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<blockquote data-quote="Aging Bard" data-source="post: 8288959" data-attributes="member: 7030944">The more you want to play an RPG as a game (and not a story), and to play skillfully (back to your OP), the more you need to convert rulings into rules that you carry into future play. Skillful play requires an understanding of opportunities and odds, and if these are inconsistent, the game boils down to convincing the GM to do what you want each time (Rule of Cool falls under this). I can understand some people preferring this latter style of play, but I don't.If your players are constantly asking to swing from chandeliers, then you ought to have a rule to do that so that they know the risks and rewards. Crazy one-off requests probably don't need a rule. A compromise to making lots of new rules from rulings is to make the mechanic for rulings foreseeable.&nbsp; This is not a perfect example, but a group could agree that any action that requires a ruling will first be ruled as some kind of ability check. This provides foreseeability as to the mechanic, and probably the ability score as well, so the player can think ahead.Here's a question I have, as I truly do not have enough experience with 5e to know the answer. The whole &quot;5e is easy for new players to play&quot; pitch is partially based upon the modularity and optionality of various 5e rulesets. Is it also the case that the return of rulings to 5e is also being used to simply avoid having to learn all the rules? We know that players will happily learns rules they like (character creation, combat), and if a player requests to do something complex, the DM can always default to ruling a DC check of some kind instead. That would be a new form of ruling if it is taking place, at least compared to older styles of play.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Aging Bard, post: 8288959, member: 7030944"] The more you want to play an RPG as a [I]game[/I] (and not a story), and to play skillfully (back to your OP), the more you need to[I] convert rulings into rules[/I] that you carry into future play. Skillful play requires an understanding of opportunities and odds, and if these are inconsistent, the game boils down to convincing the GM to do what you want each time (Rule of Cool falls under this). I can understand some people preferring this latter style of play, but I don't. If your players are constantly asking to swing from chandeliers, then you ought to have a rule to do that so that they know the risks and rewards. Crazy one-off requests probably don't need a rule. A compromise to making lots of new rules from rulings is to make the [I]mechanic[/I] for rulings foreseeable. This is not a perfect example, but a group could agree that any action that requires a ruling will first be ruled as some kind of ability check. This provides foreseeability as to the mechanic, and probably the ability score as well, so the player can think ahead. Here's a question I have, as I truly do not have enough experience with 5e to know the answer. The whole "5e is easy for new players to play" pitch is partially based upon the modularity and optionality of various 5e rulesets. Is it also the case that the return of rulings to 5e is also being used to simply avoid having to learn all the rules? We know that players will happily learns rules they like (character creation, combat), and if a player requests to do something complex, the DM can always default to ruling a DC check of some kind instead. That would be a new form of ruling if it is taking place, at least compared to older styles of play. [/QUOTE]

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