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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6185854" data-attributes="member: 4937">I would concur, except that I would go further of that.  There is no definition of 'rules lawyer' that is not pejorative.   I mean look, it contains the word 'lawyer' - 'nuff said.Seriously:Rules Lawyer: A participant of an RPG that acts as if arguing over the question of the rules is a significant, enjoyable, and important part of the group activities, to the extent that they prefer it over actually playing the game and indeed may consciously or subconsciously treat it as if it was the most significant, enjoyable, and important part of playing an RPG.  The Rules Lawyer can have many motivations for this, most of which are not particularly functional.   They can simply enjoy arguing and prefer the act of arguing and becoming emotional about the argument to playing the game.  They can see arguing about the rules as an important method for 'winning the game' and the rules argument as a key arena in the adversarial relationship between the player and the DM.  They can see rules lawyering as an easier and more effective path to solving IC problems than interacting with the IC space.  Rules lawyering is generally closely associated with power gaming, particularly in its dysfunctional form.   Quite often the rules lawyer wants to receive the pleasurable both the reward of being the PC (the protagonist) and being the DM (the arbiter) in the same game, and so essentially becomes upset whenever anything happens in the game other than they way they would have had it happen.  Rules lawyering is often a proxy attempt to take over the DM's setting, universe, or story and rid the DM of choice.  And they can enjoy monopolizing the time at the table and in particular being the focus of the DM's attention in a way that they are not when they are sharing the imaginary space with the rest of the party.  Often all of these motivations are occurring at once. Note, this is somewhat different than a player who occasionally raises a rules objection because he believes that the DM is being unfair or forgetful.   Rules lawyering is associated with repeated and very argumentative badgering of the DM about his rulings in an attempt to get the DM to retract every ruling the player sees as unfavorable.  Rules lawyers are generally silent on rules that would work to their disfavor in a particular situation, and one good test of whether someone is a rules lawyer or simply someone who prefers structure is whether they also remind the DM of rules or circumstances of the scene he might have established but forgotten which hinder or harm their PC or the party.   Also, players who just like structure tend to withdraw their complaint quickly if it is clear that a argument that might detract from play time will ensue or the DM is definitely decided on something.  Rules lawyers will spend hours clinging to the most tenuous of arguments and interpretations for even the slightest in game advantage.</blockquote>

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