"No rules referencing during play". Reasonable, or authoritarian?

[Rechan]

If you're playing a system with lots and lots of rules, than expect the game to come to a screeching halt when you need to interpret the many rules you don't intimately know. Like say, Grapple. Which is going to come up a lot given how many monsters use grapple. Or when a player uses something that causes a condition, but no one at the table remembers what that condition does (Shaken, Nauseated, etc).

If you're having trouble with players having to stop to look up a spell, make it a rule that they must have the book open to the spell they want to cast *before* their turn.

This is what I'd do.

 

[Truename]

My table never uses rulebooks at the table in the close to one year since we started playing. It's evolved into a nice "make a ruling and move on" approach, although we've never made it explicit. It works very well for us and keeps things moving quickly.

Here's what makes it work for us:

1. Printed power cards with FULL rule text on the card (we use 4e, obviously)
2. A quick reference guide I made with full rule text of conditions, actions, and skills (see attachment)
3. When there's a rules question, I as DM take a quick look at the power card and make a ruling on the fly, which people generally accept.
4. Rarely, I have to shut down arguments with "that's my ruling," and everyone is okay taking that as the signal to move on.

We don't use the quick reference guide much, so #1, #3, and #4 are the critical factors for us. Mostly, it comes down to printed power cards and easy-going players.

 

[Hussar]

When we play d20, we generally have the hypertext SRD up and going. So, rules lookups are generally as long as it takes to type.

One thing we did do was have a rules guru. A player (not the DM) the other players ask for rules clarifications - with a special emphasis on doing this BEFORE your turn starts.

Get yourself a rules guru. Works wonders.

 

[Simon Atavax]

When we play d20, we generally have the hypertext SRD up and going. So, rules lookups are generally as long as it takes to type.

One thing we did do was have a rules guru. A player (not the DM) the other players ask for rules clarifications - with a special emphasis on doing this BEFORE your turn starts.

My main gripe as a DM would not be rules lookups so much as players looking up details about what their characters can do, especially spells.

Player casts spell.
Player: "Do I hit?"
DM: "What's the range on that spell?"
Player: "Uh, not sure." (flip flip)
DM: (tapping fingers)

etc.

Someone suggested earlier in the thread that spells could fizzle if the player had to look them up during the combat . . . gotta admit, I like the idea . . .

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I disagree. I'd rather get the rules wrong and keep the game flowing than the other way around.

Just remember when spot ruling something, do it in favor of the players. And Crothian's 'no one gets killed if the rules were wrong' idea is great.

If I always spot ruled in the player's favor, things can get out of hand rather quickly, depending upon the relative experience levels of all of the players involved. A ruling in favor of an inexperienced player can easily become a crowbar by which an experienced gamer can pry the hinges off.

That said, I'm not saying we get everything right before moving on. The last M&M session I ran, I screwed up something- in favor of the players, it must be said- and afterwards, I apologized for the screwup. While the ruling was in their favor, and it had a nifty wrinkle for a couple of the players, ultimately, it was a tad anticlimactic for several others.

Too many goofs of that kind could sink a campaign. I speak from experience (thankfully, though, not as the DM).

 

[Bodhiwolff]

I'm not adding anything new -- instead, I'm voicing my support for some of the comments already made here, in an attempt to give weight to them.

We use Power Cards for each power, with numbers pre-calculated. We have a time limit on people's decisions (30 seconds from the start of your turn until dice hit the table). We have cheat-sheets on the table with the most common rules. We have placards with the conditions on them, and the rules for each condition underneath, which we hand out to the players as needed (and thus everybody at the table can read the effects of being "blinded", etc.).

We've found that, with all of these things combined, we *rarely* have a rules question.

If we do, however, we have our own procedure.

If nobody knows the answer right away, the DM makes a gut-check ruling, and we live with that until the next reasonable break in the action (usually at the end of the encounter, but occasionally there is a natural pause in the flow.

If somebody has time beween turns, they look up the rule while the game continues. If not, we just live with the ad hoc ruling until we can look up the actual rules.

We generally live with whatever fallout we had from the ad hoc ruling, rather than try to retroactively fix things.

However, we've found that we enjoy the game *much* more if we just keep playing, rather than looking things up.

The few occasions where somebody couldn't handle their character's myriad abilities without a lot of rules/mechanical interpretation and problems, we simply had that person switch characters. The group's total enjoyment is more important than any individual's needs.

 

[Bodhiwolff]

edit -- double post

 

[Imban]

It's fine as long as you're not looking up the basic details of your own abilities. If you are, you get to write all your spell effects down on your sheet, because I will quite rapidly get tired of "I cast Hail of Stone!" "OK, and that does..." "Um... lemme look it up..." happening in my game.

(EDIT: This also happens if you can't figure out your melee attack, but the fact that my character sheet template has an explicit section for that makes it happen less frequently, at least.)

 

[Doug McCrae]

In addition, while dragging may be a hassle, its a lot better than getting the rules wrong and having to retcon.

I like a fast pace, so for me dragging is always the worst option.

I never retcon if we get a rule wrong, which we do fairly frequently. Why would I? It would only be confusing and slow the game down further. Perhaps I'm not understanding what you mean by retcon.

The only example of a retcon I can think of was playing 2e. I passed a death save exactly but after the session was over I remembered I'd been level drained so my save was lower. I mentioned it to the DM and he declared my PC dead. Personally I think that sucked.

 

[clearstream]

I like a fast pace, so for me dragging is always the worst option.

Agreed. I find a fast pace creates a more satisfying game than perfect rules compliance necessarily will, if they're in conflict.

I never retcon if we get a rule wrong, which we do fairly frequently. Why would I? It would only be confusing and slow the game down further. Perhaps I'm not understanding what you mean by retcon.

Also agreed. Retcons are dissatisfying and undermine SOD. If need be check a rule between sessions and apply it right next session.

-vk