05-05-2020, 10:51 PM | #41 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Rules Lawyers: The Most Important Rules in all GURPS
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05-05-2020, 11:11 PM | #42 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: New Orleans, LA
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Re: Rules Lawyers: The Most Important Rules in all GURPS
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There's a big caveat here, both parties must be prepared to compromise (in good faith) if there is a big difference between player and GM expectations or "Sorry but I think this game isn't for me" and it's over! Rule Zero: GMs be prepared to work with players and Players be prepared to work with GMs and other players. Without this sort of agreement/mindset you might as well flip the table now before we put stuff on it. |
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05-06-2020, 02:22 AM | #43 | |||
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
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Re: Rules Lawyers: The Most Important Rules in all GURPS
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Kind of a story of two parts, I've had a regular group made up of mates for years there is no rules lawyering going on there. But not because we're all great people or anything, but more beaus after literally decades of playing together at this point we kind know how we all tick in terms of role-playing and it just doesn't come up. But other settings I've run and played in, e.g clubs, schools etc yeah I've come across it several times. Or rather I should say I've come across what pings on my radar as rules lawyering several times. However its tough to say weather I'm more likely to see rules lawyering in people I'm not mates with than allow it to go unseen or are just more accepting of it from mates. This is more about my general rule of thumb when it comes to roleplaying, if you don't like the person you probably not going to like roleplaying with them (I personally think a lot of bad roleplaying experiences even if we split them into specific sub types and names, is born of incompatibility between people trying to roleplay together) Quote:
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Grand High* Poobah of the Cult of Stat Normalisation. *not too high of course Last edited by Tomsdad; 05-07-2020 at 03:45 PM. |
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05-06-2020, 10:59 AM | #44 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Rules Lawyers: The Most Important Rules in all GURPS
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GURPS is as much a toolbox as a system so IMHO it would be insanely hard to "Rules Lawyer" something. Heck, if you include Classic there are eight "official" magic "rules" - the three in Classic Magic, Magic Power out of Supers 1st printing, Religion, Voodoo/Spirits, and then all the modifications that came with fourth edition (including the build magic spells from scratch system .
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05-06-2020, 11:32 AM | #45 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Rules Lawyers: The Most Important Rules in all GURPS
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Of course, if you don't know what ruleset you're using at all you can't hope to rules-lawyer sensibly. But that has larger problems. However, maybe the most probable situation goes like this: GMs are pretty likely to vaguely handwave about exactly which rules their game is using. Even to themselves. Not in huge things like 'which magic system is it anyway' but in somewhat smaller subsystems. Which means that there's a bunch of rules that the "rules lawyer" can argue should apply to a situation. Sometimes the GM might agree. And sometimes the GM might be 'caught out' because they had been disregarding that rule but don't feel they can stand on that position.
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05-06-2020, 12:28 PM | #46 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Rules Lawyers: The Most Important Rules in all GURPS
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Of course GM's 'throw out a rule' option goes back to at least the days of AD&D (1979). No GM I knew used the totally broken 1,500g/week/level rule on page 86 of the DMG for the simple reason it sent you down the Monty Haul path faster then you could say "I'll take what's behind Door number 3."
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05-06-2020, 12:37 PM | #47 | |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Rules Lawyers: The Most Important Rules in all GURPS
I've openly stated "GURPS isn't a game but a system for creating games." On many, many occasions – you can find it on record in FAQs, Q&A articles, transcriptions and recordings of interviews and con panels, etc. There's a good reason (beyond not making the acronym sound sillier, I mean) why SJ chose to put "System" rather than "Game" in the title. It very definitely is the case that each GM needs to create a game as part of creating a campaign . . . which is probably one reason why GURPS is sometimes seen as hard to get into. This is why we published the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game. To a lesser extent, GURPS Action, After the End, Dungeon Fantasy and Monster Hunters also aim to be "games" in this sense (and do in fact refer to themselves that way on occasion).
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I believe it's always best when the GM does what I said above and creates a game as part of creating a campaign. The idea of listing the optional rules, dials and switches, permitted traits, etc. for the campaign in advance, before anybody signs up much less spends a character point, is a good one, and in my mind is as important as making decisions about power level, mana level, tech level, etc. But it's a lot of work. Someone used the word "constitution," and I think that's accurate – both in the sense of what it is and in the sense of how complicated it could get. I'm well known to prefer ad-lib in all things when it comes to adventures and even major story arcs. Despite that, I still prepare "player guides" that spell out what rules I will and won't be using. Of course, some subsystems and judgment calls are so fine-scale or special-case that were I to decide on all of them in advance, the player guide would fill 500 pages and we'd never get around to gaming. What I try to do there is give a few general statements of the "And if something else related to Q comes up, I'll lean toward X" variety, where Q is a broad element like combat, inventions, magic, or psi, and where X is a statement like "favoring the PCs," "favoring the NPCs," "the simplest option," or "whatever we vote on when it comes up."
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05-06-2020, 03:17 PM | #48 | ||||||||
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Re: Rules Lawyers: The Most Important Rules in all GURPS
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Likewise I tend to find that most Rules Lawyering has far less to do with "But I should be getting my +5 from Charisma when sexy talking up the Mysterious Wizened Old Questgiver!" and far more to do with "Really? You're going to reload your bow, aim, and fire all in one turn with only roll?" Both actually said at the table at different times... by me... I personally do far more rules lawyering in social encounters than combat, but that's because I like to build social characters and GMs very often like to ignore social skills and advantages (that's a whole different kettle of fish thoguh), but I tend to see rules lawyering in others revolving more around combat and magic as that is what their Characters are geared up for. Quote:
Sure, GM Fiat has it's place, as long as it's bounded (as others have said) by a healthy dose of consistency. If the GM decides one day that Charisma is used one way, but flip-flops the next, we aren't playing by the same rules. If they allow the Knight to get away with 1 second bow fire, then why did the Scout spend so many points on Heroic Archery? Quote:
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I'm also fine going systemless as I trust the GM to rule fairly or we're on the same page "for the good of the story" wise. Quote:
Now, don't get me wrong, I agree. The 'System' in Generic Universal Roleplaying System should mean 'Toolbox'. And theoretically in the never-to-happen 5e we'll get that in the preamble as well as a better laid out discussion of this in the Game Mastering section. Quote:
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Which is why I often refer to the idea of 'GURPS being a toolset' as dogma, as the canon doesn't spell this out well, relying instead on further works to set it straight (I mean it's in there if you squint, read between the lines, and digest on awful lot of the rules discusion from different books). Quote:
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05-06-2020, 03:42 PM | #49 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Rules Lawyers: The Most Important Rules in all GURPS
Yeah, I'm not trying to say that not having a mega rules bible that records every rule you'll use before session one means you've failed as a GM and doomed your campaign.
Just that when not everyone at the table is on the same page about what rules are in effect you'll wind up in situations where those questions need to be resolved. And if you've got the wrong table dynamics that resolution can go badly in a few different ways, including the rules lawyer (innocent or malicious) making the GM miserable.
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05-06-2020, 06:27 PM | #50 | ||||
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Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
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Re: Rules Lawyers: The Most Important Rules in all GURPS
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