To RAW or not to RAW...

[Cedric]

You are completely missing the point.

You're acting like its either completely using all the Rules as Written or ignoring the Rules as Written whenever you want to. It isn't. It's defaulting to RAW except where clearly defined by House Rules. It's taking the RAW approach to things even if it doesn't match your idea of "common sense" or "realistic" in order to keep the game working smoother, maintaining internal consistancy, and describing things in such a way as to make RAW work.

This isn't "All RAW all the time and nothing else!!111oneoneone"

Take the darkness spell example. It's shadowy illumination. Which is the exact same wording used to in the description of torch light. I know that by RAW if you cast darkness in a lightless room it will produce that shadowy illumination and it will become brighter. I don't pretend that it works the way I want it to. I don't use colorful interprietations to pretend I'm following the RAW if I run it any other way. Nope. I House Rule it so it works like the 3.0 version.

That is a House Rule. It isn't a casual reinterprietation. It is codified in a document that I give to my group before I run a game so that they know exactly where my games will deviate from RAW.

I have other House Rules. I give every class +2 skill points. That's not a casual reinterprietation of the rules either. That's along with the list of House Rules. It's a clear addition that deviates from RAW, just like the darkness example. I don't see a difference, but it sounds like you might.

You're using a very narrow definition of RAW that is all inclusive, though. Why must it be all or nothing? I use the RAW for Initiative, Combat Maneuvers, Sneak Attack, etc etc etc. About 90% of the rules follow the RAW in my game. Everything else is a House Rule. I'm much more easily swayed by the RAW than I am about emotional arguments in game and out.

This is very different from a game where the DM decides on things come up based on a "common sense" or realism basis (or heaven forbid mid game balance based) decision for what should happen with the rules.

So, you're coming at this from the wrong viewpoint, where its all or nothing. That just isn't how it is.

I don't mean this to sound abrupt, but I'm afraid it's going too. This is my poll, with my questions, I'm afraid that you are the one missing the point.

 

[KarinsDad]

Take the darkness spell example. It's shadowy illumination. Which is the exact same wording used to in the description of torch light. I know that by RAW if you cast darkness in a lightless room it will produce that shadowy illumination and it will become brighter. I don't pretend that it works the way I want it to. I don't use colorful interprietations to pretend I'm following the RAW if I run it any other way. Nope. I House Rule it so it works like the 3.0 version.

That is a House Rule. It isn't a casual reinterprietation. It is codified in a document that I give to my group before I run a game so that they know exactly where my games will deviate from RAW.

I have other House Rules. I give every class +2 skill points. That's not a casual reinterprietation of the rules either. That's along with the list of House Rules. It's a clear addition that deviates from RAW, just like the darkness example. I don't see a difference, but it sounds like you might.

This is scary. I have the same two house rules with one minor difference. For Darkness, I have it go from Light to Shadowy or Shadowy to Dark, depending on the ambient lighting conditions. This gives the spell more utility as a missile launch platform.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't mean this to sound abrupt, but I'm afraid it's going too. This is my poll, with my questions, I'm afraid that you are the one missing the point.

I agree with ThirdWizard and others.

Casual with House Rules was the category I picked, but what I really do is RAW with some House Rules.


There have been times in our game where someone does something and we look up a rule and we thought it went one way, but it actually goes another.

So, we almost always use RAW because we do not have a house rule on that situation.

We almost never change the rules based on the situation at hand unless RAW is absolutely terrible.

None of your categories match this concept.

You should redo the poll with this 5th type of adjudication and I suspect your results will shift upwards.

RAW
RAW with House Rules
Casual
Casual with House Rules
House Rules Rule!

Several of us think you missed a category that we use, hence, the results are skewed. IOO.

 

[Cedric]

I do understand your point of view, but I intended "Casual Rules" (perhaps a misnomer) to be exactly what you described.

I described casual rules as:

An interpretation of the rules based on what the players and GM can agree to. This may sometimes include going against the RAW, if the group thinks it makes sense. EDIT: My intent for this option is that the changes would not be so significant as to be considered House Rules, since that has its own option. It would basically be your groups version of the rules as you interpret them to be intended.

For the purposes of the Poll, I wanted RAW to be pure and uncompromised. I intentionally wanted to see if anyone uses the rules precisely as they are written. I expected very few people to vote for this category, but was curious to see if anyone did.

I fully expected that most people would use Casual Rules with some House Rules...which is precisely what most people have selected.

To my thinking (for this poll), RAW + house rules just is not possible. They are mutually exclusive.

 

[KarinsDad]

I do understand your point of view, but I intended "Casual Rules" (perhaps a misnomer) to be exactly what you described.

I described casual rules as:

An interpretation of the rules based on what the players and GM can agree to. This may sometimes include going against the RAW, if the group thinks it makes sense. EDIT: My intent for this option is that the changes would not be so significant as to be considered House Rules, since that has its own option. It would basically be your groups version of the rules as you interpret them to be intended.

That might have been your intent, but it still seems like you do not understand our POV since Casual is not what we are talking about.

RAW = book rules
RAW + House = book rules + some house rules
Casual = agreed upon interpretation of book rules
Casual + House = agreed upon interpretation of book rules + some house rules
House = lots of house rules

The only agreement in using RAW + House is that we are using RAW + House. The group does not interpret the rules. The DM does. And, the DM takes a fairly literal interpretation of the rules, even when he or the group thinks it should work another way. House rules are for those RAW rules that are missing, incomplete, or totally jar the sensibilities of the DM (and possibly the players).

But for the most part, there is not a lot of nonliteral interpretation going on with RAW. Let me give you an example from last week. In the Energy Weapon on Trip Attacks conversation, the position was introduced that the phrase "on a successful hit" would occur on Trip melee touch attacks and they would do the energy damage. RAW states that Trip indicates the results of a Trip and Energy Weapon damage is not part of that. If Trip does not state it does Energy Damage on a Trip and Energy Weapons do not state that they do Energy Damage on a Trip, then they do not. That is RAW.

Casual is that all successful attack rolls result in a hit of some kind, hence, Energy Weapons do their energy damage on a trip.

This might be a difficult line for some people to draw in the sand and people might draw it in a (slightly or vastly) different place, but for some people, it is an easy line to draw in the sand. Thanee, Hyp, myself, and a few others tend to agree with each other on actual RAW most of the time. We tend to disagree more often on intent or when rules are missing or incomplete.

 

[KarinsDad]

To my thinking (for this poll), RAW + house rules just is not possible. They are mutually exclusive.

To my thinking, RAW + house rules is what quite a few people here play. They are not mutually exclusive.

To my thinking, RAW is what is not possible. There are too many missing and incomplete rules for the DM not to house rule (officially or non-officially) to some extent.

 

[Cedric]

To my thinking, RAW + house rules is what quite a few people here play. They are not mutually exclusive.

To my thinking, RAW is what is not possible. There are too many missing and incomplete rules for the DM not to house rule (officially or non-officially) to some extent.

My thought process was, if you are adding to or taking away from the "rules as written" ...then, you not are using the "rules as written".

All or nothing.

 

[Nail]

All or nothing.

Huh.

Well, if that's what you meant with this poll.....

...You should change the poll.


I agree with KD and others. When talking about "House Rules" its valuable to make a distinction between "House Rules made to fix conflicting bits of RAW" and "House Rules made to fit the rules to the way the DM wants his world to work".

Either way, the word "casual" doesn't enter into it.

It's also valuable, IMO, to measure how many house rules (of either kind) a DM typically uses. In the games I play or DM, the list is typically very short. OTOH, a friend of mine uses a typed packet of house rules over 40 pages long.

 

[Cedric]

When talking about "House Rules" its valuable to make a distinction between "House Rules made to fix conflicting bits of RAW"

That's how I defined Casual Rules (I won't repost my definition, but I thought it was clear).

and "House Rules made to fit the rules to the way the DM wants his world to work".

That's what I called Casual Rules with House Rules.

Either way, the word "casual" doesn't enter into it.

I've admitted that I could have found a better term than casual, though in all honesty I have yet to think of a better word.

It's also valuable, IMO, to measure how many house rules (of either kind) a DM typically uses. In the games I play or DM, the list is typically very short. OTOH, a friend of mine uses a typed packet of house rules over 40 pages long.

I agree it's valueable, the person who uses the 40 page typed package would select the "house rules" option on my poll. While the other people would select either Casual Rules or Casual Rules + House Rules.

RAW is intended as a selection ONLY for those individuals who use the rules precisely as they are written...which I fully expect would be very, very rare.

 

[Nail]

.....and yet, 7 out of 70 voted "RAW only".



If someone has to read all the way to page 2 to get your definitions of the terms used in your poll, something's off.

New poll! New Poll!