22 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

- Push the envelope! If the GM isn't applying the rules fairly, figure out just how far you can bend the rules. If the GM is real lax with the "Rule of Cool," just make sure your world breaking actions sound "Cool." It's an interesting intellectual exercise seeing where these limits are . . . from week to week. . Years ago, I had a GM who was REALLY bad about following the gaming rules and we tried to talk through the differences. He threw the "Rule of Cool" excuse and speed of play-ability excuse as well. It was frustrating to watch the lack of consistency and the very unfair application of in game decisions. These games would also bog down, because the players (not just me) didn't really understand what was permitted from week to week. I eventually took this approach to "Push the Envelope." In time the GM got frustrated with the outlandish stretches that I was making and when he would ask me "Don't you see how this request is inappropriate?!?!?" my response was always, "No, I don't." When there are no consistent application of rules there are no rules. Only a GM Fiat being driven over rocky Italian hillsides & mountainous switchbacks. Sometimes to illustrate absurdity, you must rely on being absurd.

In my experience, countering absurdity with absurdity mostly leads to two frustrated parties instead of one (possibly more if the rest of the group gets dragged into the crossfire). I've had a player such as this in one of my groups and some of the worst sessions I've had happened when he managed to sufficiently annoy the GM. Please don't be That Guy.

On ‎6‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 12:45 PM, Mark Caliber said:

Shock and Aweful, you are a rules lawyer.

So am I.

What makes you a Rules Lawyer is that you see the rules as an important framework for fairness, continuity, and understanding the meta functions of the game world.

Not every GM is going to put in the effort and consideration necessary to understand or to judicate rules fairly. As a rules lawyer, you'll find these people to be very frustrating to play with.

There are a couple of things that you can do about this:

- Learn the Operatic version of the theme song to "Frozen."

- Push the envelope! If the GM isn't applying the rules fairly, figure out just how far you can bend the rules. If the GM is real lax with the "Rule of Cool," just make sure your world breaking actions sound "Cool." It's an interesting intellectual exercise seeing where these limits are . . . from week to week. . Years ago, I had a GM who was REALLY bad about following the gaming rules and we tried to talk through the differences. He threw the "Rule of Cool" excuse and speed of play-ability excuse as well. It was frustrating to watch the lack of consistency and the very unfair application of in game decisions. These games would also bog down, because the players (not just me) didn't really understand what was permitted from week to week. I eventually took this approach to "Push the Envelope." In time the GM got frustrated with the outlandish stretches that I was making and when he would ask me "Don't you see how this request is inappropriate?!?!?" my response was always, "No, I don't." When there are no consistent application of rules there are no rules. Only a GM Fiat being driven over rocky Italian hillsides & mountainous switchbacks. Sometimes to illustrate absurdity, you must rely on being absurd.

- Get your own group. It's a common frustration, but watching someone else doing something poorly when you KNOW you can do better is . . . frustrating. With effort, you should be able to find a group of like minded players. This is what I did and so far so good. My players seem to prefer a GM who is knowledgeable of the rules and consistent in their application. Where I get into trouble is when I don't apply the rules fairly (and yes, I do make mistakes like that still. And when I do make those mistakes, I'm happy to correct myself in game).

I appreciate your honest approach here, and the idea that not everyone is compatible to play together. It's not happy, but it's true.

Communication, as much as you can swing, is to me the essence.

Sometimes I have used similar tactics when someone is not listening to plain talk about problems, and I will illustrate it in play. That's a last ditch thing and I admit it's not becoming, but sometimes you have to shake people up to get them to listen. A friend of mine once said in his heavy New York accent, "sometimes people becomes geniuses after a beating" lol.

GM Fiat driven over Italian Hillsides LMAO. SO great.

I feel like the rules and the dice form the physics of the experience, the way in which you perceive the capability of even rudimentarily functioning in the gameworld and the interface between that and the player in OOC. If the internal rules of a world are not consistent you are right in feeling like something is off and uncomfortably like someone's disjointed dream told to you the next day replete with nonsense. I guess without rules and dice it kind of just is that same thing: someone rambling on through their decision gates with all the flaws of memory and whatever other cognitive stuff sticks its head up and looks around.

On 6/19/2018 at 2:35 PM, Archlyte said:

I think this is a dangerous way to exist as a GM, to repeatedly demonstrate to the players that you are not going to ever put in the time to actually read the rules and instead want to run a game that has little in the way of non-fiat structure. As a player who has a better grasp on the rules and likes them, your enthusiasm is probably going to erode each time the GM shows this ignorance to the rules.

This game has a culture around its rules if you watch online games or listen to the podcast then you get a feel of how good it can be to use the game as it was built. FFG benefits from this because it allows them to sell material, but for the players I think it enhances their sense of value of the system. I run some fairly controversial house rules, but even I understand (and feel) the love of this system in RAW form.

Thing is, the developers of the game made a very strong effort to have the rules be flexible, and variable. Sure there is the RAW, but in almost every discussion with the devs, where specific questions are brought up, they almost always toss in the caveat of "you can do it another way if you want." And I don't think this is just them falling back on the Golden Rule, but simply emphasizing one of the key drives they had when making the system. To develop a system that isn't shackled to the hard mechanics, and can be more nebulous and fluid. Which is a refreshing change for people like me, who honestly get really tired with rules. After 30 darn published books, and hundreds, if not thousands of pages of stuff written, I frankly don't have the time, energy, or mental acuity to memorize all that crap. And here's the other point, I am under no obligation to do so just because I'm the GM.

I have other stuff I need to devote that much mental time to. This is supposed to be a hobby, something fun to do with my friends on a saturday night. It's not supposed to be a job, or a mid-term exam that I have to cram for. It's one reason, for many years, that I stopped roleplaying at all. Because SO much emphasis, in a lot of the systems *cough D20*, were about number crunching, and the mechanics, to the exclusion of everything else in the publications. I just don't care about that. I don't find my gaming thrill from having the highest numbers compared to everyone else, and showing those numbers off in every encounter. A lot of players do get off from that kind of gaming, and that's fine, but I'm not one of them.

I want to tell a story. To have it be interactive and narrative, and fluid based on what's going on. To put more time and effort into describing how awesome the stuff is, instead of doing multiplication tables to determine if my numerous modifiers are going to add up to me hitting the guy or not, or if it kills him or not, etc. I want to describe the moment when the PC is chosen by the Force Ghost to be his new apprentice, and carry on the legacy of a lost people, to try and claim justice and closure for a people wronged by a villain. Not spend 2 hours debating which +1 modifier will be the most efficient use of my upgrade....only to have that entire weapon replaced a few levels later, because it's just a vessel to hold numbers, and not something actually important to the player.

So for me, with a game like FFG's star wars system, that is by design, meant to be more improvisational in nature, to encourage players to be more cinematic and narrative with their gameplay, I fully support GM's who make judgements in the moment about how a scene will play out, instead of stopping everything because the rules lawyer went "Well actually...".

Now, that being said, I acknowledge that at least a large percentage, if not the vast majority of Star Wars fans, are of the mindset, that absolutely MUST categorize, analyze, memorize, and every other kind of -ize there is, every single rule. And that if they don't, they get their brains in a twist and have a fit. I accept this, as it's pretty evident even on just this site, how people who are into this franchise, will ignore all sense of decency and social decorum, to get into a nitpick fight about Insignificant Detail A vs B. I've had an entire thread I started, completely hijacked by such fans, who were too busy arguing with each other about the validity of doing it at all, instead of actually staying on point. Even after multiple statements from me to tell them to stop derailing, and stay on topic or go away. They didn't care. They had their own little battle to fight, and to heck with the fact that the entire discussion was something else. They just didn't comprehend that this was the social equivalent of going to a conference, and just standing up and having a debate about which is better, Kirk or Picard, in the middle of the public speaker's speech. Even after said speaker saying shut up and sit down, they were oblivious. Some players, a lot of players, are like that. Not saying the OP is, but a LOT of people who qualify as a Rules Lawyer, likely fit this general description. And that kind of behavior, kills tables. That might seem harsh, but after 20+ years of gaming with people like that, and seeing how many games died out due to their insistence to debate something that is likely only going to come up once, I have very little patience for it anymore.

2 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

Thing is, the developers of the game made a very strong effort to have the rules be flexible, and variable. Sure there is the RAW, but in almost every discussion with the devs, where specific questions are brought up, they almost always toss in the caveat of "you can do it another way if you want." And I don't think this is just them falling back on the Golden Rule, but simply emphasizing one of the key drives they had when making the system. To develop a system that isn't shackled to the hard mechanics, and can be more nebulous and fluid. Which is a refreshing change for people like me, who honestly get really tired with rules. After 30 darn published books, and hundreds, if not thousands of pages of stuff written, I frankly don't have the time, energy, or mental acuity to memorize all that crap. And here's the other point, I am under no obligation to do so just because I'm the GM.

I have other stuff I need to devote that much mental time to. This is supposed to be a hobby, something fun to do with my friends on a saturday night. It's not supposed to be a job, or a mid-term exam that I have to cram for. It's one reason, for many years, that I stopped roleplaying at all. Because SO much emphasis, in a lot of the systems *cough D20*, were about number crunching, and the mechanics, to the exclusion of everything else in the publications. I just don't care about that. I don't find my gaming thrill from having the highest numbers compared to everyone else, and showing those numbers off in every encounter. A lot of players do get off from that kind of gaming, and that's fine, but I'm not one of them.

I want to tell a story. To have it be interactive and narrative, and fluid based on what's going on. To put more time and effort into describing how awesome the stuff is, instead of doing multiplication tables to determine if my numerous modifiers are going to add up to me hitting the guy or not, or if it kills him or not, etc. I want to describe the moment when the PC is chosen by the Force Ghost to be his new apprentice, and carry on the legacy of a lost people, to try and claim justice and closure for a people wronged by a villain. Not spend 2 hours debating which +1 modifier will be the most efficient use of my upgrade....only to have that entire weapon replaced a few levels later, because it's just a vessel to hold numbers, and not something actually important to the player.

So for me, with a game like FFG's star wars system, that is by design, meant to be more improvisational in nature, to encourage players to be more cinematic and narrative with their gameplay, I fully support GM's who make judgements in the moment about how a scene will play out, instead of stopping everything because the rules lawyer went "Well actually...".

Now, that being said, I acknowledge that at least a large percentage, if not the vast majority of Star Wars fans, are of the mindset, that absolutely MUST categorize, analyze, memorize, and every other kind of -ize there is, every single rule. And that if they don't, they get their brains in a twist and have a fit. I accept this, as it's pretty evident even on just this site, how people who are into this franchise, will ignore all sense of decency and social decorum, to get into a nitpick fight about Insignificant Detail A vs B. I've had an entire thread I started, completely hijacked by such fans, who were too busy arguing with each other about the validity of doing it at all, instead of actually staying on point. Even after multiple statements from me to tell them to stop derailing, and stay on topic or go away. They didn't care. They had their own little battle to fight, and to heck with the fact that the entire discussion was something else. They just didn't comprehend that this was the social equivalent of going to a conference, and just standing up and having a debate about which is better, Kirk or Picard, in the middle of the public speaker's speech. Even after said speaker saying shut up and sit down, they were oblivious. Some players, a lot of players, are like that. Not saying the OP is, but a LOT of people who qualify as a Rules Lawyer, likely fit this general description. And that kind of behavior, kills tables. That might seem harsh, but after 20+ years of gaming with people like that, and seeing how many games died out due to their insistence to debate something that is likely only going to come up once, I have very little patience for it anymore.

I think that as busy adults there is a balance to be had there between I'm gonna tell you a story with some dice thrown in, and playing a game that has codified rules and a more involved process for how things get done. I absolutely agree that you shouldn't be expected to be an expert on the rules, and I also agree with what you said about the spirit of the rules being flexible to some degree.

But, I also think that if you have a player at the table who has a much better command of the rules and you start hitting foul balls they are going to have to either completely surrender to it, or walk away. I feel the GM deserves a certain level of respect and also the Player has to shelve a certain level of control. I think different people have differing thresholds for this and some are not going to like the idea of Narrative Initiative (to use one of my most unpopular ideas here) and it will grate on their nerves. No one is really wrong there, but I have found that there seem to be a number of GM's I have played with in recent years who hit that table with no Prep and Little understanding of the rules. I'm an Emergent play guy, so I don't believe in rigid prep for myself, but I'm talking about winging it naked and clumsy. Perhaps because I am an emergent GM I feel that the backdrop of the rules is that much more important in order to prevent more vertigo, so I will cede that that is perhaps my own view at work.

This system looks simple when you first see it, but then you realize it has that easy to learn, hard to master type quality because there is a lot to know at the end of the day. It just strikes me a bit strange I guess to have someone decide to play this instead of something like Fate if they don't like to learn the rules. It's totally their prerogative to do so, but I think there is a consequence for that choice.