Rules as Law vs. Rules as Guidelines

[bloodtide]

The trickier question is the relationship between rules and meaning. I'm interested in applying the same questions to that. Is there any difference to meaning, between rules as laws and rules as guidelines?

Though this is an endless rabbit hole with a huge split:

Anyone representing a DM in a game will take any "meaning" to be the most simple and basic one that makes sense for the game as a whole

Any player will take "meaning" to be permission for them to do whatever they want on a whim, often self serving for their character.

There is no easy middle ground here.

The first is constitutive and instances a game parameter. The second is phrased as regulatory but is probably constitutive: the ambiguity producing divergent interpretations. (Reading "can" as "must" helps see this.)

The problem is many people see every word in the books as a rule.

 

[clearstream]

The problem is many people see every word in the books as a rule.

I don't see every word as a rule, but I do see every word as contributing to the interpretation of the rules. Frex, an example of play is not a rule, but contributes to our interpretation of the rules.

My view is that parts of the text should be grasped in differing ways. Flavour text for instance can help see what the rules are about, while not in itself being grasped as rules. Interpreters can suppose that the point of the rules is to achieve what is implied by the flavour text, and judge each rule according to that standard. When they have other flavour text in mind, they're more likely to change the rule. Or they may say that the rules stand for the game play, and read the flavour text as mostly blank.

Semantically, I think guidelines are loose rules that are expected to not always apply to every case to which they could apply, nor cover cases they apply to completely. They gesture in the direction of rules in potential. This is distinct from what others have said, when they take guidelines to be rules that can be lightly replaced.

Guidance text on the other hand is not rules, but advice on how to grasp and uphold the rules. Under this view, guidance text should never smuggle in new rules. Guidance text falls short of laws.

Laws I see generally in purpose as regulatory. Thus any laws in a game can be distinguished from its constitutive rules and guidelines.

So for me, the questions mooted by the thread title can be considered in terms beyond those of normative authority. Where one can bestow distinct semantic categories to rules vs laws vs guidelines. Although writing that now I can see that the way the title is structured, it really is the normative authority it is getting at.

 

[clearstream]

Anyone representing a DM in a game will take any "meaning" to be the most simple and basic one that makes sense for the game as a whole

Any player will take "meaning" to be permission for them to do whatever they want on a whim, often self serving for their character.

This is interesting from a dispositionalist perspective, where the meaning of a rule is found in view of dispositions in the followers of that rule.

That produces a conclusion that both are right. The DM is right to take the rule to have a certain meaning, and the players are right to take that same rule to have a different meaning. Due to differences in their dispositions.

One way to resolve that might be to say that rules are meaning engendered, so that a rule-follower ought to follow the rule iff they have the given meaning in mind, and not otherwise. There are many cases where this works well, but not I think for game rules, because they can be meaning constituting.

 

[clearstream]

To be a guideline it would have to be expanded to read something like "When gaining a level the caster gains a new spell*. This spell can be assigned by the DM, chosen by the player, rolled at random, or selected by whatever other means you find appropriate."

Here, the gaining of a new spell is a hard rule; the suggested assignment methods are guidelines.

Do you see the difference here between taking rules as guidelines to imply lessened authority (one can replace the rule freely) versus taking guidelines to gesture toward rules without counting as rules.

As shown by your example, where a rule might say "do this" a guideline might say "do something like this".

 

[Lanefan]

Do you see the difference here between taking rules as guidelines to imply lessened authority (one can replace the rule freely) versus taking guidelines to gesture toward rules without counting as rules.

Yes, and the latter could perhaps be termed "guidance".

As shown by your example, where a rule might say "do this" a guideline might say "do something like this".

Guidance would say "do something like this". I'm trying to differentiate between that and the idea that the rules in the book don't necessarily have to be the rules used at the table; there's still rules in the end, but they may have been put through a wringer before seeing play.

 

[clearstream]

Yes, and the latter could perhaps be termed "guidance".

Guidance would say "do something like this". I'm trying to differentiate between that and the idea that the rules in the book don't necessarily have to be the rules used at the table; there's still rules in the end, but they may have been put through a wringer before seeing play.

Disambiguation would certainly be helpful. My impression is that up to now "guidelines" has held both meanings, while guidance is about how to use a rule.

So where a guideline says "do something like this" (gesturing toward potential rules), guidance says "use the rules in this way."

Acknowledged that when folk say "rules as guidelines" they mean "you can change or replace these rules." Diminishing the normative authority of the rules. Used that way it can mean "do something like this" but can also mean "do what you like". One reason to prefer the former is that the latter calls into question the point of referencing the given ruleset.

Unless you are going to follow a rule, or follow something like that rule, why refer to it at all?