Rules Question question

[MrTheThird]

This question was a bad idea and was interpreted as expected, I'm sorry and you may now return to your regularly scheduled program.

[Gauss]

MrTheThird,

I for one, am not against the rules supporting fun. However, that does not have anything to do with my posts in the Rules Forum. In the rules forum I stick to the rules as best as I can. Sometimes, I will make comments regarding house rules but I keep those to a minimum.

The Rules Forum is for clarifying the rules. After that people can houserule things all they want.

- Gauss

[Cheapy]

Well, that's one way to frame the narrative.

[Gauss]

MrTheThird,

Again, for me, when I am examining the rules fun is not the issue. Fun has nothing to do with analyzing the rules and coming up with an understanding of how they work.

Step 1: Analyze the rules.
Step 2: Come to an understanding of how they work.
Step 3: If needed, alter the rules to make them more fun or to work better.

Steps 1 and 2 are what happens in the Rules Forum. Step 3 can be done after steps 1 and 2 are completed but it has nothing to do with the Rules Forum.

- Gauss

[thenobledrake]

I think you are confusing the effect - that the popular interpretations on rules run counter to what you find to be "more interesting and fun" - with the cause, which is that the rules pretty clearly support a particular thing more than they support some other thing.

People talk about what the rules actually do say, not what they think would be more interesting if they said - and on top of that, fun is subjective so what you see as "fun" others might see as any number of antonyms for that word.

...at least, until you get into the realm of any topic other than "what are the rules on [subject]?"

[GeneticDrift]

I have never seen that.

I have seen that if an option sounds to good it probably is.

[Adamantine Dragon]

LOL, well, it's more your assertion about how people answer questions on the rules forum that people are responding to than your actual question.

The answer to your question is that people are not (as you seem to be implying) out to ruin people's fun. The answer is that people are attempting to legitimately answer the question according to their literal interpretation of the way the rule is written, with some guidance from what they believe the developers' intent was, usually with a careful eye on balance.

Different people interpret what would be "fun" differently. And the rules forum is not the place to look for "fun" rulings, only "accurate" ones.

[blahpers]

Whee, I'm commenting in a thread the topic of which is a complete mystery!

Knowing what the rules state as written is important because the rules as written are the closest thing we have to an objectively reasonable baseline expectation of any player or GM who has read those rules. Understanding those rules--and the intent behind them--gives a GM perspective when deciding how to rule in cases not covered by those rules, especially in cases where an uninformed ruling could break the game in unforeseen ways.

Note that nothing up there says "you should play the game using the rules as written". Nothing is sacred. But you have to have a frame of reference from which to make any changes to the rule system. Well, that's not entirely true, but without such a frame of reference you aren't really playing Pathfinder, you're playing "this game we made up". Which is also awesome, but not really the kind of thing for this forum.