Is the Rules Forum Becoming the Variant Rules Forum?

[diaglo]

Rtfm

 

[DonTadow]

Yeah, I was just talking about this with another gamer that its an irking trend. Someone posts for clarifications about a RAW ruling and everyone begins to post their homerule and why its better and more realistic, when, in essence, that was not what was originally asked.

I am/was in a thread recently where a guy asked how to rule on K:Locale, and despite a ton of RAW quotes, errata and comparsions with other skills, people where very adamant that their homerule/varient was not only the right way but the way it should read.

I"m all for theory conversations and debate but the rules forum is for rules RAW, not alternative variations or homerules or how realistic we can make a game with firebreathing dragons and talking lizards.

 

[jodyjohnson]

the rules forum is for rules RAW,

This forum is for debating RAW.

What does that have to do with RAW?

It would be nice if everyone posting did understand the purpose of the rules forum, which is to discuss the RAW

Got a reference for that? Maybe a quote from the Forum guidelines or description?

I'm just glad that the mods don't agree.

So to paraphrase, "Some of us would like this forum to be only about the RAW".

Kind of sounds like a forums 'house rule' without a RAW from the forum guidelines.

However, I'm glad to read the RAW rulings from the resident rules lawyers. It would get pretty dry if that was all there was though.

 

[DonTadow]

Got a reference for that? Maybe a quote from the Forum guidelines or description?

I'm just glad that the mods don't agree.

So to paraphrase, "Some of us would like this forum to be only about the RAW".

Kind of sounds like a forums 'house rule' without a RAW from the forum guidelines.

However, I'm glad to read the RAW rulings from the resident rules lawyers. It would get pretty dry if that was all there was though.

I think this forum is suppose to be boring

It's all about rules clarifications. There's a house rules forum, a general forum, and I hate wotc forum. This is the rules forum. The threads should resemble question, rule interpretation. Instead I feel like the people who post legit questions get overwhelmed and confused when everyons posting their variations and such and not OGL RAW which is what most of the questions are seeking.

I don't mind answers such as the RAW says this, but i do it this way. But to say well this is the best way and forget the raw is undermining why the person posted the question in the rules forum and not on general. .

 

[Bad Paper]

To me the difference between the Rules forum and the House Rules forum is a flavor difference. Right now I am running a campaign that strives to have a somewhat Core flavor to it: you know, dungeons, dragons, magic, all that post-Tolkien stuff. If I wanted, instead, to run a campaign with a drastically altered flavor to it, then I would run over to House Rules and ask "what's a good way to cross Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, and Monopoly" and have villains like Donald Trump with Tentacles. It seems to me that we could just as easily name these forums "Core Flavor" and "Alternate Flavor" without changing the content too much.

 

[Deset Gled]

...and just for the record, I disagree with this particular "pet-peeve" of dcollin's. There are rules for pricing new magic items. The line is pretty clear between that and, say, "a variant bard class".

I agree with dcollins on this one. There are not rules for pricing new magic items, there are guidelines for pricing new magic items. Definitive pricing for new magic items is always something decided by the GM, specific to campaign, players, etc. I see this as being just as much of a house rule as a variant bard class, whose validity (in terms of balance, custom mechanics, and availability, etc) is also based soley on GM approval, specific to campaign, players, etc.

 

[jodyjohnson]

For magic items I think utility/relevance depends on who's asking.

A DM asking for help to price a magic item (which a player wants to make or DM wants to add) can come to a consensus on the board (here). Since the final arbiter (the DM) is present.

A player just looking for a community ruling that he can use 'against' his DMs ruling is less useful at large, but still a valid conversation since we can use/evaluate the reasoning as DMs (and ENW tends to be DM heavy).

It's not much different than any other rules interpretation which is left open to the individual DM.

 

[Garboshnik]

A RAW only forum is quite a different thing from a "rules" forum, which ought to be open to almost any sort of discussion regarding the rules. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have almost zero interest in visiting a forum whose sole purpose is to pick apart wording and be a basic rules FAQ.

For me the real interest is what you can do with the rules, why they are like they are, how well they work, and how to fix them if they don't work. I don't think fixes to existing rules necessesarily need to be put in a seperate forum. Honestly, I don't think any of this is worth getting worked up over.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I basically agree. Of course, I've been arguing that "new magic items = house rules" for a long time now, and I consider that to be the front-line of the evolution you're pointing out. The "price this magic item" threads really concern me, because they're completely subjective to each campaign, DM, etc. (just like new spells, monsters, classes, etc.)

If we could officially move the "price this magic item" threads back to another forum I think it would keep the Rules Forum much closer to its original spirit.

I agree with the original poster, I see about 80% house rules and 20% actual rules here.

I especially agree with dcollins. As I've posted in a couple of threads before, this is one of the biggest house rules abused in this forum (and every forum).

Monte Cook posted in his own forums a couple of years ago that he regrets ever putting the table in the book because now he has to deal with hundreds of questions about "If I try to recreate this magic item from X book using the chart in the DMG it comes out at 5000 gp, but in that book it is listed as 150,000 gp. Why would anyone buy the item from that book?" He is then force to explain to each person that the magic item creation guidelines are optional and actually guidelines rather than rules. He points out to each one that *THE* most important step in the magic item creation guidelines is the last one where you compare the price to an existing magic item and change the price of the resulting item accordingly. He mentioned that often items would have to be adjusted drastically to prevent them from being completely unbalanced. I believe the last comment I read from him was something to the effect that he has found that in practice it generates more items that needed to be modified than ones that don't, so it wasn't a good set of guidelines. He mentioned that the "new" chart in Tome and Blood was an attempt to fix some problems with the chart, but that even that was less than perfect. Plus, they didn't include any of the changes in the 3.5 edition DMG.

Along the same note, there are basically as many "rules" in the DMG for making up new races and classes as there are for new magic items. So, either they are all house rules or all RAW.

My frustration comes from asking a question that was clearly asking what the rule was and getting 10 answers saying "that feat is broken, I'd suggest changing it like this:" and not one answer that actually says how the rules works.

I'd prefer to have a Forum dedicated to the rules as written without houserules. That's because if the house rules people have a forum dedicated to them it should be used for that. I'm sure the people there wouldn't appreciate me showing up and posting in every thread: "That isn't possible, it isn't in the rules."

By the same token, I don't appreciate them showing up to tell me that they don't like the rules every time we try to discuss something in them.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

My frustration comes from asking a question that was clearly asking what the rule was and getting 10 answers saying "that feat is broken, I'd suggest changing it like this:" and not one answer that actually says how the rules works.

Can you point to a single instance of this happening?