The rule of Rule 0

[dren]

WHY?

Flavour....I prefer jubine to either vanilla or chocolate.

 

[3d6]

I use it to close loopholes and remove abusive elements. (All of that pesky gate assassination and so forth.)

 

[reapersaurus]

You forgot to list "Because I don't know the rules, but want to have control over them anyhow..."

Close to 50% of the time I've seen DM's use Rule 0 is because they don't know the way it's supposed to work, due to a lack of effort to try to learn the rules system.

 

[spunky_mutters]

Do you let those rulings stand, or do you look it up later? If you can't figure out some grappling something, and just say "roll a grapple check". Latter, if you look it up and find it says [long and complicated rule with lots of rolls] do you let your simple rule stand or use the more complex rules?

That depends on the rule. If it's easy to find (like grappling), we'll figure out how it works on the spot, even if it takes 5-10 minutes. It's usually worth making sure everybody understands a mechanic likely to come up. If it's a question of interpreting text from a couple of different sources, I might change my mind if I see something somewhere (like if there's a clarification in MM2 or something that I didn't notice), but that wouldn't affect the outcome of that session (unless it could be incorporated without affecting continuity (like an xp/gp cost or something).

I like to encourage players to look up what they're going to do in the books before they announce their actions. It keeps them busy when it's someone else's turn, and makes play run smoother (they don't change their mind when I tell them how it actually works).

 

[Celtavian]

Re

All of the above. I can't say there is one reason I use Rule 0. I have used it for all the reasons you state.

Flavor: I use rule 0 to allow my players to catch onto something when they call off a bridge or cliff.

Close Loopholes: No way Harm or Miasma are going to work without a save in my campaign.

Past Problems: Since there was such a massive change from first to third, I can't think of using this too many times.

Realism: Classes with the Evasion ability must move out of the area of the blast if they make their save. I can't see a person staying in the blast, yet avoiding all damage.

Characters with mounts with Evasion or Improved Evasion gain the benefits of either while mounted. If the mount successfully saves and evades all damage from the blast, so does the rider. I know it gives the Paladin a little something extra, but it fits better with how I see Evasion working. And I like the imagery of a Paladin's mount avoiding dragon breath and wizard spells while the Paladin fights courageously to defeat the evil. This rule alteration was a mix between Realism and Flavor.

Clarification: This is mostly for spells like Time Stop and falls as is about the same reason as Close Loopholes. If you don't understand how something works, then more often than not it is a loophole someone is exploiting.

 

[LokiDR]

Re: Re

All of the above. I can't say there is one reason I use Rule 0. I have used it for all the reasons you state.

I figured most people would use at least a couple of the reasons. But which one do you use the most? What do you find yourself saying most often when using Rule 0?

 

[Pax]

Re: Re

Realism: Classes with the Evasion ability must move out of the area of the blast if they make their save. I can't see a person staying in the blast, yet avoiding all damage.

Characters with mounts with Evasion or Improved Evasion gain the benefits of either while mounted. If the mount successfully saves and evades all damage from the blast, so does the rider. I know it gives the Paladin a little something extra, but it fits better with how I see Evasion working. And I like the imagery of a Paladin's mount avoiding dragon breath and wizard spells while the Paladin fights courageously to defeat the evil. This rule alteration was a mix between Realism and Flavor.

Well, consider it duly *yoink*ed ... I rather LIKE that idea ... !

 

[Celtavian]

Re: Re: Re

I figured most people would use at least a couple of the reasons. But which one do you use the most? What do you find yourself saying most often when using Rule 0?

It truly is a fairly equal distribution.

For things like Harm and Miasma, it was to prevent rules abuse.

For Time Stop it was to clarify the spell more clearly for our use.

Evasion was to add a touch of realism and for the mounts it was flavor since their was no real reason why a mount should receive evasion in the first place, but since they do, there was no reason they rider shouldn't benefit save for game balance.

We have alot of house rules. They fall into different categories. I will say that Game Balance is not a popular reason for the use of Rule 0 in our campaigns. We are all about the story and the imagery, though we definitely do not like insanely abusive rules like the original Harm spell.