I know, two articles, one day? Well, I think you should watch this. The Basic Expert’s video on Rulings Over Rules. Be sure to watch this first before reading on.
I want to start out with saying that I agree with a few points Jon made in his video.
The rules to any game system are written and playtested for a reason.
Players and GMs alike should learn those rules before deciding which rules do not make sense for their table.
Rules do inform setting in much the way that certain physical laws inform the way our own real world works. For example: Gravity will affect you differently on a planet such as Mars than it will here on Earth. Different games may share certain rules, however, they will be different from game to game for different reasons.
What sets older rule sets apart from newer systems is the rules, themselves. Some have fewer rules and are lighter, lending more adjudication to that of the GM rather than spelling it out for them while others are more complex, taking more out of the GM’s hands.
Something that I spotted in the video was the use of clips from Matt Mercer and Matt Colville early on in the video. I personally think it shows that the culture of 5th Edition D&D is peopled by those who will buy a Player’s Handbook, never read it and then jump into a game based on what they learned watching voice actors play a version of the game, taking away all the wrong points and thinking that this translates to the table.
Mercer states that rpgs allow for ridiculous stunts to be performed lending to the fun of the game, making the point that the rules should be flexible while Colville states that the philosophy behind Rulings over Rules is meant to keep the game moving, which is something with which I agree, however, Colville blows his own point to hell and gone by creating another Us vs. Them scenario by calling those who play as close to Rules As Written as possible “almost without exception, joyless pedants.”
Colville misses the point entirely. Mercer almost hit the mark but missed it ever so slightly.
If we’re talking about older rule sets, I would personally like to come in and offer something to balance out the viewpoints just a bit. I started with what could be considered the crunchiest version of D&D on the market. Initially, it wasn’t but it was revised into something with much thicker books, more rules and more of everything while removing the “evil” things that parental and religious groups were complaining about. I’m talking about Second Edition AD&D which was what was available at the time.
I didn’t start with the core books. In fact, the only ones I owned at the time were the Monstrous Manual and Player’s Handbook. Before that, we played with AD&D First Quest and Kingdom of Karameikos which were available as boxed sets. The first PHB I owned was slimmer than the second one as the first one had been destroyed in an unfortunate mishap one night as well as my Monstrous Manual. The replacements were much thicker. I wasn’t able to compare the two to tell the differences but the black-border cover books were a product of Lorraine Williams’ era, though I knew very little of what was going on at TSR in those days.
It wasn’t difficult to play AD&D which is what First Quest and the subsequent boxed modules showed us. The books that came with them were easy to reference and, by the time we decided to start making our own worlds or just play in Mystara past the adventures in the box using the same maps, we found many of the rules were familiar territory while being able to get a little more granular.
It wasn’t uncommon for two things to happen.
Making a ruling at the table. Depending on the situation, many times, we wouldn’t want to pause the game to keep things going. We just wanted to keep the games going.
Later reading the rules would result in one of us, whomever DMed the last game to go “Hey Guys! Check this out!” Sometimes, the rule was close to the way we ruled, sometimes it was way off and we learned we fucked up and other times, it would cause us to look at a rule and go, “Well shit this is better than the way I ruled at the table. Let’s go with that, instead!”
Rulings Over Rules is very situational and not to be abused. Sometimes, that ridiculous thing you want to do because it’s cool, it’s there in the rules. Sometimes it’s not. Rulings Over Rules has a place in RPGs but it’s not be all, end all. As Colville pointed out, rightfully, it’s there to keep the game moving but I caution with the GM and perhaps players should take notes on the ruling but especially the GM and research that rule later post-session.
I know many will claim reading the entire rulebook before hand should be a necessity but let’s consider the size and complexity of those games. For example, Jon’s games Cowpunchers: Reloaded and Atomic Punk 2160 are not big books and are easy to read and digest.
I encourage my readers interested in RPGs to buy them. I’m especially proud of Cowpunchers as I did the editing on it. Didn’t require much just some verbiage cleanup here and there. But these books are not exactly War & Peace. They’re books that can easily fit into your back pocket or coat pocket. Or just buy them in PDF and put them on your phone. Better, do both. Anyway, these books and their systems aren’t complex so reads and re-reads should come pretty easy. Meanwhile, games like Pathfinder Second Edition are complex to the point of near-absurdity to me, after looking online and seeing the copious amounts of rules that inflated the page count to 640 pages from the first edition’s 569 pages. I’ll concede that it’s a Player’s guide, GM’s guide and Bestiary all-in-one and all you’ll ever need to play that game but the complexity, for me is far too much. For me, personally, I’d spend more time ruling, researching and then going back to the table to decide whether a rule is right for the table or not than I would with AD&D Second Edition.
The contrast between complexities could go on and on, however, I would also like to point out that the Rulings Over Rules has a purpose as well. While I can concede that rules do have reason and purpose behind them, Rulings also have one and that is, depending on the system and how quickly one wants to get into them, Rulings should be used, not abused. The staunch stance of Rules As Written and Rulings Over Rules camps need to be tempered a bit. Ruling in a game is not something evil. In some cases, again, system-dependent here, is that Ruling comes from a place where, sometimes, the rule system itself simply doesn’t cover the outside-the-box thinking that some players are capable of presenting. Vampire: The Masquerade gave one such instance in the page snippet below:
Again, different systems, different approaches. Vampire will always be more of a story-game akin to improvisational theatre at the table while D&D will always be more akin to a war game with story elements, however, once again, the Rules As Written and Rulings Over Rules camps. The old White Wolf games (Vampire, Werewolf, Hunter, Wraith, etc.) are completely different systems with greatly different approaches down to the mechanics but the point is that, at some point, entire groups of people who’s imaginations were stirred by the possibilities of D&D as the predominant game in which gamers at the tables start began to perhaps use those rules at first until they figured out that a new set of rules was needed entirely. In one of the games of Vampire that I played, our Storyteller (Game Master) revised the rules on Merits and Flaws. It was a very simple modification that you could have as many Merits as you wanted but the point total must be matched by Flaws and it worked. Rather than having to match a point total for each one which took longer, it was easier to employ this method and it took more careful consideration of which Merits you took. It truly balanced out the game more.
As an additional note, Mark Rein-Hagen, the author didn’t even play by his own rules. In fact, he encouraged heavy modification of the rules at every turn in his own game.
I know that was a little long-winded, however, the point was that different systems do require different approaches. While there are some D&D, Hyperborea, OSE, Castles & Crusades, etc. players and GMs who don’t want to play “storygames” such as Vampire, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to take systems on a case-by-case basis and run them using Rulings until the Rules can be learned and implemented effectively.
To conclude all of this, I think Rulings have a place as well as Rules and I think it’s important that we not only remember that and use them both judiciously. For those who want to play D&D in a similar vein to a storygame such as Vampire, my advice would be to take on a system that would allow such a thing. Crimson Dragon Slayer d20 is only 17 pages of rules and it’s free. It’s also the engine that runs this game entirely.
While you’re at it, check out the Cha’alt X-Cards to enhance your Cha’alt Game! These cards are there for a player to raise in order for the GM to lean more heavily into key elements of the game rather than shut them down. Check out Venger’s Blog where he details the sessions where these cards made the game even more enjoyable than before. The extra 10 pages in this PDF will absolutely add something special to your Cha’alt game and still leave you room to do all kinds of cool stuff. Rule of Cool fans, take note…
Also, the more that you want to use rulings, consider a much lighter rule set or at least have a plan to research your ruling and at least be ready to discuss with the table during the last session’s recap so that everyone learns what the rule is together. You never know what you might have been able to do before and better in some instances.
There is a fair middle-ground to all of this and it’s to understand that the ruling is only meant to keep the session moving and that the rules are there for a reason, be sure that you know which is which.
The Rules and Rulings crowds running in opposite directions seems to be unnecessary overcorrection. While it’s not unreasonable to play the rules as they were written, I also argue that it won’t work for every table. While it’s not unreasonable to assume “Your Table, Your Rules, Always In All Ways” it is unreasonable to be flat dismissive of rules. If you’re purchasing a rulebook with no intention of using it, you’re wasting your money, which is your right and one I support, however, you’re setting an expectation that will surely leave all of your players disappointed when they find that the tables that others run don’t adhere to the philosophy of just throwing the rulebook out the window and expecting a D&D game of any edition to commence coherently and without problems later down the line.
Have fun. Play the game your way, by all means but please at least know what the rules are and understand them, then customize as they make sense for your table.