Your approach to rules

[derelictjay]

I voted 30 seconds, but am willing to waste 5 minutes to get it right. I hate screwing up something because (good or bad) it unbalanced the game later, so in this case I like to ere on the cautious side. But it usually don't take longer than a minute.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I tend to just make something up to keep the game going. The 20 system is streamlined enough that making it up on the fly is pretty easy to do within the confines of the rules. Just set a DC, roll a D20, and figure out what would modify the dice roll.

Kane

 

[KB9JMQ]

I voted 30 seconds.
I try to find it quickly to keep the momentum going.
If it is a life or death call I will spend the time to look it up.
If it can be done with a quick judgement call I do that after my first 30 seconds

 

[WayneLigon]

I'll spend a few seconds looking it up or delegate it to a player. If a character's life is on the line because of a possible rules misinterpretation, then I'll take longer.

Usually I'll look at the likely encounters that night and see if they have any special abilities that I need to refresh on (Grapple attacks, sundering, swallow whole, etc; stuf I seldom see).

 

[TerraDave]

Something between 30 seconds and 5 minutes: If my players can spend one plus hours buffing and checking spells for the nth time, I can take a couple of minutes to look up the rules. But I do try to anticipate before the session (whith mixed results).

With its vast number of rules (which includes all that monster and magic specific stuff), I don't think I can say I will ever completely master 3.5

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I seriously know all the rules.

OK, I'm not *quite* Hyp, but I've got most of them in my head.

If I need something I don't know that well but which I know is codified somewhere(like, say, the entire psionics ruleset), I'll spend a couple minutes checking.

If it's something that I don't know off the top of my head and can't recall ever reading, I'll make something up and off we go. It generally ends up being pretty much in-line with 3.X rules, anyway - the beauty of a unified mechanic.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I know the rules extremely well, so its rare I need to look something up. However, if I do, I rarely take more than a minute to get the gist of how things work. The less time it takes, the better.

 

[sniffles]

I'll spend a few seconds looking it up or delegate it to a player. If a character's life is on the line because of a possible rules misinterpretation, then I'll take longer.

Usually I'll look at the likely encounters that night and see if they have any special abilities that I need to refresh on (Grapple attacks, sundering, swallow whole, etc; stuf I seldom see).

That sounds like a sensible approach. I don't GM currently but I'm thinking of giving it a try, and I'm concerned about my lack of rules-sense. Several of my potential players know the rules backwards and forwards, so in my case I'll probably let them tell me the rules and go with whatever they say, then look it up after the game. I hate having a rules question bring play to a halt.

 

[Psion]

Look it up quickly, if you can't find it, make it up (And look the real rule up after the game and add it to your house rules if it doesn't exist).

I am a rules-first sort of guy, so the players can have a feeling of stability in the world. But some rulings are obscure enough to baffle me in play (I still never got enough info to answer the one that came up a few sessions ago: is an "abberation (augmented plant)" considered a plant for the purposes of spells?

 

[TerraDave]

Also, if I do wing something, I try to note that it holds under the immediate circumstances, and things may work differently next time (like by RAW)