Waibel's Rule of Interpretation (aka "How to Interpret the Rules")

The only CORRECT interpretation is the one I say!

The sooner the rest of the world gets that, the sooner we can all sit down and have fun...and end all fantasy rpg forum arguments everywhere.

heheheh.

[Seliousry though, nice chart. ]

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

More false contrasts.

You've made it more than clear that you abhor collegial games and everyone who plays them. Going by your "Luke" example earlier, you think that objecting to an illogical game element is tantamount to loudly demanding a retcon. Apparently you can't conceptualize a strong objection that isn't strident. If I'm mis-stating your attitude please feel free to set the record straight by giving an example of a collegial discussion that you wouldn't consider problematic.

 

[Celebrim]

You've made it more than clear that you abhor collegial games and everyone who plays them.

So far as I know I've said nothing at all against collegial games. I don't often play them, and in fact have rarely seen one played, but I know Greenleaf is in one with a rotating GM set in a fantasy pastiche of (IIRC) 3rd Century AD earth. I see no reason to abhor Greenleaf his rotating DMs, though he often has funny stories about the difficulty in making that work.

You actually have zero evidence that I dislike collegial games at all. Instead, you are falsely trying to insinuate that the alternative to my suggestions is somehow more collegial, when in fact what you are trying to justify is not better described as give and take or mutual decisions or group planning or passing the token or trading narrative resources or distributed rights to declare the outcome of a proposition any other collegial technique. What you are labeling 'collegial' is naked rules lawyering, table arguments, metagaming, and inappropriate assumption of authority in a middle of a narrative. The argumentative player pointing out that manticores don't generally appear in forests wasn't trying to share the game at all. He was making a false argument from authority by appealing to a guideline in a rule book. There is nothing collegial and respectful about that, which is easily seen if we imagine the situation reverse, with the player empowered to choose the monster and the DM calling him down and saying not in this terrain. Note the naked hypocrisy here, where Hussar asserts his rights to impose Paladins on Krynn and not expect that to be a problem, but the DM putting a Manticore in the forest as he has every right to do ought to be trumped by a player. That isn't collegial. That's not mutual equal and shared respect.

In D&D, the general expectation is that the DM is the designated 'secret keeper' and that for the enjoyment of everyone he hides information from the player - a map of a dungeon or the location of the treasure. The player in turn is one of the designated protagonists in an ensemble cast that is exploring and discovering the secrets. Now of course we could play with making the DM less essential a secret keeper, opening rooms and deciding what the group thought would be more interesting as a group, and if you want to do that then more power to you but if you want to do that first its better that everyone agrees ahead of time that that is how you will be playing. And secondly, I think that it would be a rare group that would enjoy that more than the thrill of the unknown, and the tension involved overcoming obstacles placed in front of you and all the traditional joys of traditional RPG gaming. And when you talk about collegial gaming I really doubt you mean real collegial gaming of the sort Greenleaf does with rotating DMs and various means of sharing the story in that way while still keeping secrets. You probably just mean something as minor as an openness to discussing rules problems, which is so trivial and irrelevant to this discussion that by throwing out 'collegial' as meaning that you'd be basically revealing along with the rest of your false contrasts that you haven't a clue what I'm talking about.

Going by your "Luke" example earlier, you think that objecting to an illogical game element is tantamount to loudly demanding a retcon.

First, without getting into a line by line explanation of the Luke example, do we agree that regardless of the style of game "Luke" is doing wrong?

Apparently you can't conceptualize a strong objection that isn't strident.

No, apparently when I'm showing an example of how to do it wrong, it's actually wrong.

If I'm mis-stating your attitude please feel free to set the record straight by giving an example of a collegial discussion that you wouldn't consider problematic.

Several kinds of 'collegial discussions' occur at my table. They can include things like:

PC: I know we've been doing this story line with the conflicted relationship between my character and his parents, but in real life my dad just died and I was wondering if we could put that story on hold for a while because I think it's going to be a bit too intense for me right now.
Me: Of course. If you want to drop it completely or change some details, let me know.
PC: I don't think I want to drop it, but if you can not bring it up for a few sessions until I've had some time, that would be great.
Me: Anything you say.

Me: Ok, so on a scale of 1 to 10, how badly am I allowed to mess with you?
PC: 10
Me: 10? Are you sure, you'd go for a 10? Because anything above about an 8 is going to risk madness checks from malign paradigm shifts, and in the past I had a player have his character commit suicide because he couldn't deal with the situation.
PC: No seriously, bring it on. I like messed up.
Me: Ok, just remember you asked for it.

Me: So, where do you see yourself going with this character?
PC: I don't really know. I just thought the mechanics were cool.
Me: <Long explanation regarding the role of characters of his sort in the setting>
PC: Wait a minute, so I was probably around when <Other PC's great-grand parent> was around right? So actually, I might have been the one who saved him from the massacre?
Me: Yes, that makes sense. In fact, thinking about it, almost no one else would have been positioned to do so.
PC: So can I tie my destiny to whatever you are doing with <Other PC>.
Me: I'd have to ask <other player>, but that would fit.

Player: <hands me long 8 page backstory in which he invents all sorts of details about his past life, relations, and so forth, basically imposing NPCs into existence in the world and implying various hitherto unconsidered nefarious plots>
Me: Ok, I'll approve all of this, but there are a few details regarding your description of elven culture that I'd like to have you rework to fit better with existing canon in my homebrew. Let me mail you the player's guide to elven culture. However, briefly, one thing you should know about elves is that it is impossible to enslave them. If you imprison one against their will, they waste away and die as quickly as if you or I would die if we went without water....
Player: Sure, as long as I can keep the basic idea here.
Me: I don't think there will be a problem with that.

Player: I thought you could attempt the Circle maneuver without drawing an attack of opportunity?
Me: Ahh... yeah, you're right. You'd think that I could remember my own rules since I wrote them.

We don't have rotating hat as a DM. I generally don't allow player's to impose things on a setting after backgrounds are approved and play begins. Players don't have final say on the rules or adjudication, and we have no process for vetoing my rulings (nor have we needed one). So I suppose in that sense it's not a 'collegial' game. It's a pretty traditional game where the DM controls the setting and the player's control the PC's, and neither seeks to assert control over the other save where allowed for by the rules. However, it's rare even in the situation that the PC is mind-controlled that I have to tell them any thing more than the general constraints that they are under. Usually I can leave them to RP their possessed/dominated/charmed character on their own. As far as what you mean by 'collegial' game though, where everyone is playing together and cooperating to create the story, then it is seriously collegial. PC's have more or less invented deities for the game setting, secret societies within the game setting, whole story lines, and so forth taking the game in directions I'd never anticipated both by their characters and through play. I have the final say over the details of the setting, not the least of which because if I didn't there would be nothing to explore and uncover, but if that is dictatorial then I suggest you rob the word of any meaning.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Thanks for the examples. Suppose that your "Circle maneuver" example related to an rule that came from the book instead of house rules. Would that change how you felt about the player objecting to the ruling? Because that is the only identifiable difference I see between your example and Hussar's plate mail vs. chain mail example, and it is also very close to the manticore example (with the additional difference in that case of a "lengthy discussion" although we don't have any indication who was doing most of the talking in that lengthy discussion, or what the content of the discussion was). Why do you feel that Hussar's examples are more like your Luke + Death Star scenario ("unacceptable") than they are like your Circle Maneuver example ("acceptable")?

Is it simply about tone? Would it get your hackles up if the player said, "No, Circle Maneuvers don't draw an attack of opportunity"? By flatly contradicting you, he is challenging your authority as DM by treating you as a peer who can be argued with?

First, without getting into a line by line explanation of the Luke example, do we agree that regardless of the style of game "Luke" is doing wrong?

Yes. That's why your using it to characterize everyone else in this thread feels like a straw man.

 

[Mistwell]

So the advice for GMs who have players who don't care much about the rules is "Don't sweat the rules." Do we need a flowchart for that?

The flow chart was tongue in cheek. We never needed the flow chart obviously. That you take it so seriously you think someone was asserting we need it is...odd?

There are plenty of RPGers who do care about the rules, even when they are not GMing. Not because they are bad players (whatever exactly that means) but because they are there to play a game or they are there to impact the story, even when the GM didn't expect/want the story to go that way. For these players, the rules are the system for mediating different desires/expectations, and competing moves, at the table.

Not a word of this disagrees with what I said. I never called them bad players. I never claimed any sort of universal anything - indeed I said the opposite. Of course there are people who play the game differently than I do - I said that, and they're right here in this thread. All I said is there is no universal way to play, so people shouldn't be claiming there is one.

And here we have a prime example of "badwrongfun"

How is it a declaration of badwrongfun that I say they should discuss that topic after the play session rather than during it? They were in an encounter with the creature. Deal with that, discuss terrain appearances after the game session with the DM. It's not a claim about badwrongfun, unless your idea of fun is arguing about rules like that in the middle of a game session.

 

[Mistwell]

Of course, the only posters in this thread who don't share your views and experiences to do with the roles of the GM and the rules in an RPG are [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and me. Everyone else in the thread is in vigorous agreement with you!

Not my claim, and I never claimed to be a majority view, much less a universal one. Which is the claim I am responding to - someone claiming a universal view, despite people in this very thread saying they don't share that view at all. And then your buddy chimed in with claims of extreme outliers with zero evidence to back that up. And you have his back, as usual...but with no evidence either other than snark to contribute. Tell me Pemerton, do you think you have a peg on universal views of D&D? And do you further agree with your buddy that anyone who dissents from his view must be an extreme outlier because...reasons?

 

[JamesonCourage]

This thread is a train wreck.

 

[Celebrim]

Thanks for the examples.

That's it? Thanks for my examples? Seriously? Not, "ok, I guess I was wrong to cast this debate as 'dictatorial' versus 'collegial'"? No apology for trying to poison the well? Or if not a concession, then no attempt to explain how I've still got it all wrong and you were using definitions of the words different than I suggested? No pulling out quotes showing how clear I really made it how much I abhor people who play a 'collegial' game? Or other hand, no admission how games are played at the table can't be neatly lumped into two opposing categories, and that indeed your whole argument really was a false contrast? Or failing that, no rebuttle to show how wrong I got it?

Just thanks for the examples? Why should you thank me at all?

Suppose that your "Circle maneuver" example related to an example that came from the book instead of house rules. Would that change how you felt about the player objecting to the ruling?

Not really. Rules is rules. I have provided house rules precisely so that there would be clarity regarding what rules we are playing with. If I find fault with my own rules through the experience of play, then I try to change them only between play unless everyone agrees at the time they are really not working at all (which has never happened, I'm far pickier regarding the rules we play by than any player).

Because that is the only identifiable difference I see between your example and Hussar's plate mail vs. chain mail example...

Just the one, huh? Are you sure you are looking hard? Because I feel I've a bit of valid complaint that I'm not being read charitably, if the only thing you can pick out is that one is a house rule and the other isn't.

a) One involved a rule. The other a guideline.
b) One involved setting information. The other involved process resolution.
c) One involve a metagame question about a metagame event - an attack of opportunity. The other involves a metagame question about an in game event - the appearance of a manticore.
d) One involved information that a character could pursue in game - the habits of a monster - using in game knowledge. The other involved information that the character can't pursue in game, because it involves something which doesn't exist in game (an abstraction of the in game events during a combat).
e) One involves a request for clarification of the rules. The other involves a request to overturn a feature of the setting.
f) One involves a request which cannot possibly reveal in game information (though it could conceivably reveal metagame information, if for example there was a known feat or class power that caused circle maneuver to draw an AoO, it couldn't reasonably damage the plot). The other on the other hand almost certainly reveals in game information by out of game means.
g) One by description provoked a long argument. The other didn't.
h) One involves usurpation of the authority the table has agreed to yield to the DM. The other doesn't.
i) One involves an actual mistake by the DM. The other, since the rules don't demand that a monster only be found in a favored environment, was not but involved a mere player preference versus a DM preference. Recall, by Hussar's own admission, he preferred that manticores occur in all environments and expected that (as with 1e) they would.
j) One involves a reminder of rules agreed upon to all in play and which part of the player rules of the rule set. The other involves an appeal to rules that are not only the sole purvey of the DM by both convention and written statement of the rules, but that the DM had not even read much less agreed to abide by.

Why do you feel that Hussar's examples are more like your Luke + Death Star scenario ("unacceptable") than they are like your Circle Maneuver example ("acceptable")?

Consider my list of differences again. The Luke example is entirely questioning not of rules but of setting, and involves demands by the player that the player's expectations regarding the setting be imposed on the GM. This is entirely of a different character than asking for a rules clarification. In the Luke example, rules questions never came up.

For example, the GM has no recourse for actually explaining to Luke why things are happening except by blowing a big reveal. What makes this particularly bad play is that the player, if he would engage the setting actually knows enough about the setting to draw conclusions in play that would be really dramatic and fun for everyone one if he'd just trust the GM and go with it and accept that there must be an explanation. Whether or not such an explanation exists or is immediately to be found (as we in on it know that it will be), not only does the GM deserve the benefit of the doubt, but the game would be more enjoyable for everyone if the player would simply play at trying to find an explanation in character. The Star Wars example occurred to me precisely because this is the situation with the manticore example. A really cool or even simply sufficient explanation could easily exist. The GM - as at the least a fellow player at the table - deserves the benefit of the doubt. And even if this was an oversight, going at this from the in game perspective is more graceful, reduces embarrassment, argument, anger, resentment and all the other potential nastiness that in all likelihood actually occurred at the table and well just happens to be fun and likely to stimulate GM involvement and creativity in response. In truth, the amount of trust the GM in the Star Wars example needs relative to the amount any GM actually deserves is trivial. At times something weird may happen in game that a player might not discover the legitimate reason for real life years, if ever. All the Star Wars GM is asking for is 5 minutes of patience.

The armor example is also a matter of setting. It doesn't matter why the GM doesn't want heavy armor in his game setting. He doesn't need to justify that decision and get interrogated over it. It's enough that he's running the setting and he likes the feel of a more primitive feeling setting. Table arguments about what is actually realistic go no where. Concerning plate armor, I could argue either side of the historicity of that one and depending on what you meant by 'right' and 'realistic', I'd be right and realistic. Point is, unless we all agreed ahead of time that we'd share the setting equally, DM's generally have a right to set the parameters of the setting without getting third degree about it.

Yes. That's why your using it to characterize everyone else in this thread feels like a straw man.

It didn't occur to you that if you concede that the player of Luke in the hypothetical is playing wrong, then you've conceded the main point of my argument that everyone is getting so upset and angry about - that it is possible to play the game less well than other ways? And if it is possible to play the game less well, less skillfully, and less artfully, and we can actually agree to that, then we presumably have gotten past what seems to be the big hang up in this thread, namely, whether I'm being an arrogant jerk to suggest that you can play an RPG well. And further, that if you can play an RPG well, and it's not merely a question of 'style', then perhaps we can get past all these false arguments regarding how I just have a dictatorial style and others have a collegial style?

And that's setting up a strawman is it?

Oh never mind. I don't know why I bother. I'm dictatorial, right? You're collegial! Why don't we just keep it at that.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That's it? Thanks for my examples? Seriously? Not, "ok, I guess I was wrong to cast this debate as 'dictatorial' versus 'collegial'"? No apology for trying to poison the well? Or if not a concession, then no attempt to explain how I've still got it all wrong and you were using definitions of the words different than I suggested? No pulling out quotes showing how clear I really made it how much I abhor people who play a 'collegial' game? Or other hand, no admission how games are played at the table can't be neatly lumped into two opposing categories, and that indeed your whole argument really was a false contrast? Or failing that, no rebuttle to show how wrong I got it?

Wait, so you're objecting to my hearing you out and asking questions before explaining how you've got it all wrong? You seriously want me to dismiss you without a hearing? You want me to just assume that I know exactly what you think the word "collegial" means, and tell you why you're wrong because you're using it wrong? What kind of life do you live, man? I try to listen to people before talking at them. I don't always succeed, but I try. This is the first time I remember anyone ever objecting to that.

For example, the GM has no recourse for actually explaining to Luke why things are happening except by blowing a big reveal.

False. "You're right, a whole fleet of star destroyers couldn't destroy a planet." Or if you still consider that "setting" information about the capabilities of star destroyers, "Roll an Intelligence check. [On success] You're right, it would take a massive amount of firepower to destroy a planet, more than you think a whole fleet of star destroyers would have. Isn't that interesting?"

It is false that the GM has no recourse at the metagame (i.e. rule) level.

a) One involved a rule. The other a guideline.
b) One involved setting information. The other involved process resolution.
c) One involve a metagame question about a metagame event - an attack of opportunity. The other involves a metagame question about an in game event - the appearance of a manticore.
d) One involved information that a character could pursue in game - the habits of a monster - using in game knowledge. The other involved information that the character can't pursue in game, because it involves something which doesn't exist in game (an abstraction of the in game events during a combat).
e) One involves a request for clarification of the rules. The other involves a request to overturn a feature of the setting.
f) One involves a request which cannot possibly reveal in game information (though it could conceivably reveal metagame information, if for example there was a known feat or class power that caused circle maneuver to draw an AoO, it couldn't reasonably damage the plot). The other on the other hand almost certainly reveals in game information by out of game means.
g) One by description provoked a long argument. The other didn't.
h) One involves usurpation of the authority the table has agreed to yield to the DM. The other doesn't.
i) One involves an actual mistake by the DM. The other, since the rules don't demand that a monster only be found in a favored environment, was not but involved a mere player preference versus a DM preference. Recall, by Hussar's own admission, he preferred that manticores occur in all environments and expected that (as with 1e) they would.
j) One involves a reminder of rules agreed upon to all in play and which part of the player rules of the rule set. The other involves an appeal to rules that are not only the sole purvey of the DM by both convention and written statement of the rules, but that the DM had not even read much less agreed to abide by.

So, are you demanding that I go through this list of yours to argue with you about which items are significant and which are irrelevant trifles? YMMV, but: (a) is false. (b) is not an interesting difference. (c) is just a restatement of (b). (d) is false--the resolution of the manticore/terrain question can be pursued in-character by attempting to disbelieve illusions or pursue the puzzle of its appearance, provided that the character has knowledge of manticore ecologies. (e) is false or at least unsound--you're inferring facts which haven't been provided. We don't know from the story whether the player wanted a retcon to remove the manticore or simply an acknowledgment by the DM that Manticores shouldn't be here (and maybe renaming it a Forest Manticore or something). (f) doesn't matter, since player knowledge and PC knowledge are separate things. Revealing in-game knowledge to the player isn't the same thing as revealing it to the PC. In 5E this would be an Intelligence (Nature) check. (g) was already covered by me. (h) was suspected by me but it's good to see you acknowledge that my guess was correct. This is the essence of what I see as the difference between a collegial approach and your approach, which you prefer to be called something other than "dictatorial" because of the stigma. In the collegial approach (collegial: "relating to a friendly relationship between colleagues (= people who work together)") all the players are social peers, including the DM, so there are no social implications to "challenging" his "authority". (i) is false. It was a mistake. But this is really just (b) restated yet again. (j) is false, because they were playing AD&D2. Moreover, it is just a restatement of (a).

Maybe I should demand an apology from you now for your implication that I "couldn't think" of any of differences, when the only two valid differences (g and h) were in fact identified by me. But that would be petty and stupid of me, right? Because winning social status contests by browbeating Internet strangers into agreeing with you never works in the first place, and would be a waste of time even if it did work. So no, I won't apologize to you for characterizing your position as ("apparently") dictatorial or "poisoning the well," but I'm glad that you've at least managed to state your position clearly now, and hopefully the opposing position is clear now as well and you can stop using straw men. Whether you actually do stop will say more about you than about me.

 

[pemerton]

Meh.

I can take or leave gameplay.

<snip>

Gameplay is barely even necessary. You can have whole sessions with no gameplay or with side mechanics. Often, gameplay becomes the crutch for when the story is lacking or the DM is having an off day ("Can't think of a *real* story, better just have a dungeon crawl.")

I don't understand your move from autobiography ("I can take or leave gameplay" to generalisation.

Perhaps you don't care about gameplay. But gameplay was important to early D&D - look at a module like Ghost Towers of Inverness, or Tomb of Horrors, or Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and there is virtually nothing but gameplay.

Perhaps you can't conceive of gameplay in an RPG outside the context of a dungeon crawl. But gameplay is pretty important for my group, and dungeon crawls are mostly irrelevant. In my last 4e session, the PCs were trying to capture Ygorl and imprison him in the Crystal of the Ebon Flame. This was an episode of gameplay. Within the rules of the game they came up with a solution to a problem - namely, immobilise Ygorl and thereby slow him down to his teleport speed - and then set about implementing it with the resources at their disposal. They didn't want to know whether or not I thought that it "made sense" that they could capture Ygorl. And I wasn't going to just "say yes", because catching and imprisoning Ygorl makes a significant difference to the unfolding campaign story.

In the session before that, we were playing the Penumbra d20 module Maiden Voyage (using Burning Wheel as the system). Just to give one example - at one point one of the PCs was trying to Intimidate an NPC under his protection into confessing certain information. The check failed, and so - insofar as the player wanted his PC to continue talking with the NPC - the conversation continued between them as equals, rather than as one cowed by the other. Which then had ramifications for the subsequent choices made by that player, and are likely to have ongoing ramifications when we pick the game up again.

The player didn't just want me to make up something that makes sense. And I don't want to just make up something that makes sense. For us, part of what makes it RPGing rather than round-robin storytelling is that at certain crunch points the mechanics will be used to find out what happens, and hence to shape what comes next. Mechanics can be better or worse suited to this task; and when they handle it poorly, it's no good just to say to tell the GM to come up with something that makes sense. That's just reiterating the need to solve a problem; it's not pointing towards an actual solution.

do you think you have a peg on universal views of D&D?

I think you are wrong to imply, as you did (you virtually stated it), that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and I are an extreme minority relative to the rest of the posters on these boards. There is not even any need to name names, as many people who take a similar view to the two of us about the role of rules, and/or the GM, are posting in this very thread.

As for universal views of D&D - I think a "tongue in cheek" flowchart which is summarised, in post 164, as "won't anyone think of the rules lawyers", is an attempt to label all those who don't play in a GM-driven, 2nd ed AD&D style in pejorative terms. I am not the one pushing the "universal view" - [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION] is, by attacking those who take a different attitude towards the role of rules, and the GM, in the game.

And I am not the only poster in this thread to have made this point.

 

[pemerton]

This thread is a train wreck.

I can see why you would say that!, but I think it's too early to tell. There are at least a couple of relatively new voices participating, and I think they have some interesting things to say.

One exampleI have in mind is this: in my posts I've referred to the role of rules and/or the GM, but have been treating attitudes towards the two of them as roughly going together (as I feel they tend to in my own case).

But I think, based on an early post in this thread, that [MENTION=6787650]emdw45[/MENTION] sees the "collegiate" approach to the role of the GM as consistent with "rulings not rules" in action resolution. I'm hoping to hear more about that - either directly, or indirectly coming out in the discussion of the various examples and hypotheticals - because it seems relevant to both the games I'm GMing at the moment: the "page 42" aspects of my 4e game, and the tight connection between action resolution and fictional positioning in Burning Wheel.