Technically Correct - the best worst kind of correct

In other words, exactly the opposite of what the Central Bureaucracy on Futurama says.

The way I see it, Technical Correctness doesn't have a lot of place at the game table. It's got a lot of place in a playtest, or when otherwise testing rules to see if they do what you put in the place intending to do. But once the dice hit the table for chargen or game, I figure that's over. From there, any broken rules you find or rules exploits you notice are only worth reporting so they can be fixed, not used for anything else. Game writing is technical writing, of course, and if technical errors occur, the goal is to fix the errors . . . not exploit them in game or online to pronounce victory over the rules.

There is sometimes an assumption that RPG rules are to settle arguments over who can do what . . . but I don't think that's what they are for. They're to set boundaries on your choices and link effects to them so you can interact with the imaginary, shared experience of the game table. I've written about this before, having written "GM toolbox" rules you could read broadly and use to justify almost anything.

Ultimately, the point of the rules are to facilitate an enjoyable game amongst friends. Anytime the a reading of the rules goes against that, the rules must give way. Aiming to be T.C. is the reverse of that. T.C., in my eyes, is:

- about winning. As if there were winners in a coop RPG.

- rule-lawyering. This is especially bad when people take a rule and argue with the GM and/or other players about the results of the rule. The rules aren't there as weapons for the players against the GM, nor are they weapons for the GM against the players.*

- munchkinism. Totally in-place in Munchkin. Totally out of place in the games that inspired Munchkin.

- Murphy's Rules generation. "Hey, it says here "For groups 1-10, and then "a dozen or more." A group of 11 is immune!" Funny stuff. Send it in to Pyramid, but don't play it that way at the table.

But basically, the time I want rules utterly hammered on is when they are being stress-tested. Once we play, though, Rule Zero trumps everything - the GM's word is law. But at even a lower level than that, there a basic understanding around my table that RPGs are about an enjoyable shared experience. If it's not fun, you can't even get to Rule Zero, and if it's the rules doing that, the rules must change.

It's funny, because I started writing this post days and days ago, but kept pushing it off until I had time to write more. But then a whole argument about the specific wording of one my posts on the SJG Forums exploded, and I figured there was no way to post this with it being seen as some passive-aggressive post about that. It is and isn't about that argument, of course. It's really a whole issue in general. I almost sat on this until I read Doug's post today.

My tabletop is blessed with players who can rules lawyer with the best of them, but do so only to see what's actually allowed and generally come to me to report what they see as exploits before they use them. Being Technically Correct, but not in the spirit of the rules or the spirit of the game (which is to have fun with friends), is a bad thing around my table.

What's odd to me is that it's possible people can take exception to this, too, arguing that Rules Lawyering is part of the fun. And it may be, for some - but I think it's so only if everyone at the table agrees that rules exploits and rules lawyering and rule-book quoting to maximal effect is part of the game. If so, great. But a good part of my intent here is to say, that's not my table, and generally, I write and act as if people play at my table. I think the aim of being exactly, literal-reading correct about rules (or doing things you can make the rules say is correct) is ultimately less fun than putting fun ahead of the rules. I've seen games disintegrate over rules arguments, but I have yet to see a game disintegrate over too much fun.



* Yes, even in Paranoia. There, the power of the GM and the setting is a weapon against the PCs, and the rules are just a way to express that. You don't have to rules-lawyer against the PCs in Paranoia to make that game work, the setting and situations do that without any further help.

PS - For another look at how I think rules should be made, and enforced, check out The Rule of Awesome.

The Known Entrances of Felltower

Hey buddy, how do you get into that place, anyway?

Much like my Monsters Encountered So Far post, I thought I'd do a roundup of entrances the PCs have heard of or confirmed the existence of for Felltower.

So here they are, as of 12/14/2014:

Bugbear Tunnels - a narrow entrance requiring crawling, from the surface ruins on top of Felltower. Current status: Unknown, known to the orcs, believed guarded or trapped.

Dragon Cave Mouth - a mouth-shaped cave on the west side of the mountain, leads to the cavern warren roughly 100' or so below the first level of tunnels. Originally guarded by a fierce dragon. Current Status: Occasionally used by orcs, otherwise unguarded.



Main Entrance - fortified main entrance under the castle (pictured above). Current status: Guarded by orcs.

Orc Entrance - unknown location, but it's known the orcs enter the tunnels under Felltower via a tunnel, possibly from a cave-riddled canyon to the north.

Underwater Entrance - an underground inlet to the Silver River believed to reach deep into Felltower.

Tower Entrance - there is a "hatchway" entrance under the collapsed ruined tower knocked down by the PCs. Current Status: Often locked from within, guarded by orcs, and inside the restored fortress of Castle Felltower.

Well Entrance - a secret entrance at the bottom of a dry well. Current Status: Inside the orc-guarded restored fortress of Castle Felltower, possibly blocked up.


There are rumors of other ways in, too, but they may have been identified already:

- the well. (almost certainly ID'ed.)

- the second surface entrance in the castle. (Probably the tower "hatch" or the bugbear tunnels.)

- possible entrances from other dungeons or caves far, far from Felltower. (In other words, find another dungeon, clear the sucker, and then march underground a long way, not even remotely identified.)



But so far, that's it. In case you are wondering why the PCs keep hitting the same well-traveled areas, you might understand a bit better. Many entrances are orc-guarded, and it's unclear how to effectively utilize the more difficult ones (the underwater entrance, say.)

25% Coupon at Amazon.com until tomorrow

Until tomorrow night, Amazon.com has another book coupon going: 25% off any one book, limited to $10.

Might I suggest gaming books? Say, GURPS books?

I have all of those, so I used it on something else, but it's a good chance to get a solid discount on a gaming book.

Monster Manual Master of Magic easter egg?

So I'm reading the 5e Monster Manual, and I find this quote:

"No one carves statues of frightened warriors. If you see one, keep your eyes closed and your ears open." - X the Mystic's 4th Rule of Dungeon Survival
(Monster Manual, p. 24)

I was wondering what Mystic X did after he helped me become the Master of Magic. Maybe now I know. He kept whacking monster lairs, and still has enough sense to flee Nature nodes protected by basilisks.

Mini WIP: Star Frontiers Sathar Trooper

This guy is only about 75% finished, but I dotted his twin pupils to see how the overall mini could look near the end. I might need to re-do the pupils, but even so:




Creepy. It feels like he's staring at me from the WIP section of the desk. Double-pupil eyed sinister space worms are pretty cool.

This guy has been primed and unpainted for at least 10 years, and owned by me since at least the mid-80s. But he's getting the full yellow-pink-green sathar color job going now.

GURPS: Can Change Posture be merged into Move?

Occasionally, people will point out that the best way, rules-wise, to deal with a berserk opponent in GURPS is to trip him or her. Why? Because Change Posture isn't a valid maneuver choice for a berserker, and only Change Posture lets you stand up from prone, so a prone berserker cannot ever stand back up. You've now reduced your foe to crawling.

Pretty ridiculous, but there you go.

While I have my own other suggestions on re-working berserk, which will either become a Pyramid article (if it runs long) or a blog post (if it doesn't have enough meat to work into an article), I did end up thinking a lot about Change Position.

Do we need that as a separately defined maneuver in GURPS?

What if you shoved the Change Posture maneuver under Move? Thus making posture change just a way to Move?


Just off the cuff, here are some things I think would need to happen:

- you'd need to define posture changes as having a movement cost. These could be in movement points (much like forward is 1, change facing is 1, moving backward is 2, etc.) or as an effective percent cost in move (most of them are 100%, since they take the whole of your turn by the raw, but you could make that a 5-move cost if you wanted faster people to get to do more.)

- you'd need to clean up the various bits of posture changes subsumed into other forms of movement to match that. This is close to no work if you use the effective 100% cost assumed for most of these (B368's discussion of step and rising from kneeling, the various options in GURPS Martial Arts.)

- and that's pretty much it, I think.

That this would also incidentally take care of the "trip the berserker" thing makes this even more attractive. But it did make me wonder, why does changing posture need to be treated as a discrete option for your turn?

Alternatively, you could pry posture change out of everything. Make a section on posture changes and costs, much as the posture table does. So kneeling costs X Move (or 100% of Move) or your step, falling prone costs 100% of Move or Step, Crouch costs 0 (but changes movement cost after you do it), coming from prone to kneeling costs 100% of Move and has N/A under the Step costs (can't do it), etc.

It seems to me that you could do it either way, just as a way to make the options more clear and clean up the need to refer to changing posture and to movement separately. Or, with the table option, wholly move it to an overall modifier in the way that, say, crouching or crawling are.

If I wasn't working morning until night today I'd explore this in more depth, but lunch time is over now and I had to spend most of that studying. I will try to explore this idea a little further - anything that tightens up the number of discrete choices without restricting your options or freedom of action seems like a good thing to me. Ask me about Feint as a Combat Option sometime.

My secret DF project is in peer review

A very busy day today, so just some brief news:

DF _ _ : Peter's Secret Project has entered peer review.

Actually, it entered peer review on Friday night, but this is the first chance I've had to mention it - too much other stuff I felt like I needed to blog about or post.

So far the comments have been fairly light, but helpful. I'm not sure how long from end of peer review it is until the next step - after all, my light source only extends out about 12 yards ahead of me. But my DF contribution proceeds apace.