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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gnfnrf" data-source="post: 3220536" data-attributes="member: 2373">I believe the problem is much deeper than just the FAQ and its role in the RAW.In fact, there is no RAW.  No two games, no matter how carefully reasoned and read the DMs are, will ever play the same.  There are so many small and subtle rules interpretations done in so many places that games will inevitably differ.  There isn't even a single designers intent, because rules are written by different people who themselves have different interpretations of how the same previous rule works.There is a cloud of rulesets.  Our best hope is to include and exclude sets of rulesets by sorting them according to some easy categories (how they interpret different specific situations).  When we are done, we'd like to think we have only one ruleset left, the rules we play with.  But in fact we still have a cloud, just a smaller one. When I argue about the RAW, I'm just talking about refining the scope of the cloud.  The FAQ is another tool to refine the scope of the cloud.  It doesn't matter if the FAQ "is" RAW or not because there is no RAW, just different means of refining the cloud.Now, this may sound kinda depressing, but it's not so bad.  Most of the time, the remaining cloud of rulesets are indistinguishable from each other, and when you come to a divergence, you don't even notice.  You assume one way, discarding a bunch, and never even know that there is an alternate assumption.When talking about rules with other people, I want to use the same cloud as them, which means building it with the same filters as them.  I can't guess how they might interpret many of the less clear things, so I want to use as many pre-stated interpretations as possible.  This means using the books, errata, and FAQs.  This ruleset cloud isn't the best ruleset, and it isn't the one I play with.  It also isn't the RAW.  However, it's the smallest cloud (with the least amount of leftover confusion) that I can reliably generate and assume that someone else can generate.  Therefore, it's the most productive to use as the assumption when we argue about how to refine it further.And usually, when I'm not getting epistimoligical, I just talk about the RAW like it exists if only we could figure out what this one line in this one book means.  It's easier on the brain.--gnfnrf</blockquote>

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