Gamer Law

moritheil said:
Presently, yes. Do you believe that's enough to turn it into an actual profession, the way that canon law is?

Are you kidding me?

If you turn Gamer Law into a profession, we'd have to start taking it seriously... And where's the Fun in that? You wouldn't have anything left worth arguing over.
 

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Pbartender said:
Are you kidding me?

If you turn Gamer Law into a profession, we'd have to start taking it seriously... And where's the Fun in that? You wouldn't have anything left worth arguing over.

While it's statistically shown that lawyers get less satisfaction out of their jobs than those in certain other professions, I'm not sure I would equate taking something seriously with not having any fun . . . many people take their weekly games very seriously and have a blast.

Certainly it's valid to bring that up as a concern. Does a pro gamer no longer have any fun playing games?
 

Again, as Henry stated, it is valuables.

Canon law, your soul is at stake. Business law, money is.

Gaming law ... meh. I roll up a new character/change groups/begin DMing.

Also, even in multi-million (billion?) dollar gaming industries (football, anyone) there isn't a body of interpretive law. You have refs, and an overarching league with the mandate to make decisions. Eventually some business cases might make it to court, but despite all the money at stake there isn't a school of football law.

Despite looking a lot alike, terms "rules lawyer" and "gaming law," are utterly removed from one another. IMO, we'll have a league of "RPG authority X" long, long, long, long before we have "Duckbert, RPG Attorney at Law."
 

moritheil said:
Presently, yes. Do you believe that's enough to turn it into an actual profession, the way that canon law is?

Lawyers provide a service. I am not about to pay someone to make rules decisions for me. :)

So, no call for a profession yet.
 

Filcher said:
Again, as Henry stated, it is valuables.

Canon law, your soul is at stake. Business law, money is.

Gaming law ... meh. I roll up a new character/change groups/begin DMing.

Also, even in multi-million (billion?) dollar gaming industries (football, anyone) there isn't a body of interpretive law. You have refs, and an overarching league with the mandate to make decisions. Eventually some business cases might make it to court, but despite all the money at stake there isn't a school of football law.

Despite looking a lot alike, terms "rules lawyer" and "gaming law," are utterly removed from one another. IMO, we'll have a league of "RPG authority X" long, long, long, long before we have "Duckbert, RPG Attorney at Law."

Interesting. So then, what caused money to be spent on professional referees for sports? Just the appearance of prize money?
 


moritheil said:
Interesting. So then, what caused money to be spent on professional referees for sports? Just the appearance of prize money?

Not prize money, necessarily. Just large quantities of money in general. The NCAA is a body which doesn't give out anything in the way of prize money to winning teams, but you can be sure they've got a body of certified refs who they consider capable of judging games fairly and pay them to do so. However, the entities comprising the NCAA pay huge sums of money supporting their teams. Salaries for a head coach can be several million dollars a year, plus another few million for his staff, including doctors and trainers. There is also millions that go into construction and maintenance of a stadium and the staffing needed to operate the stadium on gameday. Then you have travel costs...

So these teams have a significant outlay that they need to justify to their owners, the universities they represent, and the only way to do that is to have attendance numbers and donations that make the teams either capable of being reasonably self-supporting or even profitable for the universities, else the universities will be forced to shut them down as they would detract too significantly from what they judge to be their central mission.

If there are too many scandals about judging, fans will not come, because people like to see what they feel are balanced contests, and judging which seems to favor one side too heavily will distort fans feelings about that and slowly sap the fanbase of members. So they have economic incentives that strongly favor creating a group of judges which make decisions fairly and accurately, and who keep up with the frequent and often esoteric rules changes meant to try and keep play fair, safe, and enjoyable. This is something most people can't do; these judges must consult precedent when in difficult situations and memorize very jargon-filled rulebooks several hundred to even a few thousand pages long, and distill the result down to make their decisions, which is a task somewhat similar to being a judge and jury combined. The difficulty combined with the need ensures that leagues are willing to pay people to be officials and will do so from the league's coffers rather than those of the individual teams, to better protect the officials from prejudice or accusations of impropriety.

In smaller leagues, like say kiddie amateur sports leagues, the need is less and we see part time, unpaid refs who may or may not know all of the rules, but who are generally expected to know more about the rules than everyone else.
 

In that situation the money comes from spectators. So you're suggesting that if DnD were a spectator sport, much more attention would be paid to the rules and professional referees might come into being.

Interesting, and that does take it in a different direction from the initial suggestions.
 

moritheil said:
In that situation the money comes from spectators. So you're suggesting that if DnD were a spectator sport, much more attention would be paid to the rules and professional referees might come into being.

Interesting, and that does take it in a different direction from the initial suggestions.
I wonder if spectators would pay to watch / read people argue about the rules. That's a much more direct way to get money for "legal advice".

"Will Fight For Food", -- N
 

Nifft said:
I wonder if spectators would pay to watch / read people argue about the rules. That's a much more direct way to get money for "legal advice".

"Will Fight For Food", -- N

We do already, in a way; we listen to sports commentators all the time. At the top level, most are people who would already be familiar with the rules, (ex-players and ex-coaches) and at the mid-range level, like say a major newspaper, most probably keep copies of the rulebook themselves and consult it if they're confused about the ruling. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't argue that the ref was wrong, but networks make a lot of money hiring sports analysts.

moritheil said:
In that situation the money comes from spectators. So you're suggesting that if DnD were a spectator sport, much more attention would be paid to the rules and professional referees might come into being.

Interesting, and that does take it in a different direction from the initial suggestions.

More like if D&D were a popular, money-making spectator sport. If it didn't make much money, the refs are still likely to be unpaid.
 

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