The rules can declare the Gamemaster to be the supreme god of the universe for all I care. That still does not make it his game at the table, but our game. The GM is on the same team. There is no player versus gamemaster. He is as much responsible for the fun at the table as everyone else, and his role as a gamemaster does not give him any leeway in behaviour.
We're not talking rules here, we are talking social interaction - and that can't be regulated in a rulebook.
And once that comes, you're done. You have the choice to prolong the inevitable by arguing, accept it and move on, or accept it and quit.You seem to be quite hung up that the only choice is for the player to move on or quit - as opposed to the GM getting his act together before the party decides they need a new GM. Or, of course, the GM walks away because he can't cope with whatever it is his players are doing.Because that's the DM's choice. We're discussing rules lawyers, despite the derail. The DM's choices don't really matter for that. The DM can decide to give in. He can decide he is right, and that is the way the game is going to go until he decides differently. He can decide to kick the offending player out of the game. He can decide to ignore the argument and start running the game, pretending the arguer is not actually there.
The DM actually has a lot more choices in the scenario, because despite statements otherwise, it is the DM's game. Without him the game does not go on. Any single player cannot make that statement, only as a whole, and even then, if replaced with other players, the DM's game goes on, while they have to find another one. It's an imperfect analogy, but consider Paizo, and their customer base. If some customers leave Paizo, Paizo's products continue. If enough of Paizo's customers leave, they shut down, but then no one gets Paizo products. As long as enough remain that Paizo continues to want to produce their...
The ownership you ascribe to the GM is an illusion. Yes, he can say what happens today with complete autonomy. But that autonony is credit, and it's borrowed against the good will of the group returning next week.
I have personally seen many a group bail on a GM and one of the players take up the helm. I've even seen them invite the previous GM to join as a player.
Some groups rotate GMs and that puts ownership in a very precarious place.
I've even seen a GM punt a player and when he got up to leave asked who wanted to start a new game at his place right now and the entire group get up and walk out.
It's not the GMs game any more than an individual player's game. You can't GM to an empty room.
A lot of stuff
He tried to make the point early on that he wouldn't find himself in a game where that level of angst was present. He got bullied into answering a hypothetical that he rejected the premise of. I don't think it's fair to beat him up for an answer that he didn't want to give, with reasoning that parallels why he rejected it in the first place.
Having taken over for a GM myself, and having handed over the GM post to someone else... nope. Fallacy. If no one else is willing to GM that might hold some sort of limited truth to it, but only then.It becomes the new GM's game. Even if you are following notes that explain that Lavinia and Vanthus Vanderboren are really aspects of Demogorgon, you now have the responsibility for everything in the world. You may make calls that I wouldn't. You may make calls that I would. But no matter how closely it resembles my game, it is no longer mine. If you decide that the Aventi priestess is just using the party's wizard as a setup to an aquatic invasion, that's your call, no matter how far it might have been from where I was intending to take that thread. If I hand off a half woven blanket to you, the half you weave is 'yours', even if the blanket as a whole is 'ours'.
But even from that standpoint, the game was handed off BY THE GM, to his or her handpicked successor.
And a GM has to find new players first, too - they do not magically appear in complete groups while that other complete group can't possibly hope to find replacement.Completely irrelevant to the presence or lack of ownership.
Plus, as to his game not going on: A campaign can be salvaged right from the point where you left off. It might lead elsewhere as the original GM intended, but that's not a problem by itself.Not a problem, simply not the same game.
Completely new players on the other hand mean you basically need to start a new campaign. You can't just 'drop them in' where the other guys left off.Yeah you can. Done it for years now. To paraphrase Tim Curry's Cardinal Richelieu, "Players come and players go, but one thing remains the same. And that, is me."
Being a person who makes calls doesn't make it "your game."
You don't get ownership of a game because you got to decide that the oceans are purple on in a setting. You may have ownership of the setting (if you homebrew) but it isn't your game. Players make decisions all the time, making decisions doesn't impart ownership.
Edit: I also find it extremely telling that you have had a rotating cast of players for years. Color me unsurprised.
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Have you read what I actually posted?
Oh, boy. This is gonna be wunna dose days isn't it.
Yes, it can. As said, the rulebook can declare the GM to be God Supreme for all I care. We're talking about social interaction, not a rules discussion.
Oh, so we aren't discussing rules lawyers?
*Looks at title*
*Back at Darkheyr*
*Back at title*
*Back at Darkheyr*
Have you read what I actually posted?Oh, boy. This is gonna be wunna dose days isn't it.
Yes, it can. As said, the rulebook can declare the GM to be God Supreme for all I care. We're talking about social interaction, not a rules discussion.Oh, so we aren't discussing rules lawyers?
*Looks at title*
*Back at Darkheyr*
*Back at title*
*Back at Darkheyr*
Again, he was forced down that path. He was given a hypothetical which was really a social question and was bullied into answering it. Maintaining that reference frame is completely justified.
I don't really give a crap about your tangent. I'm replying to earlier stuff like this:
No. No, absolutely not. The GM is subject to the rules too. If he's changing something that you inherently expect then you have players with mismatched preconceived notions. I can forgive it if the GM is upfront about what will be different during their game, but the GM is subject to the rules like any other player. Throwing a player a curve ball when there's existing rules for something is just going to start a fight. I know this concept of the GM as the final decision maker on the rules has been well-established in this hobby but it's a silly concept. I don't afford a GM any special treatment just because they're the GM. At a table all the players need to be on the same page about what they can and can't do. And if you're arbitrarily making decisions on rules as opposed to figuring out how they really work you're doing everyone and yourself a disservice.
If you guys have gotten so sidetrekked you can't back up these things you claimed to support earlier, that's not my fault.
My we are getting worked up now aren't we :-)
Baiting remarks like this aren't going to encourage them to act maturely. I can take being called "childish" only three times, then I leap out of the mirror and scratch your eyes out. So let's act like adults here.
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A rules lawyer, good or bad, or really any player in the game is welcome to give commentary on a rule in my game. That said, I ask that we don't devolve into 30 minute game-derailing arguments over rules if they aren't a matter of life or death to the character. If they are, I'll call a break and we'll dig into the problem while people attend to snacks, bio needs, smoking, phone calls or whatever.
A bad player/rules lawyer/or really a person is one that won't take any answer that they do not agree with. One that tries to slow the game to a halt to argue over a +1 here or there on every roll, and in general is less a participant and more a very vocal irritant.
I have, in the past, instituted a "one but" rule. You get one interruption to make your case and then we move on until the next break when I'll talk to you more about it. This came about after a particular player would constantly break the flow of the game to try and use obscure rulings, grey areas, and otherwise angle for an advantage. Other players suggested the rule.
A last comment regarding BigDTBone's comments regarding players taking up the GM mantle when being kicked out of a game and GM ownership in general. While it is true that this does happen in some games, in a lot of others and in a number of areas, there is a lack of GMs or lack of people willing to do the task. Whether this is lack of desire, talent, rules knowledge or whatever, it still comes down to that one person willing to do the deed.
I think every player should have to GM several sessions, especially rules lawyers (good or bad). It is incredibly easy to backseat drive and point out where a GM may have fumbled a ruling or missed something in the chaos of 2-12 people yelling what they are doing. It is something else to be the person having all that going on.
Not every GM is a complete master of the rules with an encyclopedic and eidetic memory. A gentle reminder, a "hey, isn't it blah" and so on are much more welcome than "you are doing it wrong!" or giving a seminar on the correct way to read the ruling.
It's a matter of courtesy. Think about how you'd want to be talked to. (and yes, I know there are many in our community who will likely tell us that they don't care how someone tells them the information, they cannot hear/read social clues or that they don't take offense. I sort them into the same pile with Internet SEAL team members and ask that even if it doesn't affect you, think about how it might affect those humans you interact that DO have feelings. :) )
...and what exactly is that quote supposed to say, now?
Heh. My thoughts exactly. I thought it was completely silly, but when I replied to it (and keep in mind it itself was a reply to my earlier post of "good rules lawyers don't drag out the debates pointlessly") I got jumped.
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A rules lawyer, good or bad, or really any player in the game is welcome to give commentary on a rule in my game. That said, I ask that we don't devolve into 30 minute game-derailing arguments over rules if they aren't a matter of life or death to the character. If they are, I'll call a break and we'll dig into the problem while people attend to snacks, bio needs, smoking, phone calls or whatever.
A bad player/rules lawyer/or really a person is one that won't take any answer that they do not agree with. One that tries to slow the game to a halt to argue over a +1 here or there on every roll, and in general is less a participant and more a very vocal irritant.
I have, in the past, instituted a "one but" rule. You get one interruption to make your case and then we move on until the next break when I'll talk to you more about it. This came about after a particular player would constantly break the flow of the game to try and use obscure rulings, grey areas, and otherwise angle for an advantage. Other players suggested the rule.
A last comment regarding BigDTBone's comments regarding players taking up the GM mantle when being kicked out of a game and GM ownership in general. While it is true that this does happen in some games, in a lot of others and in a number of areas, there is a lack of GMs or lack of people willing to do the task. Whether this is lack of desire, talent, rules knowledge or whatever, it still comes down to that one person willing to do the deed.
I think every player should have to GM several sessions, especially rules lawyers (good or bad). It is incredibly easy to backseat drive and point out where a GM may have fumbled a ruling or missed something in the chaos of 2-12 people yelling what they are doing. It is something else to be the person having all that going on.
Not every GM is a complete master of the rules with an encyclopedic and eidetic memory. A gentle reminder, a "hey, isn't it blah" and so on are much more welcome than "you are doing it wrong!" or giving a...
If GM scarcity allows a GM to get away with being a jerk, the GM is still being a jerk. We shouldn't set our expectations to accept that as the default or the good.
If GM scarcity allows a GM to get away with being a jerk, the GM is still being a jerk. We shouldn't set our expectations to accept that as the default or the good.
Sorry, got called away before I completed my thought there. The idea isn't to accept a GM being a jerk or a player being a jerk, but for people to be able to talk to each other like we want to play a game together. If the GM or rules lawyer/player cannot, for whatever reason, express themselves without being a total jerk then they should get a translator or reconsider interacting with other humanoids.
Point is, there is a way to say "hey, I think you may have misread this or made a mistake" without coming across like you are attacking the other person, or taking offense at being corrected on the copious rules that exist in RPGs.
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If GM scarcity allows a GM to get away with being a jerk, the GM is still being a jerk. We shouldn't set our expectations to accept that as the default or the good.Sorry, got called away before I completed my thought there. The idea isn't to accept a GM being a jerk or a player being a jerk, but for people to be able to talk to each other like we want to play a game together. If the GM or rules lawyer/player cannot, for whatever reason, express themselves without being a total jerk then they should get a translator or reconsider interacting with other humanoids.
Point is, there is a way to say "hey, I think you may have misread this or made a mistake" without coming across like you are attacking the other person, or taking offense at being corrected on the copious rules that exist in RPGs.
I agree completely.
Some folks in this thread are pushing an agenda that if the GM is being a jerk, it still makes you wrong to call them on it. Just because they are the GM. I find that to be highly objectionable.
Please note, knightnday, I don't see you as someone doing that, but your statement did come off as a rationale for that mindset.
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If GM scarcity allows a GM to get away with being a jerk, the GM is still being a jerk. We shouldn't set our expectations to accept that as the default or the good.Sorry, got called away before I completed my thought there. The idea isn't to accept a GM being a jerk or a player being a jerk, but for people to be able to talk to each other like we want to play a game together. If the GM or rules lawyer/player cannot, for whatever reason, express themselves without being a total jerk then they should get a translator or reconsider interacting with other humanoids.
Point is, there is a way to say "hey, I think you may have misread this or made a mistake" without coming across like you are attacking the other person, or taking offense at being corrected on the copious rules that exist in RPGs.
I agree completely.
Some folks in this thread are pushing an agenda that if the GM is being a jerk, it still makes you wrong to call them on it. Just because they are the GM. I find that to be highly objectionable.
Please note, knightnday, I don't see you as someone doing that, but your statement did come off as a rationale for that mindset.
Oh I can totally see that. I went back to see where I hit enter and knew that it was going to come across different that I had intended. No one gets to be a jerk, especially not the GM. I consider myself the host even if I am not hosting the game in my own home. It's the GMs responsibility and duty to make sure people have fun and that the game flows well. Arguing is one of the biggest wastes of time and leaders in game groups breaking up. Discussion is one thing, but a blanket "I am right because I am the GM" or "You are wrong because I read the rules and have the devs on speed dial" are both mood killers for everyone not in the fight.
If GM scarcity allows a GM to get away with being a jerk, the GM is still being a jerk. We shouldn't set our expectations to accept that as the default or the good.Sorry, got called away before I completed my thought there. The idea isn't to accept a GM being a jerk or a player being a jerk, but for people to be able to talk to each other like we want to play a game together. If the GM or rules lawyer/player cannot, for whatever reason, express themselves without being a total jerk then they should get a translator or reconsider interacting with other humanoids.
Point is, there is a way to say "hey, I think you may have misread this or made a mistake" without coming across like you are attacking the other person, or taking offense at being corrected on the copious rules that exist in RPGs.
I agree completely.
Some folks in this thread are pushing an agenda that if the GM is being a jerk, it still makes you wrong to call them on it. Just because they are the GM. I find that to be highly objectionable.
Please note, knightnday, I don't see you as someone doing that, but your statement did come off as a rationale for that mindset.
I don't know that that's true though. At least not intended. I think some people (myself being one) were trying to have a discussion on rules lawyers (which I feel is a term applied to players) and then others tried to widen the discussion to include the behavior of the GM.
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If GM scarcity allows a GM to get away with being a jerk, the GM is still being a jerk. We shouldn't set our expectations to accept that as the default or the good.Sorry, got called away before I completed my thought there. The idea isn't to accept a GM being a jerk or a player being a jerk, but for people to be able to talk to each other like we want to play a game together. If the GM or rules lawyer/player cannot, for whatever reason, express themselves without being a total jerk then they should get a translator or reconsider interacting with other humanoids.
Point is, there is a way to say "hey, I think you may have misread this or made a mistake" without coming across like you are attacking the other person, or taking offense at being corrected on the copious rules that exist in RPGs.
I agree completely.
Some folks in this thread are pushing an agenda that if the GM is being a jerk, it still makes you wrong to call them on it. Just because they are the GM. I find that to be highly objectionable.
Please note, knightnday, I don't see you as someone doing that, but your statement did come off as a rationale for that mindset.
That's not the agenda I thought I was pushing, or agreeing with in Kain's posts. Are you sure you're finding this in our posts?
My observation is that if the GM is being a jerk, doubling down on rules lawyering is probably not a good way to fix things, and especially I observe that the best response is not to draw out rules arguments long past the point when the GM made up his mind.
Let's remind ourselves of what started this sidetrek. I'm not sure if the discussion continued to even concern rules lawyering from yours or Darkheyr's perspective - a lot of the comments you've made seem to suggest that it ceased to - but for purposes of understanding my position, it's probably best to remember that I have been posting primarily with the topic of rules lawyering, and when it is or is not appropriate, in mind.
I know this concept of the GM as the final decision maker on the rules has been well-established in this hobby but it's a silly concept.
I'll definitely not drop it if it could damn well kill my character or similar, GM ruling or not.
It's appropriate for a player to carry on a rules argument as long as he likes, without any regard to whether the GM has already made up his mind, if the topic is important to the player.
That's what I disagree with.
Don't spend three hours arguing that your character with Combat Reflexes should have gotten two AoOs to interrupt the scorching ray that killed him, not just one, because it's both a spell cast in melee and a ranged attack in melee. You're right. But if you didn't convince the GM in fifteen minutes, retreading for three hours isn't likely to help, and is likely to frustrate everybody present.
Once the GM has heard your rules argument and committed to a ruling, you should probably either live with the ruling, or find a response that's not rules lawyering, because it seems to me that the scope for rules lawyering has ended.
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Cool.
And, for what it's worth, houseruling into a death like that certainly seems like poor behavior. Just not behavior that rules lawyering will fix - or, really, that it's relevant to, since that scenario is one of houserules, not rulings.
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A good rules lawyer is a silent one.
Heh, that I can't promise.
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The rules can declare the Gamemaster to be the supreme god of the universe for all I care. That still does not make it his game at the table, but our game. The GM is on the same team. There is no player versus gamemaster. He is as much responsible for the fun at the table as everyone else, and his role as a gamemaster does not give him any leeway in behaviour.
We're not talking rules here, we are talking social interaction - and that can't be regulated in a rulebook.
And once that comes, you're done. You have the choice to prolong the inevitable by arguing, accept it and move on, or accept it and quit.You seem to be quite hung up that the only choice is for the player to move on or quit - as opposed to the GM getting his act together before the party decides they need a new GM. Or, of course, the GM walks away because he can't cope with whatever it is his players are doing.
You being correct(about the rule) does not mean you get to hold up everyone else's fun. So you are wrong in that(holding up the game) regard. It is not about shifting the blame, but you handling the situation improperly. The GM may have screwed up your fun, but when you keep arguing you are now messing up everyone's fun. So no matter how wrong the GM is, you are still not justified in your behavior. Sometimes life and the game is not fair. This would be one of those times.
Heh. My thoughts exactly. I thought it was completely silly, but when I replied to it (and keep in mind it itself was a reply to my earlier post of "good rules lawyers don't drag out the debates pointlessly") I got jumped.Actually, I understand why he wrote that - your choice of words suggests a very all-encompassing meaning, to an interpretation of "When a GM says A, it's A, no matter what!"
Then Kain started disagreeing with a definite blanket statement and bad-player-implications, and that's where our tangent came from.
And in hindsight, while I might have mischaracterised your post thanks to the entire discussion in between, I still can't find myself to agree with the "no matter what!" approach you seem to support with your posts, because such situations are a matter of social interactions - a GM can't do whatever he wants, no matter what the rules say, because some of those things he wants might just turn him into a GM without players, and if very unlucky, even without friends.
And to bring us back to your earlier "Did you even read my post?" question that led me to start using Jontron clips, this is what I meant by reminding you that the players could always find a new GM. Obviously, there's always a limit imposed by what the players will put up with. They're free to react to the GM being a jerk.
But the GM does have full control over the system. It's not the rules that are going to limit him from asshattery, it's the players. Rules lawyering therefore isn't really the way to go in that scenario—at least, not rules lawyering that interrupts the session.
I was always talking about rules lawyers, and then I got drawn into whatever the thread became. So...yeah. I have no horse in your race.
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Thats a dumb argument:(
You can do better then that
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Humour me with a question, wraithstrike.
I am your GM. I come to your house to play. Mid-session, I stand up, walk over to your cupboard, and smash three of your glasses.
You then make a scene about what the hells I am doing, while I kindly ask you to continue the game.
Who of us is to blame for holding up the game?
The game is only held up as long as it takes for you to get your things and leave.
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Humour me with a question, wraithstrike.
I am your GM. I come to your house to play. Mid-session, I stand up, walk over to your cupboard, and smash three of your glasses.
You then make a scene about what the hells I am doing, while I kindly ask you to continue the game.
Who of us is to blame for holding up the game?
The game is only held up as long as it takes for you to get your things and leave.
perfect answer.
Well, if nothing else, I got a few new YouTube clips to use in posts in the future. Thanks, thread!
If every player bothered to actually try and learn the rules for what they're playing and the general chapter on combat, there wouldn't be such a thing as "rules lawyers".
Newbies get a pass - there's a lot to take in at once. But if you've been gaming for over a year and haven't bothered to sit down and try to learn how it works, well, you're lazy. I thought about finding a nicer way to say that, I really did, but a year is a long frickin time. Lazy.
The CRB has 575 pages. 4 pages are table of contents and credits and that kind of stuff, 4 are indexes, 2 are lists of inspired reading appendices, 14 are gamemastering, 10 are creating NPCs...All of which the player never needs to know.
That's 541 pages absolute maximum to read. That's less than two pages a day to get it done in a year. For everything. But if you're playing a certain race, class, and using only certain items, that can cut it down by About 75%. Heck, the magic items chapter alone is 96 pages, most of which you can ignore. Spells are about 150, which if you're a martial you can skip entirely, and a caster need only know what he or she casts. That boils down to a page every other day.
Reading four pages a week is not a lot of work. It's not. I'm pretty sure it's less than five minutes work per page to really soak it in. Most people spend hours at a time on their hobbies, and not even on the fun parts, but tabletop gamers can't be expected to spend just under a half an hour a week learning theirs? And maybe I'm generalizing, but just about everyone I've played with has called themselves a reader, or at least casually enjoyed reading.
It just annoys me that considering all the work a GM goes through how lazy so many players can be.
Do you memorize everything you read, and understand the often contradictory and bizarrely placed and cross referenced rules and how they interact with each other? Something as straitforward as the druid requires having the druid page , the monster they're turning into, and the beast shape spell, as well as the polymorph section of the magic chapter all pinging off of each other.
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If every player bothered to actually try and learn the rules for what they're playing and the general chapter on combat, there wouldn't be such a thing as "rules lawyers".
Newbies get a pass - there's a lot to take in at once. But if you've been gaming for over a year and haven't bothered to sit down and try to learn how it works, well, you're lazy. I thought about finding a nicer way to say that, I really did, but a year is a long frickin time. Lazy.
[...]
That boils down to a page every other day.
I do try to be a bit more forgiving towards people who don't understand the rules. There's a balance between frustration at someone not doing the leg work, and understanding that the rules are complex and occasionally arcane.
One thing I will comment on your analysis is that a single read through is not necessarily sufficient to form a rudimentary understanding of the rules.
I know this because a single front to back readthrough of the Player's Handbook, DMG, and Monster Manual was exactly how I prepared for my first ever dnd3.0 game.
(In the DM's chair no less)
Heh, what a mess.
If every player bothered to actually try and learn the rules for what they're playing and the general chapter on combat, there wouldn't be such a thing as "rules lawyers".
Newbies get a pass - there's a lot to take in at once. But if you've been gaming for over a year and haven't bothered to sit down and try to learn how it works, well, you're lazy. I thought about finding a nicer way to say that, I really did, but a year is a long frickin time. Lazy.
The CRB has 575 pages. 4 pages are table of contents and credits and that kind of stuff, 4 are indexes, 2 are lists of inspired reading appendices, 14 are gamemastering, 10 are creating NPCs...All of which the player never needs to know.
That's 541 pages absolute maximum to read. That's less than two pages a day to get it done in a year. For everything. But if you're playing a certain race, class, and using only certain items, that can cut it down by About 75%. Heck, the magic items chapter alone is 96 pages, most of which you can ignore. Spells are about 150, which if you're a martial you can skip entirely, and a caster need only know what he or she casts. That boils down to a page every other day.
Reading four pages a week is not a lot of work. It's not. I'm pretty sure it's less than five minutes work per page to really soak it in. Most people spend hours at a time on their hobbies, and not even on the fun parts, but tabletop gamers can't be expected to spend just under a half an hour a week learning theirs? And maybe I'm generalizing, but just about everyone I've played with has called themselves a reader, or at least casually enjoyed reading.
It just annoys me that considering all the work a GM goes through how lazy so many players can be.
I wish this wasn't so true. I've played with people that cannot remember what to roll or do with their character and they have been playing for ten years or more. It just makes me hurt.
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Do you memorize everything you read, and understand the often contradictory and bizarrely placed and cross referenced rules and how they interact with each other? Something as straitforward as the druid requires having the druid page , the monster they're turning into, and the beast shape spell, as well as the polymorph section of the magic chapter all pinging off of each other.
Unless you can do that or pull it all in a quick reference, stick to playing fighters. Different classes require different levels of mastery, if you can't manage it without holding up the game, don't play it.
Do you memorize everything you read, and understand the often contradictory and bizarrely placed and cross referenced rules and how they interact with each other? Something as straitforward as the druid requires having the druid page , the monster they're turning into, and the beast shape spell, as well as the polymorph section of the magic chapter all pinging off of each other.
Heh, yeah. I remember well how gloriously incoherent the organization of the rules was, to a first time reader.
Do you memorize everything you read, and understand the often contradictory and bizarrely placed and cross referenced rules and how they interact with each other? Something as straitforward as the druid requires having the druid page , the monster they're turning into, and the beast shape spell, as well as the polymorph section of the magic chapter all pinging off of each other.
If it's something I'm playing, then yes, I do repeatedly reread the section on that class. I also print out the pages on anything I'm using and take it with me to the game. If the GM can do enough homework to put an entire game together, I can be bothered to learn how to play a character.
And if a druid is too hard, don't play a druid. I don't care if your entire character concept hinges on being a druid - man/woman up and do some studying, or change your concept. The rest of the table shouldn't have to wait while you fumble through the books to double check an ability that is a cornerstone of your class, nor should we have to take time to interject what you're doing wrong and ourselves look up and reference the GM to correct your lack of knowledge caused by laziness.
Again, newbies get a pass, but about a year in you should have no excuses.
I don't let people play druids unless they are willing to do their homework and work out their favorite shapes, pre-adjusted with all templates, attributes, etc. Same thing for summon spells, martial versatility, or any other complex ability.
If you can't handle it, don't play it.
Eh...on this particular matter, I agree with darkheyr.
I DM weekly, and put in a minimum of ten hours of prep time on a low week. I've co-authored a d20 supplement that was very rules heavy. I am happy to discuss the game given even the smallest of pretexts. I've got about twenty years invested in the game at this point. I read through five to seven different d20 sourcebooks every week.
And yet when my players start trying to smash through a wall, I still have to go look up material hit points, and whether or not hardness is applied before half damage for energy. And I have to go look things up if they start busting out the hero points and rerolls and whatnot. Or have Coriat do it.
There is a gap between 'minimum rules knowledge required to play the game' and 'rules lawyer level grasp of the rules.' And a single read through of the CRB isn't going to get you across it.
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I had a situation where one of my players could not and would not stop questioning EVERY SINGLE RULES APPLICATION we used. This got into thirty to forty times PER SESSION. He would not stop until I had proven him wrong (which happened more than ninety-five percents of the time, the rest he had some kind of point to it). I told him to stop in private, then I told him to stop in front of the others, to no avail. Then I told him that if he did question anything at all, he would have a -5 penalty to the next action his character did, cumulative number of times of course. This got him to stop.
If it's something I'm playing, then yes, I do repeatedly reread the section on that class.
That wasn't the question. I asked if you memorized it and understood it in relation to every other rule that might apply to it ? Big difference between that and reading it a few times. Those rules get a little crazy and counter intuitive. You should see the looks on DMs faces when I tell them that a druid in rat form can breathe underwater.
I also print out the pages on anything I'm using and take it with me to the game. If the GM can do enough homework to put an entire game together, I can be bothered to learn how to play a character.
And that's ALL that's required to end rules lawyering?
The vast majority of rules lawyering isn't not knowing the rules, or even bouncing weird ruless off of each other, its looking at the same words and coming to alternative meanings of the exact same words. (quite often, whichever reading gives the player the advantage). Knowing, citing, or printing out the rules isn't going to help you there.
hare Spells: The wizard may cast a spell with a target of “You” on his familiar (as a touch spell) instead of on himself. A wizard may cast spells on his familiar even if the spells do not normally affect creatures of the familiar's type (magical beast).
Reading that as one big related clause or as two separate clauses are both fairly common.
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Humour me with a question, wraithstrike.
I am your GM. I come to your house to play. Mid-session, I stand up, walk over to your cupboard, and smash three of your glasses.
You then make a scene about what the hells I am doing, while I kindly ask you to continue the game.
Who of us is to blame for holding up the game?
Sorry I am just seeing this.
I would not make a scene I would just kick you out of the house.
Now if you come up with something that actually compares to a gaming situation, and not being a jerk then I would tell you how I respond to game related situations.
As an example if I as the GM yell at you, for you correcting me on a rule then that is a more of a me being a jerk than a gaming issue because I should not be yelling at another person. So if you respond by walking out of the game because you feel disrespected that is fine.
My example of you ending the game as a player is more comparable to you breaking my personal property because we both have issues with the way the other behaved that was not good, and not entirely game related.
At no point should a person be disrespected, and accidentally killing your character is not being disrespectful.
PS: Just to be clear I am not calling you a jerk. I was saying the breaking of personal property is jerkish behavior.
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If every player bothered to actually try and learn the rules for what they're playing and the general chapter on combat, there wouldn't be such a thing as "rules lawyers".
Newbies get a pass - there's a lot to take in at once. But if you've been gaming for over a year and haven't bothered to sit down and try to learn how it works, well, you're lazy. I thought about finding a nicer way to say that, I really did, but a year is a long frickin time. Lazy.
The CRB has 575 pages. 4 pages are table of contents and credits and that kind of stuff, 4 are indexes, 2 are lists of inspired reading appendices, 14 are gamemastering, 10 are creating NPCs...All of which the player never needs to know.
That's 541 pages absolute maximum to read. That's less than two pages a day to get it done in a year. For everything. But if you're playing a certain race, class, and using only certain items, that can cut it down by About 75%. Heck, the magic items chapter alone is 96 pages, most of which you can ignore. Spells are about 150, which if you're a martial you can skip entirely, and a caster need only know what he or she casts. That boils down to a page every other day.
Reading four pages a week is not a lot of work. It's not. I'm pretty sure it's less than five minutes work per page to really soak it in. Most people spend hours at a time on their hobbies, and not even on the fun parts, but tabletop gamers can't be expected to spend just under a half an hour a week learning theirs? And maybe I'm generalizing, but just about everyone I've played with has called themselves a reader, or at least casually enjoyed reading.
It just annoys me that considering all the work a GM goes through how lazy so many players can be.
Some people are just a lot better at learning the rules than others are. Now I do expect for them to know which dice to roll, and other basic things. I also like for them to know their character. I get more annoyed by people who don't level up between sessions. Unless someone is a caster and they have to choose spells, it should not take long.
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Do you memorize everything you read, and understand the often contradictory and bizarrely placed and cross referenced rules and how they interact with each other? Something as straitforward as the druid requires having the druid page , the monster they're turning into, and the beast shape spell, as well as the polymorph section of the magic chapter all pinging off of each other.If it's something I'm playing, then yes, I do repeatedly reread the section on that class. I also print out the pages on anything I'm using and take it with me to the game. If the GM can do enough homework to put an entire game together, I can be bothered to learn how to play a character.
And if a druid is too hard, don't play a druid. I don't care if your entire character concept hinges on being a druid - man/woman up and do some studying, or change your concept. The rest of the table shouldn't have to wait while you fumble through the books to double check an ability that is a cornerstone of your class, nor should we have to take time to interject what you're doing wrong and ourselves look up and reference the GM to correct your lack of knowledge caused by laziness.
Again, newbies get a pass, but about a year in you should have no excuses.
I don't let people play druids unless they are willing to do their homework and work out their favorite shapes, pre-adjusted with all templates, attributes, etc. Same thing for summon spells, martial versatility, or any other complex ability.
If you can't handle it, don't play it.
Yeah I am with you on the summoned animals things. I understand if you hardly ever summon anything, but if you always summon things then have the stats ready. At least tell me in advance. I will just set up the monster for you while I am prepping the game. No, I am not prepping every possible monster, but I will do a select few.
If it's something I'm playing, then yes, I do repeatedly reread the section on that class.
That wasn't the question. I asked if you memorized it and understood it in relation to every other rule that might apply to it ? Big difference between that and reading it a few times. Those rules get a little crazy and counter intuitive. You should see the looks on DMs faces when I tell them that a druid in rat form can breathe underwater.
you never know where a rule that impacts what you want to do might be. Heck, a recent problem came up because a goblin wanted to fly on a bat , checked the bat, the handle animal, the ride section, the fly session... but didn't see a rule about no medium loads while flying, under... the barding section.
I also print out the pages on anything I'm using and take it with me to the game. If the GM can do enough homework to put an entire game together, I can be bothered to learn how to play a character.And that's ALL that's required to end rules lawyering?
The vast majority of rules lawyering isn't not knowing the rules, or even bouncing weird ruless off of each other, its looking at the same words and coming to alternative meanings of the exact same words. (quite often, whichever reading gives the player the advantage). Knowing, citing, or printing out the rules isn't going to help you there.
hare Spells: The wizard may cast a spell with a target of “You” on his familiar (as a touch spell) instead of on himself. A wizard may cast spells on his familiar even if the spells do not normally affect creatures of the familiar's type (magical beast).
Reading that as one big related clause or as two separate clauses are both fairly common.