The Trouble With Rules Discussions

[Emerikol]

These are good examples of what folks call Oberoni fallacy. The idea is that because the GM can fix, houserule, homebrew a given situation, the rules are perfectly fine as is.

Within a certain context I can understand that line of thought. Although, often time it seems like just a way to shut down a conversation about an aspect of a game they simply dont care about. I've learned after 1-2 interactions its time to just stop replying because you wont actually discuss the topic at hand, but whether oberoni is appropriate or not.

While I agree with you that eventually broken rules need to be fixed, it is often the case that they won't be for some time. Many players do not read online errata at all. So until the next book comes out they are running with it.

So it is a good survival mechanism to assume all games are broken, all rpg rules are that I've seen in some way, and be prepared to act as DM.

But again I'm not disputing bad rules ought to be fixed.

 

[Piperken]

...Even in public play, there's always some room for variance, so that your experience from group to group can be different.

Often, when discussing rules, especially for games past, I run into a brick wall where I cite the rulebook, and get the response (or a variation thereof) "well, we didn't play it that way", which generally ends the discussion on the spot...

People come over to your house and decide to play hide and seek. Isn't one of the topics that comes up is, "where one can't hide?"

Even though everyone knows that the rules are: you can hide anywhere .

This quandary comes up more frequently day-to-day than perhaps we feel it does. How did those situations resolve or not?

yet I've encountered people who can't seem to grok the idea that people played a game any differently than they did, and that if you did such a thing, you were/are "playing it wrong".

The pool for ttrpgs is broader generally: adults, unruly teenagers, a wide spectrum of personalities, whatever everybody's current mood or vibe happens to be at the moment you ask them, etc. all are factors into whether a game, its rules, how it is run, is how participants want to experience that activity.

If someone doesn't want to play and it's ok a new game starts, or given the situation it's ok to continue, then great. When someone's disagreement begins to disrupt or sour the rest of the tables' general experience, that's when something needs to happen.

Usually, if ppl are in an agreeable mood and responsible, things resolve well in a positive fashion.

Sometimes, that means not inviting that person back.

 

[James Gasik]

Yes, there are better options than a sling for a Thief. Unfortunately, not all players think "I want to use the best tools at my disposal". I know people who, to this day, will use strange weapons because they think it will be cool, even if it's not effective.

I always hated how badly the sling has been implemented in the D&D family of games. Rather than being treated as lethal weapons of war, which they were for a very long time, it seems like a lot of game designers think it's a modern slingshot, lol.

Heck, look how long it took D&D to fix crossbows! (not until the black books in late 2e). But you can't tell me there weren't crossbow enthusiasts.

I still remember making a Fighter who specialized in a whip, thanks to Indiana Jones, Simon Belmont, and the witch hunter from Warlock (I can't recall his name now). "Surely", thought past-me, "the static modifiers will make up for the low damage, and I can perform neat stunts all the time!".

Then reality hit and I was tickling most monsters, and those "cool stunts" in the Fighter's Handbook involved -4 and -8 to hit penalties!

It is funny how "because gravity/physics" is usually invoked by the GM for use against the players. I remember a 4e game where the players encountered a fortified wall in the underdark, blocking their path, manned by Duergar crossbowmen.

One player ran up to the base of the wall and was dismayed when the DM kept shooting at him. "I've used crossbows", said he. "You can't fire them straight down, the bolt wouldn't stay loaded."

The DM was flustered. "Well, they have crossbows, and they're meant to use them, so maybe they have some special modification to let them fire straight down."

Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that ruling in a vacuum. The DM is just trying to keep the encounter going. And maybe they don't know much about how crossbows work (I've never fired one, so I don't really know if the player was in the right here or not).

Now maybe the DM could have taken this opportunity to reward the player for their quick thinking, I don't know. Seems to me that the Duergar, if they couldn't use crossbows, could just throw down oil or other nasty substances on the player's head.

But imagine if the script was flipped. Player decides he wants to fire a crossbow straight down, DM is like "nuh uh, that's now how crossbows work". There's no recourse here, no matter how this would play out in real life.

I know GM's who would be perfectly content having enemies with slippers of spider climbing standing on a ceiling using missile weapons against the PC's without a second thought- would the player's cries of "but gravity!" be heard?

Just a thought.

 

[TiQuinn]

Doesn't matter. You are ignoring the reasons why a GM might feel the need to make such a call in order to attack the call they made based on the irrelevant excuse rather than trying to justify why shooting from walls & ceilings while moving is not terrible for the game as described in the post you quoted.

Okay, you are equally ignoring every reason I posted why the DM’s decision comes across as arbitrary and damaging to everyone else at the table but especially the player. I’m attacking the call because it turns a magic item into a curse, a burden for the player, for reasons that you are proposing that seem more like a lack of confidence that the item will maybe unbalance encounters. If the DM is that unsure of how the item will impact their game, they are better off not including that item in their game.

I literally explained it.

"Physics nothing, gravity was the excuse to counter what would have obviously forced an immediate choice between adversarial encounter design or ignoring how one PC deciding to godmode through every indoor encounter impacts the fun of the other players" That part should be pretty clear as both choices are bad for the overall health & fun at the table where there is at least one player other than the rogue.

If one agrees that the slippers of spider climb are tantamount to godmode, which I don’t think is very likely. Again, if the DM thinks that in any way, why give out the item at all?

I didn't stop there though & connected a few other dots you are overlooking the statement immediately following . "The very fact that the rouge was using a sling when no player uses a sling unless they have no better option even hints that "ok I'll use a sling" very well may have been the first step in adversarial loophole seeking when the GM said don't along the lines of "but your thrown daggers is down there and quivers tend to empty when turned upside down."

I don’t understand what point you are driving at. A sling in a 2e game may be a very, very good option. Missile fire in 2e was quite effective, but a target on a wall was also extremely exposed to enemy missile fire as well. What was the unforeseen loophole that required the DM to lock down the utility of the item?

yes it was a 2e game and my statement remains true because they had better options
One of those options being the shortbow that would rely on the quiver I mentioned. Either way it doesn't matter because having one player at the table running around in combats with the previously described godmode is still bad for the game in ways previously described

The supposed godmode has not been described. It was presupposed but what evidence was in place?

This No True Scottsman style Real GM belt buckle thumping is simply not relevant & continues to avoid the very real game health reasons why a GM might make a call like the one described in order to complain about it based on the in fiction excuse used to hang the call on.

As I’ve stated repeatedly, this has all been IMO, and quite frankly the “No True Scotsman” argument cuts both ways. I too have been describing how the game health would be undermined by that decision.

 

[payn]

While I agree with you that eventually broken rules need to be fixed, it is often the case that they won't be for some time. Many players do not read online errata at all. So until the next book comes out they are running with it.

Doesnt mean you cant discuss the rules in the meantime.

So it is a good survival mechanism to assume all games are broken, all rpg rules are that I've seen in some way, and be prepared to act as DM.

I think "broken" is a poor term to use. It implies all games posses errors and there isnt anything you can do but rule zero it. I think there is still plenty of room for discussion in the formation, application, and intent of rule sets. Though, I agree that I dont see any rule set as complete, or without room for personal adjustment. The context is what ultimately matters.

But again I'm not disputing bad rules ought to be fixed.

Thats all fine, but the discussion here is the trouble with rules discussion. Claiming rules are fine because you can change them is pretty much a dead-ender to any conversation about them as published. My advice is when someone tells you they dont want to talk about it; believe them.

 

[Emerikol]

Thats all fine, but the discussion here is the trouble with rules discussion. Claiming rules are fine because you can change them is pretty much a dead-ender to any conversation about them as published. My advice is when someone tells you they dont want to talk about it; believe them.

And in the general case I was agreeing with you I thought. Why not discuss problem rules and get others ideas on how to fix them. Each DM using rule 0 to do so until someone at WOTC decides react to the fact.

 

[James Gasik]

Only rarely have I encountered games that had rules that were inherently busted or broken. Sure, there's the occasional editing error, but it usually comes down to edge cases.

You can have a perfectly cromulent rule that functions just fine in normal play suddenly come to a crashing halt when something strange happens.

Here's an example I had come up once, and at the time, nobody could come up with a good answer.

Rule: two medium-sized characters cannot end their turns in the same space, but they can move through each other's spaces.

Player has a reach weapon. They get a free attack when someone attempts to move from the space 10' away from them into the space 5' away from them.

Player is standing in a hallway, in front of a door.

Enemies are trying to get past the player, as they are carrying stolen loot.

Player has an ability that lets them knock someone down, ending their movement in the space they occupy.

So here's what happens. Enemy A approaches the player, gets knocked down in the space 10' away from them. Has no action to stand up, can't attack. Crawling (in this instance) requires all of their movement, of which they currently have none.

Enemy B steps over Enemy A to approach the player. Gets knocked down. In a space they cannot end their turn in! The rules don't cover what happens.

The DM has to now do the job of the game designer to figure out what happens, and how they rule can have a huge impact on this encounter, and if it becomes precedent, the whole game.

They could decide that multiple prone characters can, in fact, occupy the same space. They could rule that Enemy B trips over Enemy A and ends up adjacent to the player, allowing them to attack the player.

They could rule that Enemy B falls back to the space 15' away. Or something else entirely.

 

[tetrasodium]

Okay, you are equally ignoring every reason I posted why the DM’s decision comes across as arbitrary and damaging to everyone else at the table but especially the player.

Yes.and I will continue to do so because you are bringing up those "reason" a step too late in the chain and need to ignore the problems being headed off by the gm making a call to restrict shooting while moving.

If your point is that the gm could have hung the in fiction reasoning on something better and you have a suggestion for what that is without descending into RealGm no true scottsman type rabbit holes there might be something to discuss... Except there is the obvious problem where this seems to have been something that happened long ago in a game no longer being played.

 

[TiQuinn]

Yes.and I will continue to do so because you are bringing up those "reason" a step too late in the chain and need to ignore the problems being headed off by the gm making a call to restrict shooting while moving.

If your point is that the gm could have hung the in fiction reasoning on something better and you have a suggestion for what that is without descending into RealGm no true scottsman type rabbit holes there might be something to discuss... Except there is the obvious problem where this seems to have been something that happened long ago in a game no longer being played.

I don’t know what you’re trying to convey here. We clearly disagree and have our own opinions.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don’t know what you’re trying to convey here.

The GM didn't make the call they made just to be random. There were almost certainly good reasons for the health of the game leading to why they felt the need to make that call. You cannot get to the fluff (gravity) used to justify the in fiction justification until either A:assuming that a reasonable GM is not capable of having any reasons for making a call to limit shooting while moving on walls & ceilings or B:accepting that the reasons might be sound but the implementation could have been better with examples of a better way

You went with C: where you used an unconvincing no true scottsman style claim about how a GM should never give out such an item to dismiss the idea that any reasonable GM could feel a need to make such a call while condemning the implementation based on the fluff of gravity/physics used.

We clearly disagree and have our own opinions.

Yes but It speaks volumes that when you voice those opinions talk up your foresight in avoiding such a problem and jumps straight to the implied assumption that no reasonable GM could gave reasons to make a call to limit shooting from the walls & ceilings while moving,