Forked Thread: What is the purpose of the Rules forum?

[Jhaelen]

Forked from: Bronze Warder MALFUNCTION, MALFUNCTION..

Hmm ... how then would falling work?
Say there's a 5' square pit, 10' deep.
One guy falls in, then another guy (not an ally) falls in.

If it is an ally, there's no problem.

If it isn't an ally, he can't enter the first guy's square... [...]He doesn't fall in, because he can't enter the square the pit is in.

???
I have to admit, I'm really starting to wonder about the purpose of this forum.

Is it about helping others to find an appropriate ruling or is it just some kind of theoretical debate club?

I guess it's currently both, but I find myself getting more and more annoyed with the latter.

How about splitting the forum?

One forum for players looking for advice and seeking answers to rule questions and one for discussing propositional calculus based on the 4E rules?

Yeah, I know, this is the internet and all that, but I'm starting to feel like I entered some kind of bizzaro-reality instead of a forum about a role playing game. Are people really interested in that kind of discussion?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Moved to Meta.

-Hyp.
(Moderator)

 

[aurance]

Is it about helping others to find an appropriate ruling or is it just some kind of theoretical debate club?

I find that, most of the time, these two things are the same.

RAW in this case says enemies cannot fall into that cube. I found that information useful. Then I can go ahead and say, if something like this ever occurs, I'll make an exception to the RAW in favor of something I find more reasonable and logical - enemies *can* fall in.

I'm curious, what about this exchange did you find annoying? And what sort of answer or help would have satisfied you?

 

[Arnwyn]

???
I have to admit, I'm really starting to wonder about the purpose of this forum.

Is it about helping others to find an appropriate ruling or is it just some kind of theoretical debate club?

The first, until Hypersmurf becomes involved, in which it quickly becomes the second.

 

[Jhaelen]

I find that, most of the time, these two things are the same.

RAW in this case says enemies cannot fall into that cube. I found that information useful. Then I can go ahead and say, if something like this ever occurs, I'll make an exception to the RAW in favor of something I find more reasonable and logical - enemies *can* fall in.

I'm curious, what about this exchange did you find annoying? And what sort of answer or help would have satisfied you?

I only just realized my post was moved here - thanks for pointing that out, Hypersmurf!

The thing that I found annoying is that I've always been thinking the Rules forum was the place to go if you had a question about how to interpret the rules; i.e. the place to go if you were looking for advice.

It's been stated that looking at RAW was useful to establish a baseline for deciding on how to judge a given situation. My problem is that people tend to stop at that point, regardless if taking RAW literally makes any sense or not. You'll see things like 'It's perfectly clear by RAW, so what's the problem?'.
Take the example that was being discussed in the thread:
According to RAW it's not possible for an enemy to fall into a pit occupied by an ally.

Would any DM ever actually consider using that ruling in his/her game? I doubt it.

It's been pointed out that the answer to the question I'm looking for, i.e. a rule that I can actually use in my game would have to be asked in the house-rule forum.

I.e. it seems the intended approach would be to first ask my question in the 'Rules' forum to get an answer based on RAW that I'll never be able to use and then repost the question (maybe with the additional information about the RAW interpretation) in the 'House Rules' forum.
This strikes me as overly complicated and counter to the purpose of the 'Rules' forum.

Am I the only one to think so? Are people really satisified after being given the RAW interpretation? Or should I maybe just ignore the Rules forum and go straight to the House-Rules forum?

 

[Plane Sailing]

The thing that I found annoying is that I've always been thinking the Rules forum was the place to go if you had a question about how to interpret the rules; i.e. the place to go if you were looking for advice.

This is the correct purpose of the Rules forum.

The intention is for people to discuss ways of interpreting the rules. I personally find almost no value in considering what the "Rules as Written" might or might not say in a particular issue when people get down to attempting to parse the rules sentences to determine exactly what should or should not happen.

Some people obviously enjoy this, but it is not (and should not be) the default "setting" for the Rules forum.

The default is for people to talk about how they want to/plan to/would like to/ play the game, and to discuss different ways of interpreting rules.

House Rules is for whole new rules subsystems, new classes, major things like that.

We've periodically had problems with some people who think that "the Rules forum is about RAW and everything else is a houserule", and we've had to clamp down on that in the past.

If there is a situation where, say, a thread you've started has become dominated by a couple of people who get caught up in a RAW-mageddon discussion, please report the thread and we'll split those peoples discussion off into a separate place. In other peoples it may be that you'll just have to ignore those people for now.

Cheers

 

[Jhaelen]

The intention is for people to discuss ways of interpreting the rules. I personally find almost no value in considering what the "Rules as Written" might or might not say in a particular issue when people get down to attempting to parse the rules sentences to determine exactly what should or should not happen.

Some people obviously enjoy this, but it is not (and should not be) the default "setting" for the Rules forum.

Thanks! It's good to know, I'm not the only one who thinks so.

We've periodically had problems with some people who think that "the Rules forum is about RAW and everything else is a houserule", and we've had to clamp down on that in the past.

If there is a situation where, say, a thread you've started has become dominated by a couple of people who get caught up in a RAW-mageddon discussion, please report the thread and we'll split those peoples discussion off into a separate place. In other peoples it may be that you'll just have to ignore those people for now.

That's good to know. I'll keep it in mind and I'll try to stay calm when I get caught up in a thread turning into a 'RAW-mageddon' again.