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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6660529" data-attributes="member: 87792">Every single invocation of Rule 0 on the other hand is changing something. Or you wouldn't need to use it.And there are systems without it. There are also systems with no GM at all. The GM certainly doesn't need to be able to change the rules to wield vast amounts of power.That's because the rules of the game are a stand in for understanding the game world directly. Change the rules within the game and you're changing the physics of the game world.There is a huge difference between house rules and invoking Rule 0. I'm currently playing in a houseruled game of Pathfinder in which one house rule is that every character gets a bonus to all saving throws equal to half their hit dice. This heavily nerfs my character in relation to the rest of the PCs (most of the save or suck spells are mine). It's a good rule, however, and I thoroughly support it. But if the DM were to have said half way through the campaign that they were suddenly unilateraly implementing that rule I'd have been pissed.And the point here is that when the DM uses Rule 0 to fix a balance problem the DM is fixing an issue with the game design. Oh, indeed. Some people don't care about things others do. For some people immersion is nothing - and for others it's the whole reason for playing. Your saying that the preferences of that group should be ignored because others don't worry about it is you either winnowing your table down with no good purpose or you causing a social problem with no real need.Looking at the <a href="http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html" target="_blank">WotC-identified player types</a> (the best empirical data we have, even now) the character actors are going to get pissed when you take away what their character knew about the world. The butt-kickers are going to get pissed when you prevent them doing their thing. The thinkers are mostly going to see it as a new challenge, and the storytellers aren't going to care. Each invocation of Rule 0 undermines almost half the potential players. Using it is a huge social problem in itself. (It's just that sometimes there are even worse ones).</blockquote>

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