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View Full Version : Can someone explain the rule of cool to me?



Talakeal
2011-06-18, 02:04 AM
I have seen so many people on this forum claim that in their games the "rule of cool" trumps both the rules, the consistency of the setting, and even the drama of the story, and for the life of me I can't figure out how this works.

Are there limits to it? If so who sets them, and how do you avoid it devolving into arguments? How do you keep play stable? If I am not constrained by either the rules or by common sense I would be hard pressed to think up a situation that I couldn't narrate my way out of while still making it sound cool, however such a situation would be nonsensical and unfair to the other players.

Every time I try and imagine such a game I picture something that is a cross between Calvinball, the wizard duel from Sword in the Stone, and two old guys sitting on a porch trying to top one another's tall tales. While such a game might be fun in the short run, I can't imagine having any long term enjoyment from it, let alone anything resembling what I know as an RPG.

So what am I missing? What is the definition and the limits of the oft cited "Rule of Cool?"

Honest Tiefling
2011-06-18, 02:12 AM
I generally go by the idea that anything Cool, with a capital C, will impress everyone at the table. If not everyone is on board with the Coolness Train, then don't do it. The amount of times this has happened for me is so limited that it has not been a problem by appearing too often.

It also often happens in interactions, that someone intimidates another or tells such an awesome lie...So it does not necessarily defeat the drama, but can add to it if PCs and NPCs are suddenly afraid of the mother-****ing orc or that someone has the guts to wander into the enemy base with only a lie for cover. An action that is too wacky will have the DM either banging their head against the table, or trying to bang the player's head against the table.

Raistlin1040
2011-06-18, 02:21 AM
Rule Of Cool rewards players who think outside the box and think up awesome things.

Say you're on a building with a wire to another building. You want to attack a guy on a horse. The practical way to kill him is to shoot him with an arrow. Roll attack, roll damage, done. Instead, you decide you want to use your cloak and fly down the wire with a dagger in your teeth, kick him from the horse, and then fight. From a mechanics perspective, that could be a nightmare. Strength check to hold on to the cloak, Balance check, treating it like combat and doing movement by round, so you might miss him altogether, unarmed attack that is unlikely to hit and even less likely to knock him from his saddle, etc.

It's impractical. Shooting him with an arrow is a smarter decision. However, Rule Of Cool lets the DM allow a player to get away with cool but impractical ideas like sliding down the wire and kicking the guy. Instead of a million checks, he lets the you slide down with no problem and then lets you make an attack. In that situation, I'd probably even just say something like "Make an attack roll as if you were using your bow. No damage but if you hit him, he falls off."

The player has no advantage to attacking like that over attacking with an arrow. In fact, because the kick won't deal damage, shooting with an arrow is still arguably the better option. But the Rule of Cool lets players get away with cool things that don't break the game, without punishing them for thinking outside what the Player's Handbook tells them to think about.

Shadowknight12
2011-06-18, 02:26 AM
Here is the source (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool), it's a better explanation.

As for how it relates to gaming, well, it assumes that your players find cool stuff fun, and are willing to forgive anything and everything if you keep pumping raw, undiluted coolness into their veins.

To make it simpler, imagine that someone is addicted to chocolate, and you invite them over for dinner. They will forgive absolutely everything, from the fact that your cake is slightly burnt to the fact that you added too much salt to the salmon mousse, as long as you keep giving them chocolate. French fries and chocolate, angel food cake and chocolate, steak and chocolate, chocolate chip cookies and chocolate, chocolate and chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and chocolate, someone stop me before I drift into a sketch. There.

Anyway. The point is that the premise of Rule of Cool is sustained on you and your players' overpowering addiction to coolness. I would call it "Rule of Whatever We're Addicted To" (because the same principle applies to players who care not about coolness, if you replace "Cool" with something else, like "Drama," "Funny," "Romance," or "Scary,") but it's less catchy.

SPoD
2011-06-18, 03:43 AM
Rule of Cool does not mean you can do anything, anytime, with perfect accuracy. It means not allowing the fact that any game system has inherent flaws in modeling real life and/or movies keep your characters from doing something that should be plausible.

If you want to see something sort of like the Rule of Cool in action, consider the part of the DMG where it tells DMs that a dagger in the eye is still a dagger in the eye. Yes, there are elaborate rules concerning attacking and damaging. Yes, there are hit points that represent health and there are no called shots or specifically vulnerable locations. But when you're sitting at your game table, and the bad guy is tied up, and your anti-hero says, "I stab him in the eye," then that character stabbed him in the eye. Period. Done deal. Because to say otherwise would actively ruin the believability of the game.

Rule of Cool simply extrapolates that kind of thinking to the sort of action we are accustomed to seeing in movies and TV, and swaps out "believability" for "fun." The DM invokes Rule of Cool when the player wants to try something that would look awesome in a movie, but for which the rules have little support. Swinging from chandeliers, walking away from explosions, sliding down banisters, flying in through windows...It doesn't guarantee success, it simply doesn't penalize you for trying something not specifically called out by the rules by narrowing it down to one or two achievable tests rather than a dozen unwieldy ones.

Sillycomic
2011-06-18, 03:44 AM
I don't really think you can describe Rule of Cool to any logical consistency. It would be like trying to explain a joke; by defining it as a game mechanic you would ruin its coolness.

I would say it's mostly a GM/player basis. If everyone around the table thinks something you did/are going to do/say is just so freaking cool, then you do it no matter how illogical it is in the game.

I have a perfect example from my Pathfinder last week. We had fought through this long dungeon and were at the edge of a mud filled cave with a main treasure chest just on the other side. This random blob demon fiend pops up out of the mud and we start fighting.

I had a fly potion and was flying around the thing just hitting it for brutal amounts of damage with my greatsword.

So, finally the demon looks at me and says, "You are a brave fighter, I will take much pleasure in sucking the marrow from your bones."

And I reply, "Sheesh, buy a girl dinner first."

The GM was going to say that the demon blob thing only speaks infernal, which is a language my character didn't know, but my quip cracked up everyone at the table so much (including the GM) he just told me then and there I get Infernal as a bonus language.

Besides, there are already some games out there which actually do have a "Rule of cool mechanic." Basically the more specific you define your action and how cool it is, the better the Gm gives you a chance to succeed.

Vampire and Exalted both come to mind, and I think there are others. Pathfinder has hero points as an alternative feature. But again, these mechanics are still mostly up to the GM's discretion as to whether or not they work.

Serpentine
2011-06-18, 04:37 AM
I think it's worth pointing out that Rule of Cool is not (or is rarely) the basis of a game (except maybe Exalted, from what I've heard...). It is an occasional exception to the rules to just let something really cool happen because it'll be cool and add to the excitement of the game.

Knaight
2011-06-18, 04:41 AM
I think it's worth pointing out that Rule of Cool is not (or is rarely) the basis of a game (except maybe Exalted, from what I've heard...). It is an occasional exception to the rules to just let something really cool happen because it'll be cool and add to the excitement of the game.

Its also essentially a qualitative patch to a game system to make it better model the realities of fictional settings via genre emulation. If, in a wuxia game, someone wants to run across a lake, cut the water, throw the water at their opponent, cut through the droplets, and stab them*, then this should register as an attack, and be relatively easy to perform, if also blocked as an attack. It shouldn't be insanely difficult. Likewise, in a early modern low fantasy game, a character should be able to hide behind a rock with a rifle, peek ever so slightly over, said rock, and take a shot at an opponent, they should be able to do so. If the system would reward going in guns blazing, but it isn't at all appropriate, then treating it as if it were going in guns blazing is reasonable.

*Wuxia being what it is, this is normal

Worira
2011-06-18, 04:42 AM
I don't really think you can describe Rule of Cool to any logical consistency. It would be like trying to explain a joke; by defining it as a game mechanic you would ruin its coolness.

I would say it's mostly a GM/player basis. If everyone around the table thinks something you did/are going to do/say is just so freaking cool, then you do it no matter how illogical it is in the game.

I have a perfect example from my Pathfinder last week. We had fought through this long dungeon and were at the edge of a mud filled cave with a main treasure chest just on the other side. This random blob demon fiend pops up out of the mud and we start fighting.

I had a fly potion and was flying around the thing just hitting it for brutal amounts of damage with my greatsword.

So, finally the demon looks at me and says, "You are a brave fighter, I will take much pleasure in sucking the marrow from your bones."

And I reply, "Sheesh, buy a girl dinner first."

The GM was going to say that the demon blob thing only speaks infernal, which is a language my character didn't know, but my quip cracked up everyone at the table so much (including the GM) he just told me then and there I get Infernal as a bonus language.

Besides, there are already some games out there which actually do have a "Rule of cool mechanic." Basically the more specific you define your action and how cool it is, the better the Gm gives you a chance to succeed.

Vampire and Exalted both come to mind, and I think there are others. Pathfinder has hero points as an alternative feature. But again, these mechanics are still mostly up to the GM's discretion as to whether or not they work.

If the GM knew the demon only spoke Infernal, why even say the demon's taunt in the first place?

Sillycomic
2011-06-18, 05:03 AM
I think the GM just wanted to intimidate me. Most of my group actually spoke infernal, so it hadn't come up until just that moment.

It seemed like more of an afterthought when he said it, "Oh, right. You didn't hear that, you just heard him hiss at you strangely."

Meh, GM's forget stuff too sometimes. They're only human.

oxybe
2011-06-18, 08:55 AM
step 1) play the original castle ravenloft module.
step 2) wade through swarm of zombies and kick corporeality out of the vampire
step 3) casually stroll through his front door
step 4) run up pillar, suplex his gargoyle. proceed to casually chat up his doppleganger.
step 5) remind people that monks were awesome pre-3rd ed.

rule of cool dude, rule of cool.

Dragonmuncher
2011-06-18, 10:19 AM
You're escaping from a fancy party, after "liberating" some ancient artifacts from the owner's gallery. Some low-level guards are chasing you. If you stopped to fight them, it'd be an effortless fight, but could still get tedious since there are 4 of them. As you run through a study, you pause, aim, and let loose a throwing knife, right at the rope of a chandelier! The chandelier drops, pinning or killing the guards.

Caphi
2011-06-18, 10:52 AM
The limit is when everyone agrees. I will go out on a limb and say that good players in healthy playgroups will be willing to exult in another character's moment of cool. I have case studies from myself and others suggesting that players are often even willing to overlook blatant violations of balance if they think it's awesome, helpful, or both.

If you have a bitter player who thinks they're constantly getting shafted (justified or not), or if you have a rules lawyer who will pitch a fit, its a more dangerous prospect to try crazy stunts, but a friendly, relaxed table should recognize what would rock for your character to do.

On thing I feel needs to be said is that the cool thing you do should work with your character and not come out of nowhere. It works when the wizard outsmarts a noble Phoenix Wright style, or when the paladin inspires an army, but unless Batmanning is an established part of the paladin and oratory of the wizard (which really could happen, no judging), the converse may be harder to swallow. Fit it into the dynamic.

Jair Barik
2011-06-18, 01:36 PM
Here is the source (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool), it's a better explanation.

As for how it relates to gaming, well, it assumes that your players find cool stuff fun, and are willing to forgive anything and everything if you keep pumping raw, undiluted coolness into their veins.

To make it simpler, imagine that someone is addicted to chocolate, and you invite them over for dinner. They will forgive absolutely everything, from the fact that your cake is slightly burnt to the fact that you added too much salt to the salmon mousse, as long as you keep giving them chocolate. French fries and chocolate, angel food cake and chocolate, steak and chocolate, chocolate chip cookies and chocolate, chocolate and chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and chocolate, someone stop me before I drift into a sketch. There.

Anyway. The point is that the premise of Rule of Cool is sustained on you and your players' overpowering addiction to coolness. I would call it "Rule of Whatever We're Addicted To" (because the same principle applies to players who care not about coolness, if you replace "Cool" with something else, like "Drama," "Funny," "Romance," or "Scary,") but it's less catchy.

You are a very bad person :smallannoyed:
Have you any idea how much time I am going to waste now? :smallamused:

Shadowknight12
2011-06-18, 01:40 PM
You are a very bad person :smallannoyed:
Have you any idea how much time I am going to waste now? :smallamused:

Yes. Yes I do. :smallamused:

Qaera
2011-06-18, 01:46 PM
Exalted mechanically defines the Rule of Cool with 'stunts'- if you describe your actions really awesome and do something cool IC, you get bonus dice to hit and mote respiration (basically let's you use more cool powers faster).

RPGuru1331
2011-06-18, 02:15 PM
I think it's worth pointing out that Rule of Cool is not (or is rarely) the basis of a game (except maybe Exalted, from what I've heard...)
The rule of cool fuels a great deal of what DnD originally sets out to do, it just fizzles out spectacularly when it comes to actual support. You don't think that, for example, the Duelist class (Errol Flynn, for god's sake) was made out of 'realism', I trust*?

In Exalted, the rule of cool is used for method. You set out to accomplish an epic goal in cool or interesting ways. Maybe I play with strange people, but I've found 'cool' to have a lot of elasticity in that game. Yeah, antics involving acrobatics and swords can be cool, but so can a gossip session that is done to poison a rival's well of good will in a town, or the tweaks. As a practical matter, coolness is facilitated by receiving bonuses, with somewhat more broad abilities and the like. It tries to integrate the Rule of Cool into the actual rules.

*Yes, I know, it *sucks*. Hence 'fizzles'.


Are there limits to it? If so who sets them, and how do you avoid it devolving into arguments?
Broad agreement and camaraderie. If people don't like each other or agree with each other on what constitutes coolness, it probably will not work, and I don't suggest trying it.


If I am not constrained by either the rules or by common sense I would be hard pressed to think up a situation that I couldn't narrate my way out of while still making it sound cool
It's not cool to just auto-win, dude. There's no way to get around that. If you bring it, it will be brought back to you; things will escalate, because that's much cooler than just a quick, easy resolution.

In practice, while it may guide what scenes your group chooses to focus on (You may skip something political as not cool, if your group thinks it's not cool), within a scene it's supposed to help make sure individual actions are permitted to be tried at all, rather than being told 'the rules don't say you can'. It doesn't mean you get ot narrate the scene and everyone's characters for them.

Terraoblivion
2011-06-18, 02:33 PM
It is also worth remembering that what constitutes cool depends quite a bit on the genre in question. Something that obviously breaks the mood and feel of a given game isn't going to come off cool, but rather as an intrusive foreign element. Outrageous acrobatics are awesome in swashbuckling action or wuxia, but quite out of place in noir or war stories. On the other hand thinking out a brilliant plan and enacting it in detail is awesome and cool in a game centering on political intrigue and strategic maneuvering, but is boring busywork in a game meant to emulate fastpaced action movies.

Of course, there is also the subjective element of what different people finds cool, but that manifests at least as much in the choice of genre to emulate as it does in specific instances within the genre.

So it's like rule of cool is a constant, it's above all about doing some that goes above and beyond the expected and practical in a way that fits the story being told. If it doesn't fit, it isn't cool anymore. Kamina being anything more than an idiot who gets himself killed would be incredibly out of place in Gundam, for example, but that doesn't mean Gundam is uncool.

oxybe
2011-06-18, 03:31 PM
i'll definitely throw my hat into Exalted being a system that uses the "rule of cool" to set the tone, especially since one of our last sessions where while traveling across the land in an airship, we found ourselves being tailed by some clockwork bug-spy-thing.

i hid on the deck until we saw it again, prayer, tied a rope around my waist, gave the other end to the big guy, told him to hold on tight then after activating a charm i jumped off the ship at breakneck speed, spear-tackled the bug mid-air, held it tight then rappelled back up the hull of the ship with the help of my circlemate.

when the action happens in exalted, it's generally used to set the tone that your PCs are rather larger then life and the more description and over the top you make it, the more the system benefits you by adding extra dice. if i would have tried this in D&D, i probably would've been penalized for trying to stunt in such a fashion, since D&D generally keeps the heros "heroic" but not so much that they can do such crazy stuff... at least not at low levels.

Lord.Sorasen
2011-06-18, 05:57 PM
In a sentence: Rule of Cool is when you go against the rules of the game (or even the rules of common logic) because allowing something to happen would be that much more awesome.

Often enough it makes the game more fun for people, because hell, it's fantasy adventure and I want to do really awesome things.

But I can see why it'd be a thing.

Kurald Galain
2011-06-18, 06:52 PM
I think it's worth pointing out that Rule of Cool is not (or is rarely) the basis of a game (except maybe Exalted, from what I've heard...).
Well, yes it is. Several games run on "rule of cool", which means that cool actions or descriptions thereof explicitly get a higher chance to succeed (or a stronger effect), simply and only because they're cool.

Exalted is an example, but so are Over The Edge, Paranoia, and Toon.

Tyndmyr
2011-06-18, 11:56 PM
I think it's worth pointing out that Rule of Cool is not (or is rarely) the basis of a game (except maybe Exalted, from what I've heard...). It is an occasional exception to the rules to just let something really cool happen because it'll be cool and add to the excitement of the game.

It's pretty baked into 7th Sea, with certain mechanics explicitly functioning off it. Including ways to greatly affect your xp. I've been meaning to write a blog post about optimized play based off effective use of the rule of cool in the game, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

It is a swashbuckling game, though, so things like swinging off the chandeliers to smash the bad guy out the stained glass window HAVE to be encouraged.


Caphi, I agree. When players want to ride an undead dinosaur they raised, the other players are generally pretty happy with it. Provided it's something unique. Most broken tricks(like say, invisible solid fog) are great fun....the first time. If you use the same one over and over again, that isn't fun, and players will be annoyed, but if you keep providing fresh, new, awesome entertainment, players don't give a damn about balance.

Honest Tiefling
2011-06-18, 11:59 PM
Probably also helps if you raise some undead dinosaurs for your buddies. Has no one watched Sesame Street? If you have undead unholy abominations that make a mockery of life you should share them!

Then you can try to compete by pimping out the undead dinosaurs. Like kidnap a bard to put on the back and put lights on them...

Seriously, people will let you get away with this kind of stuff a bit better if you also work to help the other people's characters and work together to be awesome, and not be a spotlight hog.

Tyndmyr
2011-06-19, 12:31 AM
Oh, absolutely. You can play with a six tier party spread and not a single hurt feeling if you work together to be awesome and clever. I've been the incantatrix abusing persist in a party with a Samurai. Did he complain that it was broken for me to persist vigor, flight, and greater invisibility on him, while passing a similar buff list to everyone at the table? No, no he did not. Everyone was too busy high fiving and killing things.

Serpentine
2011-06-19, 12:57 AM
The rule of cool fuels a great deal of what DnD originally sets out to do, it just fizzles out spectacularly when it comes to actual support. You don't think that, for example, the Duelist class (Errol Flynn, for god's sake) was made out of 'realism', I trust*?Well, I actually said absolutely nothing about "realism". While they can be related, they aren't necessarily. My point was just that few (although, apparently, more than I thought...) games are entirely based on characters doing exceptionally cool things all the time - after all, when all are cool, noone will be!

Qaera
2011-06-19, 01:34 AM
:smallconfused:
Verisimilitude?

Serpentine
2011-06-19, 02:26 AM
Nope. My view of Rule of Cool is not that it deviates from "realism" nor "verisimilitude", but simply that it deviates from RAW and/or usual practice. If those are the RAW of reality, so be it, but it's not necessarily so.

RPGuru1331
2011-06-19, 02:51 AM
Well, I actually said absolutely nothing about "realism". While they can be related, they aren't necessarily. My point was just that few (although, apparently, more than I thought...) games are entirely based on characters doing exceptionally cool things all the time - after all, when all are cool, noone will be!

Respect points for the syndrome ref, but many NPCs aren't cool (intentionally).. And Syndrome isn't really always applicable; "When every PC is skilled, no PC will be!", for instance.

Tvtyrant
2011-06-19, 03:45 AM
Respect points for the syndrome ref, but many NPCs aren't cool (intentionally).. And Syndrome isn't really always applicable; "When every PC is skilled, no PC will be!", for instance.

"When every character is skilled, no one will be!" is perfectly valid in D&D. The dirt farmer kicks the dragons ass in front of you, the local wizard teleports into the dungeon and gets his own laundry done, etc. You swiftly become just another person in a world of wizards and wuxia, lost and alone.

Serpentine
2011-06-19, 04:02 AM
Respect points for the syndrome ref, but many NPCs aren't cool (intentionally).. And Syndrome isn't really always applicable; "When every PC is skilled, no PC will be!", for instance.I find it very hard to believe that Syndrome was the first time that line was used, but that's not my point. A game where every action is supported by the Rule of Cool is a very different game to what I believe is the standard practice, where the Rule of Cool supplements normal rules. It's not bad, necessarily, but I'm actually not sure that at that point it really counts as Rule of Cool. Rule of Cool is when the normal rules are glossed over or brushed aside or tweaked or just plain ignored to allow something really exceptionally (and I use that word quite deliberately) awesome to happen, because those rules would get in the way of that cool action.
When every action is exceptionally cool, no action will be exceptionally cool. Which isn't to say games where RoC has been codified aren't cool, but... I'm not very good at articulating why...

RPGuru1331
2011-06-19, 06:29 AM
It's not bad, necessarily, but I'm actually not sure that at that point it really counts as Rule of Cool. Rule of Cool is when the normal rules are glossed over or brushed aside or tweaked or just plain ignored to allow something really exceptionally (and I use that word quite deliberately) awesome to happen, because those rules would get in the way of that cool action.
Rule of Cool is when your primary concern is Coolness. In practice, within an RPG, that usually means what you said, because few rules systems actively support it. What you've said can not possibly be the definition; after all, the concept was first thought up outside of RPGs, no? But in a system that is set up to specifically make sure coolness happens, the "Rule of Cool" isn't about sweeping aside the rules. From a design perspective, if you've done it right, the rules not only aren't an obstacle to coolness, but they're an active aid. So no, you're misusing the term here based on your previous experience. It makes sense, but it's still inaccurate.


When every action is exceptionally cool, no action will be exceptionally cool. Which isn't to say games where RoC has been codified aren't cool, but... I'm not very good at articulating why...
not every action is exceptionally cool, even ideally. There's NPCs and Scenery (Faceless mooks) who aren't, and PCs often (But not always) have NPCs of their own that they are (frequently) permitted to roleplay for. True impressiveness, for NPCs, is typically reserved for rivals and important characters (Just as it's reserved for PCs, not t heir subordinates).

I mean, that's putting aside real world concerns. Yes, the rules are there to facilitate coolness. Players aren't generally endless wells of creativity though. Their delicious brains can be temporarily tapped out, and the rich veins of Idea Coke which fuel their ideas may have to be replaced with Wood from "I Got nothin'" trees because they're blanking, lacking inspiration that day (Heaven forfend), or have otherwise exhausted their creative reserves. This is especially a danger in tabletop and chat client games, and typically the 'standards' for rules benefits are thus lower than if you're posting in a play by message board game (Because really, it isn't fair to judge people who get 2 hours to iron everything out on the same scale as the person who got 5 minutes).



"When every character is skilled, no one will be!" is perfectly valid in D&D. The dirt farmer kicks the dragons ass in front of you, the local wizard teleports into the dungeon and gets his own laundry done, etc. You swiftly become just another person in a world of wizards and wuxia, lost and alone.
wut? Putting aside tier nonsense and the brokenness of the game, that's blatantly untrue. If people are skilled at different things, then everyone's still skilled. If their skills do not perfectly overlap, you're still skilled, and the differences are meaningful. Seriously, if I can manage this in systems with broader skills and generally more competent characters, you *really* should be able to pull this off in DnD, where people are more focused (except for mid-high op god classes) and don't tread on each other so much.