Does 3/3.5E cause more "rule arguments" than earlier editions?

[FireLance]

"It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. Never hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, if it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters given in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Volumes, you are the creator and final arbiter."
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons "Dungeon Masters Guide", 1979

Ah yes, the "divine right of DMs". I've asked the following question a few times before, but I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer.

Why do some people continue to view a DM who retains the right to change the rules of the game as superior to one who decides to accept the rules as written and work within them?

 

[EricNoah]

The current version of the game somewhat requires the participants to have a better knowledge of the rules, and rewards those who do. Memorization, or ability to quickly look up rules, or the ability to "think like WotC" and reinvent similar rules based on the spirit of the existing rules, is a key skill for this edition.

Earlier versions of the game required the DM to be better at making up an appropriate rule on the spot, and rewarded players who could think of clever ways to put the DM on the spot to come up with such. Improvisation is a key skill in these versions.

However, both versions actually required (or rewarded) extensive rules knowledge, and I believe both versions do in fact reward the ability to improvise at rules-creation. I think there are a lot of 3.x players/DMs who -- because they don't know a particular rule at a particular moment -- use rules improvisation freely and to fine effect in their 3.x games. So, in reality (in my opinion) there's room for both kinds of gamers, in 3.x games.

When rules knowledge clashes with rules improvisation, you get conflict in the game. Rules-knowers will shout, "You're just making that up because you're too dumb to remember the real rule," while rules-improvisers will shout, "You're uncreative and the game is uncreative, it reads like a law textbook." And in fact both sides have some pretty valid points.

 

[diaglo]

same people same arguments.

dead equine. stick. beat until done.

 

[Shadeydm]

V3.x fosters and rewards those who like to number crunch and reduces the game to counting squares and adding bonuses while becoming less and less about improvisation and creativity... yay so much fun. The game is becoming more and more like Miniature Wargaming and less like the game I grew up playing in 80s.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

I personally agree with posters above like the vampire mouse and Hussar.

1. Rule questions may be more common because there are so many more rules.

2. Rule questions tend to be much shorter and more definitive because the rules are integrated so well. [Complements to WotC authors and playtesters, truly]

3. Any system develops hot button issues over topics that the rules specifically disallow but a large people feel the rule is wrong: See any paladin/alignment thread as an example. <--- Just saying this may get me banned! {kidding, of course!}

4. Any system develops hot button topics over rules that are vague and clarifications of the rules simply muddy the water: See any monks/INA thread for example.



But other than that, I would say that the majority of rule debates are rather quick. I mean, look how long the average thread is on a forum like General where people can talk about anything versus a thread in Rules. Threads n General often grow to multiple pages in matters of hours. Thread in rules (so long as they aren't about paladins or monks) generally don't even get to a second page. That is because the rules of 3.x are so integrated that if the rule is specifically clear enough to give a page number then it doesn't take long for people to point out the ramifications.

Personally, I followed the link yesterday on the main page of ENWorld to the thread regarding the Mystic Theurge PrC. I was curious about what the authors had to say. That lead me to the "Reads Good/Plays Bad" section of the WotC site where I found this gem of a paragraph:

But to me, the interesting thing wasn’t who was “right” or whether the class was broken. The interesting thing was that in the space of three years, we’d created such discerning, balance-conscious gamers—that we’d trained you guys to read a prestige class and quickly assess whether the power level was appropriate. That speaks volumes about the health of the game. When people resisted the mystic theurge, they did so because we’d trained them to expect a certain pattern in a spellcasting class.

Wizards and the authors there have already identified this and are proud of it. We should be to. This current incarnation of the game is about a streamlined set of rules that gives people guidelines of balance. Because the rules are so integrated, people can have legitimate expectations. I think that's a good thing.

While there may be more rule discussions, I think the discussions are far more healthy than in the past.

 

[Odhanan]

Well, I do remember rules arguments while playing 1st edition. I think there were just as much discussions. Some discussions were about rules terms, specific spell uses, and so on and so forth.

Now, these are more or less the same debates, but they all take the "speech" of third edition as a back-up. "Balanced", "broken" and so on.

The internet and the exposition and connection of many players brought together sure has something to do with the perceived augmentation of the number of rules debates, too. What I don't like about debates on the internet, particularly, is that the debates are often in a vaccuum, speaking about the "RAW" and discarding interpretations because "they don't fit the RAW". Any ruleset requires interpretations on the spot. Any RAW is just plain theory and a tool one should use for particular, practical circumstances in-game. Any rules argument based solely on theory is, in my opinion, useless, to be frank.

I'm not a fan of rules debates, obviously. I prefer playing the game.

 

[erc1971]

I answer is a resounding "Hell yes!"

Just last week, our characters made it to level 14. This is the highest level I have ever legitimately played. (Played higher before, just never legit advancement of the character)

The last 5 or 6 sessions we have had, we spent about 50% of the time playing, and 50% of the time arguing over rules. It is horrible. Everyone pulls open thier books, cross references tons of little obscure rules, argues over thigs they found, argues over poorly written and ambiguous spell descriptions (damn, there are ALOT of those!!!!!!), and no one ends up happy with the final decision. And this happens almost anytime a caster uses one of the new, high level spells that you don't ever see in the lower level games.

Ugh.

It is tearing our group apart. I don't think we will continue with this current campaign much longer, not without taking a break and playing 1st level for a while anyways. I don't think it would be out of the realm of possibility that all these high level rules could cause the breakup of our group.

I am close to ditching D&D for a while and playing the lovely rules lite version called Castles and Crusades that we use in my secondary gaming group.

Eric

 

[erc1971]

To add something a little more useful to my prior post...

3E is more rules-intensive--and it is not.

(Gee, Ari, that was useful.)

Let me explain. 1st and 2nd edition were downright ponderous when it came to rules. Weapon speed factors. Modifiers to AC based on armor vs. type of weapon. Movement measured in inches, which might mean feet or it might mean yards. A separate system not merely for grappling, but all unarmed combat. And so on, and so forth.

Thing is, in all my years of playing, I never met anyone who used every rule in those games. Heck, I don't think I ever met anyone who knew all of them.

3E may or may not be any more rules-heavy, but it is more rules-integrated. People, IME, are less comfortable ignoring certain aspects of the rules, because doing so can have a ripple effect that you simply didn't see in older editions. This doesn't mean people can't ignore the rules; it just means they're less likely to, and that doing so requires more work.

So, while the game as written may not be any more rules-heavy than prior editions, the game as played often turns out that way.

Quoted for lots and lots of truth.

Damn, what a well written post!

 

[Odhanan]

Sounds to me that's there's something wrong with the players, not the game, Eric. Maybe you need to have a discussion with them, or maybe the DM isn't asserting his/her authority enough at the game table (I wouldn't condone arguments like this for long at my game table), and if that doesn't work, maybe they need a break from D&D indeed.

 

[erc1971]

Sounds to me that's there's something wrong with the players, not the game, Eric. Maybe you need to have a discussion with them, or maybe the DM isn't asserting his/her authority enough at the game table (I wouldn't condone arguments like this for long at my game table), and if that doesn't work, maybe they need a break from D&D indeed.

The DM is quite frustrated and burnt out trying to make sense of the rules, just like the rest of us. With so many rules flying at him, he can't keep everything straight (who could?!), and by the end of the night, he is so frustrated with people correcting him, he starts getting angry by the 20th time he is corrected. With everyone at the table getting more and more frustrated each time we play, tempers flare quicker, which snowballs into even more frustration.

Our current group has been together for more than 2 years - we never had this problem until playing at these high levels in D&D 3.5 (I have played higher in previous editions, never had this issue). Our last campaign stopped about a level or 2 short of where we are now, as we started running into the same issues - but this time we are playing through the Shackled City Adventure Path, and the DM really wants to complete it, which will take us to level 20, oh, the pain I can imagine with the rules then!

And yes, we need to take a break to cool down a bit I have been talking with the DM and other players about that already.

Eric