The (Un)Official, Metaversal Murphy's Laws of RPGs

[innerdude]

45. You will discover within the first five minutes of play that the most important and hitherto neglected line item of the social contract is what to do with dice that roll off the table. The answer is never in the RAW.

46. The Cocked Dice Addendum: One in five critical successes will necessarily be negated due to the dice landing off the table, or on a book, mini-figure, token, or food.


This one is particularly relevant for our group, because our GM uses a set of those cool metal dice where the "face" of the number "floats" in the middle of the die on a set of hinges. For some reason those suckers end up cocked on an edge all . . . the . . . time. Part of the issue is that we play Savage Worlds, where the number of d10s and d12s in use is significantly greater than most other systems, and those particular "floating" die sizes are most prone to the problem.

 

[Lanefan]

47. There is no entity in this universe or any other that is more resilient than a well-equipped adventuring party...except maybe the dandelions in my lawn.
48. No matter how remote it may be from anywhere adventures actually happen the party will invariably find the biggest city on the map, go straight there, and forever base themselves there unless they hear of a bigger one somewhere else. Then they'll complain how long it takes to get to the adventures.
49. Rulebooks are usually reasonably well proof-read and contain remarkably few outright errors. The same cannot in any way be said for published adventure modules of any era.
50. In a published adventure, if the "boxed description" of a location assumes arrival from a certain direction (as many of them do) you can be sure that will be the one direction from which the party will never approach.
51. Sooner or later somebody will insist on playing a Paladin even though half the party are of alignment/class/race that a Paladin would not usually run with.
51a. Point 51 is invariably either the result of an alignment argument or the cause of one.

 

[innerdude]

52. The probability of a player choosing a particular character class is inversely proportional to their ability to play the class competently.
53. The solution to any given rules problem, discrepancy, or needed fix can invariably be found in a source material to which no one at the table actually has access.
54. The amount of time players spend shopping for a particular item is inversely proportional to the actual usefulness of the item in question.
55. There is a 99% probability that a given group will have at least one character who is the semantic equivalent of one of the following: Drizzt, Conan, Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, or Raistlin. The probability increases by 1% for each succeeding gaming group in which a player participates.
56. The probability of success for the most insane, zany, ludicrous, or implausible check a player can make is inversely proportional to the GM's ability to successfully manage what happens should the check actually succeed.

 

[innerdude]

57. The probability of your current campaign coming to an unexpected end / TPK / falling apart due to "real world reasons" is directly proportional to how much you are enjoying it.