From: wwallace@ucrengr.ucr.edu (wayne wallace)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Rules Lawyers and Rules Rapists (was Re: Star Trek III Combat Simulator)
Date: 8 Oct 92 15:42:18 GMT
Organization: University of California, Riverside

In article <q-mzv=c@rpi.edu> woodc@aix.rpi.edu (Christopher A. Wood) writes:
>In article <22597@galaxy.ucr.edu> wwallace@ucrengr.ucr.edu (wayne wallace) writes:
>>In any sort of well-thought-out combat system you should not need to make up
>>rules, and should remember the rules from game to game. If you let the game
>>degenerate to who can curry the referee's favor the best, you might as well
>>toss the rulebook out the window instead of pretending to play a wargame.
>>These same people who abhor rules lawyers also want the success of a player to
>>depend on luck and the best die rolls instead of any real strategy. There
>>is nothing wrong with this if this gives you and your friends pleasure and
>>fun, but as a rules lawyer myself, I will not play in a game where the rules
>>change from session to session, and luck counts more than skill. (Exception:
>>occasionally people want to vegetate and play games like Wiz War and Nuclear
>>War. If I also want to vegetate I don't mind playing then.)
>>
>
>  wow.  Someone who will defend rule-lawyers.  I am amazed.  While the 
>article was well reasoned, I don't agree with many of the points brought
>up (some of it because of the differances in deffinitions, some of it
>for other reasons)
> Games should have consistant rules that cover the scope of the game.  
>Frequently, all the rules cannot cover every situation.  In fact, I
>can't think of a game that covers *every* possible situation.  That's

I can. Champions. Let's say you want to do some maneuver like swinging
off a chandelier (3 musketeers world) and want to attack everyone within
range, potentially multiple times. This would be accomplished by either
having the swinging power or a dex check to grab the chandelier (possible
penalties assigned by the GM as in all games) and then using the sweep
maneuver (or area effect attack) along with an autofire attack. Often
people can't reason out how to do something, and say the game system doesn't
allow for it. I challenge anyone to come up with something that simply
*cannot* be done in champions, given just the 4th edition rules.

Product numbers:

Champs HB #400, Champs Softcover #450, or HERO system rules #500.
(all are the same except the champs books have sourcebook material not needed
to figure out how to accomplish a given maneuver)

>somewhat impossible, I would think.  What seperates rules lawyers
>at this point is that they don't care about what is being simulated
>but instead, if there is a problem, they go over the rules 
>like lawyers (hence the name) to find out exactly what the rules do and
>don't say.  Interpolating from other rules, argueing for hours, and
>never bothering to think about it in a way that would make sense in the 
>simualtion.  What isn't stated in the rules often becomes much more
>important than what is  ("It doesn't say I can't , so therefore I can...")

Whoa! I thought I made the point: rules lawyers CAN be powergamers, but not
all rules lawyers are such! I DO know most every rule, yet I went out of my
way to point out that quibbling over a point of damage for 5 hours is BAD.

There is a fundamental difference here. Let me use another term:

RULES-RAPIST.

A RULES-RAPIST will do all the bad things you suggest. A RR MUST be a rules
lawyer to get his point and combat bonus across, but NOT ALL RULES LAWYERS
ARGUE! (This debate over rules lawyers on the net notwithstanding :-)

I HAVE argued in the past. No longer. Just because I can doesn't mean  I
_will_. As long as we're playing the same game and having fun, I don't NEED
to quibble over some minor point for the rest of the gaming day, but I am
STILL a RULES-LAWYER because I have the CAPACITY to argue.

Rules-Lawyer: Knows the rules. Insists on using them in most cases. Does not
*HAVE TO* argue about some rule that will enhance his/her chances of winning
the game. Is not necessarily interested in winning at any cost. (cf.
RULES-RAPIST)

>persuit of winning overwhelms him.   Spending hours looking
>through rules looking for loopholes is somthing I can't understand.  
>Gloating about and using those which have been found boggles my
>mind.  The two games I have seen that happen in the most is Star Fleet
>and Champions.  That is why I have given then the "Rules Lawyers only"
>sticker, because in order to compete, you must take on the same 
>attitude and find your own loopholes.  Because I don't believe this
>is the spirit of gaming, I don't play those games.  

Rules-Rapist: IS a Rules-Lawyer AND IS a PowerGamer to boot! S/he uses his/her
memory to find each and every loophole to benefit him/herself.

YES, MANY RULES-RAPISTS PLAY CHAMPIONS AND SFB. BIG DEAL!

>I< am not a RULES-RAPIST. I play THOSE games. I think you would enjoy playing
with my group because none of us are RULES-RAPISTS.

>  Loopholes and rules lawyering is usually the defence of those who 
>don't want to play within the rules.

See definitions above. When WINNING is everything, you are no longer simply
a RULES-LAWYER. You are now a POWERGAMER AND RULES-RAPIST.

>  Feel free to continue this, although we should probabally should 
>change the subject header.  I am not trying to flame anybody here,
>rather make my point.  I would hope that this discussion could stay
>at that level.  I mean, it's just not that pressing a topic that needs
>a flamefest.

I agree. Hopefully my use of capital letters came across as _emphasis_ instead
of flames. No flames here, just clearing up my definitions for those who didn't
see them in the previous article.

>-- 
> Chris Wood
>  woodc@rpi.edu
>   "All Men Are Equal in the Eyes of Fish" - Herbert Hoover  
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