Should Players Engage With The Rules?

[D+1]

No soup for you!

Well reading this thread has prompted me to add one more line to my D&D Manifesto about not just using/abusing the rules (already well-covered I thought) but actually KNOWING the rules. The purpose of my manifesto is the dictionary definition of manifesto - a public statement of intentions, motives, or views. For D&D purposes it puts everyone on the same page - assuming they bother to read it.

I have in the past had problems with players in this regard. Only two that I recall, but some others were notably reticent to learn rules beyond the simplest, smallest section possible and made themselves annoyances because of it. Players who utterly and inexcusably failed to learn BASIC rules. I mean INSANELY SIMPLE rules like what dice to roll for a to-hit combat roll, not to mention the BASIC bonuses and penalties that applied like for strength, dexterity, and magical weapons.

If you can't be bothered to learn that the d20 is for rolling to see if you successfully attack in melee you are a hopeless drag on the game for everyone. That includes being a drag for YOURSELF because of the way everyone else then has to deal with you. And I believe that is actually why they did it. By forcing myself as DM and other players to deal with them on such a level of sheer willfull ignorance they may have drawn our anger - but they certainly had themselves as the constant center of attention for a significant portion of gameplay for as long as I was willing to tolerate it.

Nobody should need to pass a written game-knowledge test to play. Nobody needs to play as if the rules are sacrosanct - in fact, I heartily discourage that. But then neither is anyone being put upon to LEARN; to achieve a basic, functional knowledge of the game as a whole. You don't have to learn it all, and you don't have to learn it all at once - but unless you have an actual diminished mental capacity or disability you have no excuse for not learning enough of the game to play any Core Rules race or class functionally. Not PROFICIENTLY, nor each as well as any other... just functionally.

Yes, it's possible to let players simply blunder along with no knowledge of the game but that is a matter of the DM CHOOSING to make basic game-rules decsions for the players. Examples have been given such as a player wanting his character to charge and attack with scimitars but not knowing that there are restrictions on how much of his characters intended activity can be accomplished or that there are undesireable consequences that ought to be considered and accepted. If a DM then chooses to IGNORE those rules that's one thing. It's quite another thing for a DM to let the player continue to be IGNORANT of those rules and make all his rules-related decisions FOR him. Even that I might be able to accept since as I mentioned it's possible that a DM simply considers the bulk of the rules utterly unimportant. [I disagree but don't discount the possibility.] But when other players are at an entirely different level of rules-awareness you're being as rude as the offending player to LET him play that way. To let one player be an ignoramus while other players are reasonably expecting a higher, basic competency with rules knowledge to facilitate the flow of the game for everyone is, IMO, bad DMing.

 

[D+1]

My experience with players is that those that learn the rules first before they have learned to role play tend to become poor role players, and once they have practiced extensively in gamism it then becomes very very difficult to break them of thier bad habits.

My experience with players is that learning the rules is utterly irrelevant to their becoming gamist. It is only if WHILE they are learning the rules they are simultaneously indoctrinated to be gamist that their roleplaying includes "bad habits". If, on the other hand, while they are taught the rules they are also taught that the rules have LIMITS that roleplaying can and should ignore they do not develop "bad habits" for roleplaying yet also have no problems adapting to a very gamist atmosphere when needed/desired. But that's just my experience.

For a player, IMO neither ignorance of the rules nor mastery of the rules is in and of itself a virtue.

I agree.

A person who is ignorant of the rules, and who is so concerned that he's going to do something 'wrong', and who is therefore too timid to actually stretch thier imagination and actually participate is a problem.

But... a person who KNOWS the rules is much less likely to fear that he's doing something "wrong". Roleplaying isn't ever inhibited because you know the rules - but it can be inhibited if you're inclined to think that the rules are the be-all end-all.

Fixing the problem is not primarily solved by teaching the player the rules, but by increasing his confidence.

So, are you actually saying that learning the rules DECREASES confidence in your ability to play the game?

Likewise, a player who has mastered the rules is in no way better than a player who has no knowledge of the rules, if the player's interaction in the game is with the rule book and not with the shared imaginative construct that the people at the table are helping to create. We could probably name several types of gamers who are rules masters but which represent a type of social disfunctionality.

It is not knowledge of the rules that is EVER a problem - it is how you treat the rules (especially if you're treating them very differently from others at the table).

And again, I have taught alot of players how to game, and over the years I've found that the ones that don't know the rules initially are more entertaining players and mature much more rapidly than those that learn the rules and then try to learn how to play.

Um... EVERYONE doesn't know the rules initially if they've never played the game before. If YOU are the one teaching them "how to game" clearly you're going to be much more satisfied with the results than if they were taught to play differently by someone else. That is unless you happened to be a VERY bad teacher.

And as far as technical proficiency goes, my former long time RP group was a two time consecutive 2nd place finisher in the annual DragonCon D&D tournament. I dare say that when we have to, we can min/max with the best of them.

Tournament play is NOT the same thing. Tournaments have RULES very much above and beyond your typical kitchen table game of D&D. Tournaments KEEP SCORE. D&D in and of itself has no winners and losers. It simply wasn't DESINGED for that.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The player must know the basic rules of their own character. I'll explain the rules as many times as need be, but you have to know how to make an attack roll. I can't even comprehend someone not being able to understand such a thing; if they don't know either the DM isn't willing to take time to explain it or they refuse to read the book, and in either case something is wrong.

I know people are debating in this thread, but I didn't read most of it. I don't think either side is going to convince either.

 

[Timeboxer]

I think that that is what I said. I said that having a detailed set of rules made me more efficient as a DM.

Nono. I meant as a player. Just to clear that up.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Nono. I meant as a player. Just to clear that up.

For the record, I agree with you. Without knowlege about Sunder, Bull Rush, Grapple, Flanking, Cover, Concealment, Aiding Another, Disarms, Trips, Delaying, Readying Actions, etc. I don't see how any player is going to make use of most of it, and especially if they don't know how it works (Str is good for tripping, not Dex), I don't see how they will ever do any of these special combat maneuvers effectively, thus relegating them to "I attack" over and over again. I have seen this many times in the past, so I'm calling on experience here.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I'm also of the opinion that learning the rules never leads in and of itself to gamist behaviour, no matter when in your roleplaying career you learn them. I've seen too many players with a shaky grasp of the rules try to play tactically, and too many players with mastery of the rules play entirely immersively to believe there's any connection.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

If you own the books and want to play, then you should know the rules. The DM spends his valuable time preparing the game and running it; it's only fair that a player spend his time in a similar fashion. I have a player (and old friend) for whom I bought a copy of the 3E PHB and he never has read through it. He comes to every session barely able to work out what numbers apply to his attack. And this is the guy that ran our WEG Star Wars game...

Bottom line: It's a pain in the ass spoon-feeding a person who doesn't know the rules. especially when that person owns the rulebook.