defending D&D bit, I find that I have to worry about this type of stuff far less in 3e than before, simply because of convetions like the consistent core system and the named-bonuses convention, usually most little arguments become obvious. Things like
