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View Full Version : RPG Rant: RAW [YouTube Link]



Tetsubo 57
2010-12-16, 08:57 AM
I rant about RAW: Rules As Written. Do you like House Rules? Do you use them? Or are you a 'by the book' sort of a gamer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhXr3MANT9Q

Comet
2010-12-16, 09:08 AM
I don't play RAW, mainly because I'm too lazy to properly learn all the rules in a game. I read the book a couple times and use whatever I've picked up to run a game. For a game like 3.5, this means that only the most basic elements are included and everything else is just sort of improvised on the spot.
As I run the game more, I slowly pick up more things as I go along. But even so, some of the things that I did "wrong" at the beginning stick around, since the whole group has gotten used to them.

I don't tinker much, either. The rules, on their own, interest me very little. I just want them to act as a quick, simple way of constructing characters that are distinct from one another and then running those characters through a story that has an element of risk and unpredictableness to it.

So, all in all, I don't spend much time thinking about the rules in most games, beyond their most immediate functions. I play 3.5 core only, for instance. House rules happen constantly, but rarely with much elaborate thinking behind them.

These videos are great, by the way.

Tetsubo 57
2010-12-16, 09:10 AM
I don't play RAW, mainly because I'm too lazy to properly learn all the rules in a game. I read the book a couple times and use whatever I've picked up to run a game. For a game like 3.5, this means that only the most basic elements are included and everything else is just sort of improvised on the spot.
As I run the game more, I slowly pick up more things as I go along. But even so, some of the things that I did "wrong" at the beginning stick around, since the whole group has gotten used to them.

I don't tinker much, either. The rules, on their own, interest me very little. I just want them to act as a quick, simple way of constructing characters that are distinct from one another and then running those characters through a story that has an element of risk and unpredictableness to it.

So, all in all, I don't spend much time thinking about the rules in most games, beyond their most immediate functions. I play 3.5 core only, for instance.

These videos are great, by the way.

Thank you.

Duke of URL
2010-12-16, 09:18 AM
RAW is a starting point, and in an ideal world, would be easy enough to use and understand that extensive houseruling shouldn't be necessary. But even in that ideal world, every game is different. Settings and styles often require adding, changing, or removing rules so that the rules fit the setting better.

My general take on rules is that the core rules should be as divorced from specific setting constraints as possible, precisely so that a referee or setting designer can use them as a baseline to create rules useful to that specific game and/or setting. In that sense, RAW is simply the framework that a custom "system" can be created from, while still remaining fundamentally the same game.

To this extent, I find that many 3.5 rules, for example, fail this test. Rules from the core system or non-setting-specific supplements often have setting assumptions built into them. This doesn't annoy me if the rules were from, say FRCS or ECS -- those are specific settings, and so the rules should assume the setting's flavor restrictions. But rules in core, the Complete series, etc., shouldn't be assuming anything about the setting.

Zeta Kai
2010-12-16, 09:40 AM
1) Very nice video. You presented your concepts clearly, you made your case, you didn't fly off the handle, & you opened a dialogue for others to join in & share their opinions without crowding out the discussion with your slant. All rare treats in a YouTube rant. Most importantly, you didn't embarrass your hobby by coming off as a hopeless nerd; sure the topic was a bit geeky, but it was presented in a way that was understandable & not inherently conducive to ridicule. You were approachable & relatable, something that I think was refreshing in a D&D-based diatribe. So kudos there.

2) On the other hand, I disagree with some of your points. I think that RAW & RAI are important concepts, & are worthy perspectives in a discussion about rules. RAW is your baseline, it is the lingua franca of a game. When I talk about the rules of particular game, I'm probably not talking about your houserules, & I'm probably not even talking about my houserules. If there is an issue with a game's rules, then RAW is the foundation of our discussion, even if it is not the focus of what we're talking about. Everybody's houserules are built upon the RAW. Your Paizo Pathfinder Paperweight (patent pending) is nothing but a set of houserules, built upon the foundation of 3.5 RAW, which could be argued is just an offical houserule variant of 3.0 RAW (PF now is its own set of RAW, to be modded by the community). So to ignore or discount the RAW is to dismiss the foundation upon which your game is built, which undercuts any position that you may have regarding the rules, as written or otherwise.

3) As for RAI, the intent of the game's designers is very important when it come to interpreting the rules. Much of the reason, I suspect, that you've never met a pure-RAW DM is that the rules are impossible to implement without using some form of interpretation. They are inherently imperfect because they based on our language, which is imperfect & imprecise. The rules just are not clear enough to perfectly cover every consequence of play, & so it is up to the human mind to take the rules & adjudicate them as best as it can, using a foundation of logic & reason to make the rules work where the wording isn't 100% clear. Now, not everyone has the same logical foundation, so there are inevitably going to be cases where people disagree on the interpretation of a particular rule & how it should interact with other rules. Everybody's different, so don't be surprised when we can't agree. Therefore, supposing what the original designers meant when they wrote a particular rule is helpful, in much the same way as judges try to determine what the Founding Fathers meant when they wrote the Constitution, or what the authors of a religious text meant when they wrote down their dogma. The RAI gives the RAW a context that is necessary to interpret the proper meaning of the rules, which are flawed because they are based on an imperfect language.