How much do you haggle over rules? Options

[Hell Hound]

[Wounded Ronin]

I "haggle" over rules without any limits and am totally willing to spend heaps of time looking up rules during the game.

The reason is that I feel that without consistency, correctness, and correctly letting the dice fall where they may there is no true "game". If we're going to play a game and not write a disjointed collaborative story there needs to be objective parameters for success but also the possibility of catastrophic failure.

[emo samurai]

How long do your games take, though?

[Wounded Ronin]

[James McMurray]

[James McMurray]

I think I should probably add a bit to my earlier post about my group haggling all the time. I don't generally partake in it now (although I'm not a perpetual abstainer, just a usual one).

I used to argue left and right about anything that didn't match the rules as written. Then one night I was too exhausted, distracted, or whatever. Instead of spending my energy arguing rules I watched the other players (usually the same two) doing it. It made me realize how pointless it was. It almost always meant the difference between one or two dice to roll, or +1 - +3 on a die roll, or somebody being able to do more than seemed logicial. Sometimes even them being able to do less then they already had even though the encounter was already in thehistory books.

Since then I've tried to just let things flow. If something is going to kill my character and I know the rules are different I'll definitely speak up. But if it just means getting hit, or getting a hit in myself, it's not worth it.

Just remember, if the game starts to drag: "Stop it with those negative vibes, you're bringing me down!" - Oddball, Kelly's Heroes

[Wounded Ronin]

That requires having generally relaxed players. If you have players who really freak out when their characters take damage or face death things go a bit less smoothly.

[Critias]

The next time one of my games gets bogged down in a rules disagreement, I'll do the same thing I do if one of my games gets bogged down in a planning session, or any other lull in meaningfull activity -- commando attack.

Nothing says "your pitiful rules quibble is meaningless" quite like throwing six or eight more attackers at your group of 'runners.

[James McMurray]

[Wounded Ronin]

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Dawnshadow]

If someone, even the GM, is making calls that are blatently contradictory to the RAW, and it has not been made clear that it's a house rule -- then there's nothing wrong with asking. GM's make mistakes too, and sometimes just don't remember rules. Or have gotten caught by errata, and so on. And if you don't investigate it, you can wind up with things like dead characters that shouldn't have died, and a lot more continuity problems then a long combat. And personally, I'd be more annoyed about having a character get slaughtered because the GM forgot that there was pea soup and a friendly mage throwing shielding over the metalhead when the other mage aimed his manabolt..

[James McMurray]

What Herald said. :)

I can sit back and let them argue all they want. Eventually they'll be done and the game will recommence. If I'm feeling generous maybe while they're yakking back and forth I'll actually look up the rule.

[Kagetenshi]

I was about to get on your case about "maybe" looking up the rule, but… at that point they're still yakking? Do they not have copies of the rules, or something? If not, they can't borrow yours?

I mean, I'm of the opinion that the answer should only not be unambiguously decided if doing so is for some reason totally impractical (absent book, contradictory rules, undefined situation, etc.)—where "I don't feel like looking it up" is a wrong, wrong, wrong answer, but if they aren't already looking it up at that point, I guess I can't have sympathy.

~J

[Dog]

So what's everyone's opinion on this?: making sure that every rule is applied can sometimes slow the pace of the game to the point where players get bored and frustrated. Therefore it is important for a GM to balance fair and consistent application of the rules with the regard for pacing and drama. It'd probably be pretty ridiculous to expect everyone to agree on where that balance lies.

It's really not a matter of rules: yes or rules: no. It's more about rules: what priority? I would suggest then that for those whom the rules are a higher priority, it would be more important to make sure all players are well informed about house rules, have all rulebooks handy, and are generally more well read on them. If I were playing in a game with Wounded Ronin as GM, it would be in my best interest to make sure that I knew the rules as well as he expected me to, for everyone's enjoyment.

..although I respectfully suggest that those of us who debate this sort of thing on dumpshock for days probably represent a rather biased section of the "haggling rules" debate. It's pretty much what we do here... :D

[James McMurray]