Rules Assimilation

[OchreJelly]

As a DM who often wished the DM screen had nothing but the grapple rules printed on them in big letters, I feel your pain.

The funny thing is that it wasn’t until 3.5 that I really lost the ability to remember the rules clearly. Enough little stuff changed between the editions that I found myself questioning everything. Monte Cook himself even wrote a pretty telling article on his site about the phenomenon, yet I can’t seem to dig it up.

Personally I think big sweeping changes (i.e. 4E) are better for helping me retain info. It’s easier to dump all the old knowledge from my head than try to half-remember everything.

Edit: I found the article from Monte's archives: http://www.montecook.com/arch_review26.html
It's a good read and underscores how subtle changes to rules can lead to player confusion.

 

[MindWanderer]

In 3e, I built my own DM screen that contained only the stuff I couldn't remember, in crib note form. Grapple took up 15 lines in one column (of two). Most of the space went to combat maneuvers, conditions, and skill uses.

I humbly suggest the Core Coliseum as a great way to bone up on your rules knowledge. I found that it improved my rules mastery immensely. We'll be implementing 4th edition in July some time.

 

[finbury]

First: Although it's quicker if you have internalized everything, it's by no means required. I mean, who cares if the grapple rules came from the back of your brain or straight from the page in the book as you read them out loud, you're still going to run the game the same way. The only advantage to knowing everything is speed - that you don't have to stop play to look stuff up.

My trick here is that if you optimize your use of the book and / or screens and sheets, you can cut the "lookup" time in half. Here, you have to figure out what works for you, but I find those little stick-on tags on key pages (Grapple rules, XP table, condition summary) are invaluable. You can do these pre-adventure too - tag the pages for the monsters this week, tag the traps you're using, etc.

Second: different people learn in different ways.

Some learn best by reading. If that's you, skimming the 4e equivalents of the condition summary section and combat chapter will get you a long way.

Some learn best by doing. If so, you're just going to have to pick it up as you go along. Which is OK too. If you really want to prep, maybe run a mock combat or two.

Some learn best by listening. That can be inconvenient, but getting together with a buddy and talking through the rules is probably all you'd need here. If you really want to memorize something, record yourself reading it, put it on a CD in your car or an MP3 in your portable music player of choice, and play it when there's nobody else around.

Some do best when the information is presented visually. If that's you, draw some diagrams! A step-by-step flowchart of the grapple or turn undead rules would make a decent addition to the inside of your DM screen, and if you're that type of learner, just by drawing the diagram and seeing it, the information will stick better.

 

[The Little Raven]

page XX

Pants?

 

[Hussar]

I'd second the suggestion to push things off on your players. In my mind, it is not your responsibility to know how the player's characters work. That's their thing. If they want to do an action, they should be looking up the rules when it's not their turn and then telling you how the rules work when it is.

 

[Xethreau]

I'd second the suggestion to push things off on your players. In my mind, it is not your responsibility to know how the player's characters work. That's their thing. If they want to do an action, they should be looking up the rules when it's not their turn and then telling you how the rules work when it is.

I actually disagree with this method, because I feel it encourages metagaming and bossing the DM arround.

I agree with DeusExMachina's advice verbatim.