The real problem with 'Rulings Not Rules' in DnD

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This channel makes use of affiliate links, which help support Questing Beast at no cost to you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTING KNIGHT PATRONS
Allen Opperman, Angel of the Dawn, Doug Vieira, Dwayne Boothe, Dwiz, Elliot Heigert, fikle, J. Case Tompkins, James Endres, Jose Trujillo, Klozee, Kurtis Bright, LeMorteGames, marzan, Paulie, Ricardo Sedan, RollStats

[SingularityOrbit]

Original D&D told players to use the Chainmail rules to resolve combat, and to use the Outdoor Survival game to resolve wilderness travel. So the idea seems to be that most situations are handled by the DM ruling on the players' choices; uncertain situations are handled with a simple die roll; and chaotic situations are handled with a minigame add-on. That's what overland hex crawling and round-by-round combat are in D&D: minigames. That's why the game has both magic items that are "solutions without problems" (I love that phrase) and also +1 swords. The Immovable Rod is for normal play, whereas the +1 sword is for the combat minigame.

[tbb]

The main issue I always had with "rulings not rules" is it puts a lot of stress on an inexperienced GM, or even a GM just not used to a particular set of mechanics. I have been playing for so long, I can handle things, but the GM just coming up with rules for falling damage, . disease, poison, or whatever, is pretty hard without killing off a lot of characters while you get the nuances right.

[paxtenebrae]

Funny. I remember hearing Matt Colville, who I think it's fair to say is not especially OSR, talk some time ago now about how he prefers to develop challenges without specific solutions in mind for this very reason of it promoting better creativity. Fun to see different creators using different tools converging on similar solutions.

[DungeonMasterpiece]

I love the phrase "...then OSR tools are solutions without problems."

[torinmccabe]

The quote by Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” is informative for open ended RPG game play. Move from the "solution" of reducing the monsters hit points to zero to the trade-offs of how the other factions in the world will react to your interaction with this monster

[ericjome]

Inspired by the sampo, I once gave the party a salt shaker that would never run out. Anything you put into it had to be a powder and you had to shake it to get that powder out, but it would never run dry. Of course, they put gold in it right away...

[quincykunz]

Rulings are always going to be necessary. The primary strength of ttrpgs is the ability for a human GM to respond and improvise to actions taken. However, I find that a lot of the time rulings can become inconsistent or have knock-on effects due to being essentially slapdash rules. Put another way, rules are just rulings made in advance with more thought put into them. Rulings buy flexibility at the cost of GM responsibility. Rules ease GM responsibility at the cost of rigidity. The more of a game-designer a GM is, the more responsibility they can take without causing problems in the game itself.

[dragondreams]

One problem I run into is that players want consistency in rulings, and they're usually right to. When I rule on something, that means I'll have to write down how I ruled, so I can remember to do it the same way next time. This is essentially the same as making a new rule. So, it's tricky. When do we want rules? When do we want rulings? When do we want to make new rules via rulings? What I've started doing is telling players how I will handle something before they take an action. Ex. PC: "my swashbuckler will swing from the chandelier, kick one guard in the head, and draw his rapier, and run the other guard through." Me: "Okay, cool! I'm going to call for a DEX check to swing from the chandelier. If you fail, you'll take 2d6 falling damage and lose the next round getting up. If you succeed, you'll surprise the guards, but you can only kick one of them in the face on one round and stab the other on a subsequent round. Do you still want to do that?" (Or however I rule... not necessarily saying this is how I'd really rule, just an example of how I'd let them choose a different action if they don't like how I'd handle it.)

[tombayley]

The idea of OSR solutions can be extended to the character classes of AD&D. The AD&D illusionist, the AD&D druid, the AD&D monk, all excel at approaching problems side-on rather than from the front. This style of play can cause friction with a rigidly structured rule set. This might explain why the classes were effectively abandoned or re written from the ground up in later editions.

[petoperceptum]

"What do you intend to happen?" is always a great question to ask players when they start describing actions. And likewise for players, if you explicitly tell your GM why you are doing something, they can better tell you if you succeed. So often I've seen something that started out looking like moon-logic turn into a good idea once everyone is on the same page.

[JonathanAwesomeify]

I'm conflicted on this. I read through the Goblin Punch article and landed on this comment which stuck with me: "There is no such thing as a ruling. The DM is making up a rule and adjudicating its results."

I'm not super plugged into the OSR community, but from the outside a lot of it seems like an outsized reaction to 3.5. As if players literally can't look up from their character sheet; that if they don't have a "dispel magic mushroom circle" ability they just stop playing.

My group has primarily played 5e and 13th Age and we've never had this problem. Maybe I'm lucky. But when I had a beholder ask them to sabotage a nearby cultist without it looking like a direct attack, they had a great time. (They convinced the acolytes to unionize and rebel, then tipped the scales of the fight in their favour.)

Or when a father asked them to check on his daughter at a clinic who he wasn't allowed to see, they cast Minor Illusion on the halfling bard to make him look like a child and be admitted himself.

Was that OSR? Was that rulings not rules? Maybe? It was before I'd even heard the term. I guess ultimately, if I were being snarky, I'd say I fall into the camp of encouraging creative use of abilities on their character sheet, not throwing their sheet in the trash and playing Calvinball. Instead of "rulings not rules" I believe in "good rules lead to good rulings." (Like Forbidden Lands! We had a blast with that.)

Ok, semi-coherent rant over. I might change my mind in an hour. Thanks for the video anyway, I love all Questing Beast videos!

[aaroncorbett]

I love ALL of Questing Beast's videos. I either learn something new or come away with a new way of thinking about something every time.

[DungeonsforDecades]

I really love Questing Beast. Such a great job respecting the old traditions. As a 58 year old gamer who was there at the (not so much dawn, but early morning, lol) of D&D, to have so many love letters to OSR games and the good old days is great. Always enjoy you, sir!

[SeanBoyce-gp]

I actually think the concept of old school vs. new school just comes down to "are you more interested in narrative logic, or are you more interested in mechanical logic."

By Narrative logic, I mean (spoiler) when The Bride gets buried alive in Kill Bill Vol. 2, new school games are interested in the player saying "well, I'm still playing, so how do I get out of here?" and then the GM saying "Well did you learn anything in your training that could help?" and then you get this whole flashback montage style system.

In mechanical logic, an old school GM and an Old School game will say "you're buried alive, what do you do?" and the olds chool approach is that you would expect them to have read the WikiHow on escaping from being buried alive or have already arranged for someone to find you and have a way to help you, you're just gonna die down there. I love all the design logic around what you're saying, but I feel like ultimately that's what we're taklking about: the difference betewen "being good" at the game being an expression of logic and an expression of storytelling. New school leans more toward the latter. Old school more toward the former.

[marktownsend]

I'm really enjoying these blog synopsis videos. Great stuff and lots of material to follow up on in the links.

[theoldwarlock]

Being one of those grognard guys, when I saw the title of the video without checking context it immediately got my hackles up. Should have known better - this is more excellent content. The statement at 7:23 about the fun of watching players overcome OSR style problems was spot on. It's definitely the best part of being a DM AND it tests and encourages my own creativity and imagination when creating the next set of challenges. The term/phrase "problem without a solution" is now part of my RPG lexicon. Off to check GP's blog now. Thanks for this!

[atinaroart]

Questing beast is my favorite RPG channel all the videos are fire

[robertbromley]

I generally agree with the “OSR” approach to problems. That said, myself and many of my friends have greatly enjoyed 3.5 and Pathfinder one, especially when it came to character building benefitting from a kind of creeping system mastery. In my experience, some of our best times, role-playing benefited simultaneously from mechanics on our sheets and creative problem-solving. I’m not suggesting our experience is somehow “one size fits all”. But I do think crafting problems like this benefit every game system, crunchy or otherwise.

[tombayley]

OSR PROBLEM - a vampire medusa (30 years on and the DM who did that to the party is still chuckling )

[Skyscraper]

I think a great example of an "OSR Problem" and an "OSR Solution" is actually in the D&D movie.

Spoilers:
...
...
...
They need to get inside the safe that has a magical seal on it that absolutely nothing can break whatsoever once it is closed, not even magic!
Solution: They put a passwall from a magical Hither-to-Thither staff (a portal gun basically) on the back of a portrait of Volo, replace the painting and then when the painting is in place, they open up the other side of the passwall to get through.

Some shenanigans occurs but, ultimately, it was a very creative problem and creative solution that felt extremely *D&D* when watching it.