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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 1144974" data-attributes="member: 2011">Here is the thing.Rules are supposed to be there to assist DMs and players in understanding the events in the game. Effectively, they are a model so that DMs and players can make sense of the game in a consistent manner.If they fail to do that, then you either have to just live with it and move on, or you have to adjust them so that they do make sense to you.Both the "perceived threat" and "actual interference" ideas are ways to interpret the rules. The first one is an idea to interpret the rules in a consistent manner for when certain rules do not make sense. In other words, the idea is to make sense of and attempt to "correct" certain specific nonsensical rules. The second one is an idea to interpret the rules in a consistent manner which agrees 100% with the rules as written. It is a metagaming (which is not a bad word btw) interpretation so that people can understand the rule. But, it is not an interpretation that necessarily fits all circumstances in the game and makes them clear from a common sense point of view. It is one which makes the rule itself all important, not the interpretation of what the rule represents.Kind of a "because that is the way it works" interpretation.And, there is nothing wrong with that if that is ok for you and your players. If it is not ok, then you might want to look for an interpretation that better fits what makes sense for you and your players.I'll give an example from when DND 3E first came out. We had a group of second edition DND players who converted over to 3E.One of the players was a bit hide bound with the 2E rules and had a real problem with the 3E rules. Partially because they were different, but partially because some of them just did not make any sense to him. In fact, he quit gaming completely because 3E did not make sense to him and nobody wanted to play 2E anymore.One rule that did not make sense is the concept of no facing. All of us 3E players who have played the game for 3 years really do not have a problem with this rule. We have absorbed it into our culture and it has become just part and parcel of how the game is played.But, it is TOTALLY nonsensical. The ability to defend in all directions with a shield makes zero sense. The ability to defend from behind, just as well as from in front makes zero sense. The ability to defend simultaneous equally as well against every opponent surrounding you makes zero sense.But from an ease of play perspective, it makes a lot of sense and the "reality of it" becomes less important.My point here is that it is extremely easy to start adapting an interpretation of the rules which does make sense, based on the rules themselves and not based on what would really make sense if you were actually standing there in the game as a "real character".If you were actually standing there and originally came from our universe to the game universe, it would be bizarre that you defend from behind, just as well as you defend from in front. It would be bizarre that illusions did not really appear threatening. It would be bizarre when someone attacking you was suddenly inexplicitly doing 4 times as much damage (and later on, you found out it was because someone was hiding or invisible behind you, even though behind does not matter "in the game"). It would be bizarre to take twice as much damage from a 20 foot fall than a 10 foot one and four times as much damage from a 40 foot fall than a 10 foot fall (3E rules, not sure of 3.5 ones). It would be bizarre that one person could fall 500 feet and walk away from it and another person could fall 10 feet and die.The ability to separate these two (an interpretation based on the rules versus an interpretation based on common sense) sometimes becomes difficult, especially when we play the game for a long time and become "set in our ways". For example, I doubt that many posters here have thought about the lack of facing issue for a long time, but when the books first came out, it was one of the first issues that was on peoples minds a lot.</blockquote>

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