|
I found myself in the middle of a rules argument the other day, wondering how it happened and if it was my fault again, and it struck me that I may go about making rules decisions using different criteria then other folks. So this thread isn't about any specific rule conflict or interpretation, but rather how one goes about resolving them.
I look at the wording of a rule and think how did the author intend this to function, and will it be fun. Simulation of reality plays little to no influence on my decision, and the exact verbiage is far less important than the intent. I also tend to think the description of what something does as being the rule and the how it does it being the fluff (I'm perfectly fine with "reskinning" as long as the new skin fits the setting).
When in doubt, I tend to swing on the side of what would be more favorable to the players. If a player has some immunity I don't negate it. I think subverting a player's abilities in order to make a scenario play out in a desired fashion is an extremely bad rule call. I feel that some GMs make rule calls specifically to make things harder for their players, which is terrible imo. Challenge should be addressed through scenario design, not through rule adjudication. Unsurprisingly this happens more in published scenarios than home games, where the design was done by someone else.
Which brings me to the subject of challenging players. PCs in pathfinder tend to be extremely good at specific tasks. Some GMs seem to think that the way to challenge players is to nerf their abilities, or say they don't work because reasons. To me this is how you aggravate players, not how you challenge them. Challenging players is about making them overcome their weaknesses, not about battering down their strengths.
Ok, that got off on a bit of a rant. Anyhow, I'm interested in other opinions. Other views on what's important and what you take into consideration when you go about adjudicating rule disputes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
and the exact verbiage is far less important than the intent.
Now this is where I would disagree, because you don't have a direct link into the author's mind. You cannot know their intention was unless you had the opportunity to speak with them, you can only take a guess at it. The specific verbiage they have chosen for their rules text is how they expressed those intentions, so it's a very high bar to convince me that the specific verbiage is not what the author intended. If the rules work and don't have any obvious contradictions, then that is the intent.
Some GMs seem to think that the way to challenge players is to nerf their abilities, or say they don't work because reasons. To me this is how you aggravate players, not how you challenge them.
I'd agree, you don't go about nerfing your PC's with rulings. That just breeds resentment. It should be reserved for cases where something is really truly game-breaking.
My rulebook is the only one allowed at my table; I expect my players to know what their characters are capable of.
If there's confusion or uncertainty, I try to make a judgement call, right or wrong, and move on.
If I have no idea, I'll open the book.
RAW versus RAI...I don't care about sentence structure or any of that. I also don't care much for what the original author intended. It's about what I want the rule to do, right here and now. For all that, I'm pretty generous in rulings. Mostly because I'm ruthless on the grid (like having three lvl5 PC's encounter a herd of 7 mammoths).
Challenge PC's can be tricky. I try to build encounters to thwart a standard party's Plan A, but never my party specifically and never their Plan B.
I like to stick to rules, because as a player I know what to expect.
Now, when MD forgets rules, I will tell it after the session, to not make things slower on the battlefield.
But, if the rule plays in our favor, I have to speak up. So it's a 50/50.
Most DMs forget about cover and firing into melee. And I'm usually pissed about it because if I went archer i'd take Precise Shot and some way to ignore cover, so a random mage at level 1 shooting without -4 and enemy not +4AC pisses me off
|
|
So, I run a homebrew game, with a few minor house rules like fumbles, custom races, and campaign traits. I also build a lot of my own monsters and npcs, using the monster creation guidelines from the bestiary (I'm of the opinion that pc classes are for pcs, and build npcs in the same way I do monsters, finding that makes for a better CR balance).
Not that we don't ever get into rule arguments when I am GMing, but it is a fairly infrequent occurrence. Most of my problems come while as a player. I used to start rule arguments all the time, I've gotten better, but it's still hard for me to keep my mouth shut when other players start them. I have the problem of having GMed for a long time under the d20 rule set and knowing it very well, so every time someone else makes a mistake, I want to correct them. Another part is me thinking, "that's not how I would run it."
I'm also usually that challenge PC. Yeah, I know, I'm part of the problem, but part of the fun of pathfinder as a player is coming up with the weird hyper effective combinations that are so plentiful in the game. The worst rules arguments I've ever been in have all been as a player in PFS type games where you're supposed to do it RAW.
I am digressing again and forget where I was going with all that. Hmm.
Yup.
|
|
If the rules work and don't have any obvious contradictions, then that is the intent.
Clear rules aren't usually the ones that breed arguments. I think there are many rules where verbiage does not allow or disallow some use that is clearly unintended. (For silly example there was that whole you can still act while you're dead discussion which lead to pf2 having a well defined "dead" condition) I'm also of the opinion that not everything needs to be explicitly stated (like dead really doesn't need to be a defined game term), there is intent that can be inferred from other rules, or just plain common sense.
But, I think I got this way over decades of running and playing games. I have more system mastery than many of the people who wrote the rulebooks, so I feel very comfortable interpreting and adjudicating odd rules. (That's not meant to be arrogant, I just love the hobby and have been GMing for a very long time). I doubt I held the same view about it 20 years ago. I probably considered the exact wording to be more important back then.
My rulebook is the only one allowed at my table
Well for me that just isn't possible. With the current state of things, all my games now are online via roll20, so everyone is capable of looking up anything they want at any time.
I try to make calls based on keeping the tempo of the game consistent to my design.
I don't like pausing the action to look up feats or spells...
So, most of the time, I ask the player what it is they are trying to accomplish, and what they have that makes it possible (or at least worth the attempt).
Rule of cool will win 90% of the time just to keep things moving.
I want martials to have nice things.
I want spells that do the impossible.
You are pretend fighting Liches and Dragons and Lich Dragons... the only rule that matters is if you are having fun.
I honestly don't care what the author or producer intended when they made the feat, rule, or even the game in its entirety...
I am playing it with some people, and we are going to have fun.
Quick example: I think that whoever wrote Slashing Grace to not work with Flurry of Blows is a monster that doesn't want people to have fun playing this game, so I am perfectly willing to ignore that part... you have Slashing Grace and Flurry? Cool, do it to it. Every stipulation at the end of that feat is buzz-kill lame and absolutely doesn't apply at my table.
I don't care how it is written, who wrote it, or what their intentions were when they wrote it... if I think your intentions were to limit the fun at my table, then I will make the final decisions... not some publisher not playing my game at my table.
Well for me that just isn't possible. With the current state of things, all my games now are online via roll20, so everyone is capable of looking up anything they want at any time.
Yeah, same here. I just tell them I don't allow it.
We're all good friends and they trust my knowledge of the system, so it works fine with minimal fuss.
But I've had groups that weren't as tight-tight-knit, socially speaking, and I've had to drop the hammer a few times. But even then, all of my players, even those who didn't particularly care for my style, bregudgingy admit that I put a ton of work into my games, that I know what I'm doing and that my storytelling is on point, so the demand isn't unjustified.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My rulebook is the only one allowed at my table; I expect my players to know what their characters are capable of.
If there's confusion or uncertainty, I try to make a judgement call, right or wrong, and move on.
If I have no idea, I'll open the book.
That is a terrible rule. Someone may want to do a rarely used combat maneuver and want to make sure it works the way they think it does. Someone may have a "just in case" magic item and want to make sure it works as expected. And high level casters have lots of spells, not all of them used constantly.
Someone may want to do a rarely used combat maneuver and want to make sure it works the way they think it does.
Then they can ask me.
Someone may have a "just in case" magic item and want to make sure it works as expected.
Then they can ask me
And high level casters have lots of spells, not all of them used constantly.
That's what spell cards are for.
That is a terrible rule.
It is a great one. Unless you're not interested in good storytelling, where the mechanical and narrative pacing are working harmoniously together, instead of at odds with each other.
Anyone who claims to have good storytelling by hoarding the rules usually has the opposite.
How do you figure?
I'm not disallowing anyone from looking up the rules or questioning my decisions. Just not at the table. I've set aside X hours and prepared Y material. Let's tell a story, not thumb through rulebooks. That's for before or after the session.
I can understand the concern, to a point. Not all GM's have earned enough trust from their players to make such a requirement easy to swallow.
I've never had an issue at my table. Never in...jeez, 20 years now. I've had some players who have pointed things out to me after the fact. Some of those times were due to my mistakes, and some were due to their lack of understanding.
A very small few (maybe 4?) didn't like my rulings and wanted to argue, but they were almost always in the camp that tried to prove Cleave works for ranged combat, etc.
So, I run a homebrew game, with a few minor house rules like fumbles
Oof.
When I first started playing, I really liked having the rulebook around me so I could doublecheck to make sure I knew what the heck I was doing or had an idea and wanted to see if it would work. Can't imagine nowadays what it would be like if I didn't have a rulebook at my fingertips even if I have the system mostly down and don't need to reference it anymore. Digital tools like Masterwork Tools make handling spells so much easier as well.
I think one of my worst examples of a rules argument had to be the only time I went to my local PFS group and they insisted Constructs couldn't be crit. Pathfinder was still pretty new then.
My group is pretty experienced so we stay away from the dumb broken stuff(Gentlemen's Agreement) and have the rules mostly down. Sometimes a hiccup will occur and I'll make a ruling, but it's not really set in stone if someone gives me a headsup afterwards. If it would result in player death, we'll occasionally hang on a minute and discuss. I don't really consider the GM to be the end all be all for when it comes to the rule adjudication. It's a collaborative effort.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Someone may want to do a rarely used combat maneuver and want to make sure it works the way they think it does.Then they can ask me.
Someone may have a "just in case" magic item and want to make sure it works as expected.Then they can ask me
And high level casters have lots of spells, not all of them used constantly.That's what spell cards are for.
That is a terrible rule.It is a great one. Unless you're not interested in good storytelling, where the mechanical and narrative pacing are working harmoniously together, instead of at odds with each other.
Or they can look it up when it is not their turn so that they are ready to go to keep the story flowing. And if there is some disagreement the book is open to the page already further cutting down rules arbitration delay.
Or they can look it up when it is not their turn so that they are ready to go to keep the story flowing.
It's not the worst idea, but I've found that a player who's reading some rule is a player who isn't paying attention to the game. I try to give my players no more than 3 seconds between the "your turn" or "what do you do?" transition and the actual declaration of their intent, so things clip along fairly briskly.
I HATE it when a GM lets a player go through a pointless or useless action that their character should have understood was pointless or useless, so if someone's about to undertake on a course that is almost certainly doomed, I'll throw them a "your character would know..." Really, the situation you're describing just doesn't come up much at my table. And when it does, my own memory and judgement is faster and cleaner than the player flipping through a book.And if there is some disagreement the book is open to the page already further cutting down rules arbitration delay.
That one's easy. There are no disagreements at my table. I'm all for collaborative storytelling, but storytelling and system mechanics are not the same thing.
A player might put out a "I thought it worked like this..." once or twice a session, and every so often my response is "oh, you're right. Thanks." and that's it. But I tend to stick by my rulings. I've never received a complaint about it. Not even from the most game-twisting, competitive, rules lawer-y players I've had to deal with.|
|
Well, I wish I played with an utopian group like yours, but I don't. I play with normal people, who make mistakes, don't pay attention, get distracted, or fall asleep at their computers mid game. I play with GMs who don't know the rules that well and make unpopular calls leading to bickering. Don't get me wrong, most of the time it's great or I wouldn't keep coming back, but we're far from no disagreements.
Well, I wish I played with an utopian group like yours, but I don't. I play with normal people, who make mistakes, don't pay attention, get distracted, or fall asleep at their computers mid game. I play with GMs who don't know the rules that well and make unpopular calls leading to bickering. Don't get me wrong, most of the time it's great or I wouldn't keep coming back, but we're far from no disagreements.
It's not just my one main group, it's every group I've ever had. I've seen the bickering and such at other tables, from the tedious to the toxic. I've just always made it clear that, at my table, my word is the final one.
My players make mistakes (I've got one in my current game who still thinks his lvl5 ranger deals a flat 1d6 damage with his spear), and I don't know ever rule by rote. It's a matter of trust, and when I'm rolling with people who don't have reason to trust me at that level yet, it's a matter of respect. I just tell them at the start that I won't argue. I'll make my call, listen to any brief imput, maybe make an adjustment, but that's it.Having one rulebook at the table helps with that; it's not "we're all playing THIS game with THESE rules, and if I deviate that's an ERROR that needs to be CORRECTED," it's "we're playing MY game with MY version of the rules, and if I deviate that's MY call."
It's less precise, no matter how much I try, but it shifts the focus away from the system and puts it on this game specifically. Which discourages arguing.