How do I deal with a rule lawyer?

[Calico_Jack73]

Personally I don't mind having a Rules Lawyer in my group. I don't have the time or desire to sit down and memorize every rule from the PHB, DMG, or from any number of splatbooks. It works best when if I am fuzzy on a rule I can turn to the RL and ask them what the rule is on a particular subject and they save me from having to stop the game to look up the rule. It especially helps when I have other players who will blurt out that they want their character to do something but haven't taken it upon themselves to look up the rule even though they may have been sitting there 5 to 10 minutes waiting for me to come around to them. If I am DMing I am responsible for the actions of the NPCs... the least the players could do would be to learn the rules that pertain to their characters. I don't know how many times I've heard a player tell me that they want to Bull Rush or Grapple an enemy and then sit there dumbfounded when I ask them to make their roll or they immediately reply "What do I roll for that?". You are the one wanting to do said action... you look up the rule!

Sorry if I got off on a rant.

 

[DM-Rocco]

DMG pg 6, under “What is a DM?” and “Adjudicating”

“When everyone gathers around the table to play the game, you’re in charge. That doesn’t mean you can tell people what to do outside the boundaries of the game, but it does mean that you’re the final arbiter of the rules within the game. Good player will always recognize that you have ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superseding something in a rulebook.”

It goes on to provide guidelines on changing the rules, etc.

So pretty much it does state that the DM is always right (using different words) becasue he is the final arbiter of any rules and can supercede the written ones too.


Chap 1 of the DMG gives some good guidance on how to be a DM, including how to deal with players and rules.

Chapter 1 of the DMG II gives more guidance on running a game.

Ya beat me to it.

Obviously I simplified it, but it is basically the samething. Back in the early days of dragon, Gary would say the same thing and I even recall reading it on the old AD&D books too. Anyway, the DM shouldn't be a dink. He is a story teller with rules as guidlines for the players to follow. If he changes one or two thing, it is his right to make the rules fit the story.

I don't want to steal this thread, so I won't say more on it. There have been plenty of THE DM IS RIGHT thread out there without having to turn this into one too.

 

[+5 Keyboard!]

Personally I don't mind having a Rules Lawyer in my group. I don't have the time or desire to sit down and memorize every rule from the PHB, DMG, or from any number of splatbooks. It works best when if I am fuzzy on a rule I can turn to the RL and ask them what the rule is on a particular subject and they save me from having to stop the game to look up the rule. It especially helps when I have other players who will blurt out that they want their character to do something but haven't taken it upon themselves to look up the rule even though they may have been sitting there 5 to 10 minutes waiting for me to come around to them. If I am DMing I am responsible for the actions of the NPCs... the least the players could do would be to learn the rules that pertain to their characters. I don't know how many times I've heard a player tell me that they want to Bull Rush or Grapple an enemy and then sit there dumbfounded when I ask them to make their roll or they immediately reply "What do I roll for that?". You are the one wanting to do said action... you look up the rule!

I see we've had some of the same players

 

[DM-Rocco]

Personally I don't mind having a Rules Lawyer in my group. I don't have the time or desire to sit down and memorize every rule from the PHB, DMG, or from any number of splatbooks. It works best when if I am fuzzy on a rule I can turn to the RL and ask them what the rule is on a particular subject and they save me from having to stop the game to look up the rule. It especially helps when I have other players who will blurt out that they want their character to do something but haven't taken it upon themselves to look up the rule even though they may have been sitting there 5 to 10 minutes waiting for me to come around to them. If I am DMing I am responsible for the actions of the NPCs... the least the players could do would be to learn the rules that pertain to their characters. I don't know how many times I've heard a player tell me that they want to Bull Rush or Grapple an enemy and then sit there dumbfounded when I ask them to make their roll or they immediately reply "What do I roll for that?". You are the one wanting to do said action... you look up the rule!

Sorry if I got off on a rant.

NP, go ahead and rant, but would it hurt you to use a comma, or hit the enter button every once and a while

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I quite agree, but advising notjer to summarily "kick the guy out" isn't the way to address it.

Honestly since niether you or I are there at notjer's game we have no idea what REALLY goes on there OTHER than what notjer tells us. So we go by what notjer tells us and to me it seems like Ruleslawyer is being an a** and needs to find another game. You feel otherwise, great. If it were my game and he was being an a** he'd be gone. You apparently would humor him. Good for you, glad you have the patience and the time for people like that. I do not.

is why notjer should pull the ruleslawyer aside and talk to him about their concerns, instead of talking behind his back and summarily kicking him out.

So basically you object to notjer posting here for some kind of 3rd party feedback? Really? 'Cause I can only guess that's what youre alluding to by the "talking behind his back" comment. As far as kicking him out goes, I guess that's really for the DM to decide, but then again if it's not bothering the DM it's not really that big of an issue. I know that it would irk the hell out of me and D00d would be gone.

. Which is why notjer should talk to the guy. Is acting like a jerk and kicking him out without talking to him somehow justified because he takes exception to the DM bending the rules? We still don't know how often or how dramatically the DM bends them, and until we do know, or until notjer and DM seriously consider it, we shouldn't prescribe kicking the a** out.

We should go by what we were told by the OP until a time where the other involved parties show up to say something different. You want to read into the situation and take the side of a party who hasnt represented themselves here yet, go ahead. I'm giving the OP the benefit of a doubt and from what the OP posted it seems like this guy is being an a**.

You know that this has happened? I don't; that's why I was asking questions instead of saying "kick him out".

Yeah, you'll note I used the word "if" in my response there. As I said before we only know what has happened based on what the op posted. That's why I used "if".

Very philantrhopic.

I try my best.

 

[Felix]

So basically you object to notjer posting here for some kind of 3rd party feedback? Really? 'Cause I can only guess that's what youre alluding to by the "talking behind his back" comment.

I object to a player and DM talking about player #2 and kicking him out without talking to player #2. Which is exactly what you suggested when you told him to kick him out.

You want to read into the situation and take the side of a party who hasnt represented themselves here yet, go ahead.

I suggest the OP ask himself questions that he may not have thought of. Do you think he should put so little thought into kicking someone out of his gaming group? He came here to expound on his problem and find out about the best way to deal with his friend.

I'm giving the OP the benefit of a doubt and from what the OP posted it seems like this guy is being an a**.

The OP is here to defend himself and clarify his position. The "a**" isn't. Why shouldn't the accused be given the benefit of the doubt? Is he guilty until proven innocent?

 

[Storm Raven]

I have been playing with some guys lately (as a PC) and I was wondering at the end: How do I deal with the rule lawyer in our game?

The Rule lawyer in our game is a guy who read rules all the time and always claim that the DM's NPC is overpowered and he cheats too much, however if he just knew the DM better, then he would know that the DM most of the time cheat because otherwise we would be dead. He gloats a lot when the DM does a minor faul with the rules and he tries to make the rules favor his own situation. Also he is a very bad roleplayer, we have a nickname for him: Butosei the manslayer (from a movie called bishomu or something like that), mainly because he does very screwed things which make no sense at all and metagame a lot. What to do with that kind of guy?

That's not a rules lawyer. That is a jerk. I try to avoid gaming with jerks.

But don't tar the image of rules lawyers by lumping them in with this guy.

 

[notjer]

Because of my poor English, I have a hard time to explain myself and the situation, but I will give it a try.

Our DM has 10 years of experience with D&D, AD&D, warhammer rpg, world of darkness and so on. he prefere warhammer due to the more realistic rules compared to D&D and he also tries to make as less rolls as possible due to the flow and realism. He is very good when it comes to be creative with NPC design and personality and he thinks fast, which makes the world very realistic because he is able to jump from one personality to another without breaking the flow.

Our DM doesnt 'cheat' a lot. Maybe one or two times in a session (3-4 hours) he change the dice result. He doesnt try to save us if we do stupid things. If someone blows an alchemy shop without reason and is seen by people the DM won't save him with such stupid actions, but tries to roleplay it as realistic.

There was a episode where butosei saw that our DM rolled a 18 with a rapier. The person would die if he made a critical above 3 dmg on the dice and it would ruin the game a bit. He took it as a 16 on the dice, however, butosei the manslayer saw that it was a critical and the PC died due to that and butosei was happy.

Butosei doesnt ruleplay, he rolls dices and his character is more or less without personality, but made of pure rules = true aligment: metagaming chatoic neutral (chaotic due to crazy actions).

The rule lawyer really destroyed the flow in the campaign I just played with him and both the DM and I was very confused after talking about our campaign which was very chaotic because of bending rule lawyer - butosei the manslayer.

I would say my DM is very good, actually the best DM I ever had, however he doesnt know, neither do I, know how to deal with butosei. We would really like to have him in our group but what the heck should we do, we dont know yet. Thanks for the advice untill now, I really appreciate that.

 

[delericho]

DMG pg 6, under “What is a DM?” and “Adjudicating”

“When everyone gathers around the table to play the game, you’re in charge. That doesn’t mean you can tell people what to do outside the boundaries of the game, but it does mean that you’re the final arbiter of the rules within the game. Good player will always recognize that you have ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superseding something in a rulebook.”

"Final arbiter" != "Always right". To use an extreme counter-example, a DM could rule, in the middle of an encounter, that the Power Attack feat now works differently than it did in the previous round for no good reason.

A DM who makes bad call after bad call will find himself without players in short order. If the DM was always right, there would be no such thing as a bad call... and that is not supported in print.

 

[delericho]

Our DM has 10 years of experience with D&D, AD&D, warhammer rpg, world of darkness and so on. he prefere warhammer due to the more realistic rules compared to D&D and he also tries to make as less rolls as possible due to the flow and realism.

D&D may not be the best game for him, because so much of the ruleset isn't realistic, and the game, if run close to as-written, will always be dice-heavy.

Our DM doesnt 'cheat' a lot. Maybe one or two times in a session (3-4 hours) he change the dice result.

If it's one or two times every session, that may well count as "a lot". More importantly, though...

There was a episode where butosei saw that our DM rolled a 18 with a rapier. The person would die if he made a critical above 3 dmg on the dice and it would ruin the game a bit. He took it as a 16 on the dice, however, butosei the manslayer saw that it was a critical and the PC died due to that and butosei was happy.

If the DM wants to retain the option of changing dice rolls, he really needs to make sure players don't see the rolls.

Also, was that 18 on the attack roll, or the critical confirmation roll? Is your group aware that just rolling an '18' with a rapier isn't an automatic critical?

(Oh, and frankly, I would argue that if it was a critical, then it's better if the PC dies. Otherwise, you're not far from a game where the PCs can't lose, and that loses a lot of edge from the game.)

I would say my DM is very good, actually the best DM I ever had, however he doesnt know, neither do I, know how to deal with butosei.

There are two ways to deal with this guy:

1) Run the game RAW right down the middle. He can't rule-lawyer the thing if all the rules are being applied.

2) The DM needs to speak to him, man to man, and explain that he's running the game, not the player. He's going to adjudicate the rules, the adventure and the setting with a view towards fairness and fun for everyone... but he might not stick entirely within the RAW. As such, he would appreciate it if the player didn't question him at every turn. Of course, if the player can't live with that, then he's free to find a different group...