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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9257282">Just personally, since i am a big believer in rulings, while I like rules that can be applied consistently, I also think room to be creative with how the rules are applied is important (and I am less concerned about consistently applying them the same exact way each time and more concerned about coming up with a ruling that meets the specific needs of the moment (i.e. I don't want to create an ever expanding set of more complex house rules). Again this is just my general preference for things I would say here it depends on the game. But the issue is complexity, balance, etc. You can have a set of rules for robust character creation (I have designed such systems myself). But at a certain point, those rules aren't going to be able to capture all the possibilities of a creative mind thinking outside the box and you will end up with cookie cutter results that still hamper GM creativity). Again, 3E tried to do this, arguably it did it exceedingly well without becoming a game like Anima or something (where it can take ages to make a character). But in my opinion that was both way overengineered and impacted setting consistency pretty badly (there were just so many edge cases that didn't fit the system that governed over everything). With D&D especially I prefer having fairly basic choices for characters generation that don't interfere with setting, that play to gamabilty and balance, but having more openness on the GM side of things in order to bring the setting to life. It has been a while but one example that leaps to mind was magic item creation in 3E and things like monster templates in that same system. With magic item creation especially it felt like we were playing the system not playing the world.  And it drained the magic out of magical items for me as well. This has always been an issue in D&D, but I think an area like that in the game is much better handled by creativity than mechanics (maybe some guidelines are fine). Other examples might be little rules like attacks of opportunity (where you start to think more in terms of the mechanics and pieces on the board than what is being described in the setting) Sure, Applying rules consistently isn't bad. I generally apply rules consistently. But I prefer when systems have more open space for interpretation and aren't trying to govern things in the setting that a GM can manage better. Again I vastly prefer rulings. I want players engaged with what is happening in the game not what is happening in the system. I don't want them thinking "The jump skill allows me to jump X number of feet at a X percentage chance per rank". I want them to just think in terms of what the character is dealing with in the setting and how their character feels about the jump. And the  idea of a good ruling is to fairly and equitably arbitrate that. I find this easier to do when the system isn't over engineered and doesn't have a rule for everything or try to cover every action</blockquote>

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