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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 1476896" data-attributes="member: 3424">An interesting point, but I don't quite agree.  Rules can serve the function of resolution and these are the types of rules that tend to surface only in competitive situations.However, rules also serve the purpose of standardisation.  Standardisation rules may occur in competitive situations, e.g. a tennis game may dictate what types of racquets may be used by the players.  However, these may occur even in a non-competitive situation.  For example, in a vegetarian restaurant, the "rule" may be that no meat is served.  In a particular country, there may be rules on the configuration of electrical plugs and the voltage and current for electrical devices.  Other standardisation rules include the number of lines and rhyming schemes of haiku, limericks and sonnets.The original question seemed to be about standardisation rules, and asked whether too many options is a bad thing.  Thinking about it, though, there is really no easy answer because it all boils down to a matter of taste.  If I may make an analogy, it's like a customer (the player) going to a restaurant (the DM) and ordering his favorite meal.  This can be a problem if it's a vegetarian restaurant, the customer's favorite meal is roast beef, and it's the only restaurant in town.  It's not really the fault of either the restaurant or the customer, but unless the two are able to come to some kind of agreement, the restaurant doesn't make a sale and the customer goes hungry.  However, it does seem to me that it's pointless to complain about the existance of roast beef, or that there are too many types of food.</blockquote>

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