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Waibel's Rule of Interpretation (aka "How to Interpret the Rules")
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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7656186" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>Rules discussions like this <strong><em>will </em></strong>go on for entirely too long. And they <em><strong>will go on at the table and be an interruption to play</strong></em>. This is especially likely to happen when you're playing at a table where most participants, or everyone, are GMs or at least have GMing experience. This is an inevitability of a "rulings not rules" ethos combined with a ruleset that has various rules intersections where one aspect that must be considered during adjudication is codified, measured, and pinned down with precision....while another aspect, or potentially multiple aspects, that must be referenced with respect to the first is scribed in an intentionally vague or deeply abstracted manner. It will be intuitive to some to reference one precedent in the ruleset (which may be the vague part or the codified part) to determine what spits out of that mix, while it will be entirely intuitive for another to reference another, perhaps wildly, divergent precedence.</p><p></p><p>In these scenarios, when players have to rely on their reason and intuition (rather than symmetry and clarity within the rules) in order to form coherent action declarations...and then the GM vetoes it because of different reasoning or intuition...it should be expected that there is going to be some extremely jarring moments for players and likely some pushback (hopefully overt pushback rather than passive-aggressiveness). Further, if it happens in <em>this </em>instance (where varying reason, intuition, and precedence invoked regarding the interpretation of the ruleset's intersections causes a divergence of expectations on action declaration and resolution), you can certainly expect it to happen in plenty of other instances.</p><p></p><p>While I understand your inclination toward wanting to "just have the GM make a call and move on....even if you don't care for the GM's decision", there is a problem with that that can, and will (and I'm sure you know this given you've been playing for some time) proliferate as the game moves on and this (good faith) variance in interpretations persist. In order for the game to work at all, player expectation and GM expectation of what comes out of these rules intersections <strong><em>must </em></strong>be fairly congruent with extreme regularity. When this doesn't happen, players are suddenly left in the uncomfortable position of making action declarations (of which they find intuitive and sensible) that are askew of what the actual world (in this case GM rulings) says is intuitive and sensible. It becomes akin to a real person physically moving through our world suddenly having their proprioception and/or spatial awareness upended. Expect a loss of confidence and faith in their senses, their mind's orientation toward all things, and their subsequent movements based on the combination of the two. When another person's "say so" is the causal mechanism for the disruption of their sense of themselves and other objects in space, expect some bad feelings and some pushback. That isn't immaturity or egoism. That is inevitable and natural.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 7656186, member: 6696971"] Rules discussions like this [B][I]will [/I][/B]go on for entirely too long. And they [I][B]will go on at the table and be an interruption to play[/B][/I]. This is especially likely to happen when you're playing at a table where most participants, or everyone, are GMs or at least have GMing experience. This is an inevitability of a "rulings not rules" ethos combined with a ruleset that has various rules intersections where one aspect that must be considered during adjudication is codified, measured, and pinned down with precision....while another aspect, or potentially multiple aspects, that must be referenced with respect to the first is scribed in an intentionally vague or deeply abstracted manner. It will be intuitive to some to reference one precedent in the ruleset (which may be the vague part or the codified part) to determine what spits out of that mix, while it will be entirely intuitive for another to reference another, perhaps wildly, divergent precedence. In these scenarios, when players have to rely on their reason and intuition (rather than symmetry and clarity within the rules) in order to form coherent action declarations...and then the GM vetoes it because of different reasoning or intuition...it should be expected that there is going to be some extremely jarring moments for players and likely some pushback (hopefully overt pushback rather than passive-aggressiveness). Further, if it happens in [I]this [/I]instance (where varying reason, intuition, and precedence invoked regarding the interpretation of the ruleset's intersections causes a divergence of expectations on action declaration and resolution), you can certainly expect it to happen in plenty of other instances. While I understand your inclination toward wanting to "just have the GM make a call and move on....even if you don't care for the GM's decision", there is a problem with that that can, and will (and I'm sure you know this given you've been playing for some time) proliferate as the game moves on and this (good faith) variance in interpretations persist. In order for the game to work at all, player expectation and GM expectation of what comes out of these rules intersections [B][I]must [/I][/B]be fairly congruent with extreme regularity. When this doesn't happen, players are suddenly left in the uncomfortable position of making action declarations (of which they find intuitive and sensible) that are askew of what the actual world (in this case GM rulings) says is intuitive and sensible. It becomes akin to a real person physically moving through our world suddenly having their proprioception and/or spatial awareness upended. Expect a loss of confidence and faith in their senses, their mind's orientation toward all things, and their subsequent movements based on the combination of the two. When another person's "say so" is the causal mechanism for the disruption of their sense of themselves and other objects in space, expect some bad feelings and some pushback. That isn't immaturity or egoism. That is inevitable and natural. [/QUOTE]
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