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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andor" data-source="post: 4158329" data-attributes="member: 1879">I truly do not know what you are trying to say here. Could you clarify?There are only two ways for a player to perceive the world his character exists in. One is the rules, the other is the people he plays with, especially the GM. Of course not. This isn't a discussion of good vs bad rules. It's a discussion of the meaning of the rules in the context of the game world.I think you are conflating two things here. One is house rules, which I think are a great thing. The other is a GM ruling for a situation which the rules cover poorly or not at all. While I think house rules are a great thing I think they should be presented at the start of a campaign, which shows that the GM has a clear idea of how and why he wants to alter the game. When house rules keep appearing midsession it is rarely a good sign in my experience. As far as cutting a throat goes the rules do in fact address that exact circumstance. It's call a <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#coupdeGrace" target="_blank">coup de grace.</a> As a player in your game I would be very puzzled why you would feel the need to make a new mechanic to cover an existing rule on the fly rather than in your pre-game house rules packet.I have no desire at all to turn this into a 'are hp real or abstract' argument, but I will note that if the D&D hp mechanics are prone to leading to that kind of confusion between you and your players then they are a very poor mechanic for the type of game you like to play. Because of this you are forced to say "In spite of the fact that these are the rules, there will be times when I feel they do not apply and I will use some other rules which I might make up on the fly." This will lead to uncertainty and confusion on the part of your players and possibly the characters. Confusion that would not be there if you played as if the rules were the physical rules of the game world. I dislike that confusion and thus prefer to play in games with clearly spelled out rules. Of course the players should engage the GM about the playstyle and rules of the game. I thought I had made that very clear. What you don't seem to understand is that I see no difference between a house rule and a published rule. They both tell me how things work. If instead of clear rules or guidelines the GM make a lot of 'look and feel' comments then I am left with a much vaguer notion of how things work in that world. It may be more accurate than the clear but wrong impresson I had from the written rules, but it is still vague and leaves both me and my character less sure.</blockquote>

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