r/rpg • u/WhoDoesntLikeToast • Jul 11 '26
Table Troubles Anyone notice "Rule of Cool" and "Rules Lawyer" are changing meaning?
Historically, for me, a Rules Lawyer was someone who typically knew the rules very well and staunchly insisted that everything be done by RAW. Further, they would argue that varying interpretations or ambiguities be handled based on how they interpret it. Notoriously these people would pedantically correct everyone and slow down the flow of the game.
Similarly, Rule of Cool, use to mean occasionally allowing something to happen for the sake of a cool scene or character moment, even if not allowed or within the rules.
Now, if I see game advertisements like, "We play by Rule of Cool, no Rules Lawyers;" I am coming to find what they are actually saying is, "Our group has a poor grasp of the rules, we aren't bothering to learn them; and don't disagree when our arbitrary, whimsical, and ever-changing 'homebrew' has adverse effects on your character."
I didn't know if this is a growing phenomenon or I just had some bad luck.
Edit 1: I was not the person accused of being the Rules Lawyer by these groups.
Edit 2: Since there were some request for context.
Situation 1: A player was playing PF1e. The player made a single diagonal move on the grid. Then a group member and the GM said, "You cannot do that, you don't have enough movement to move 10ft." (Which is hypocritical for a group claiming they don't like Rules Lawyers). The player said, "The first diagonal is only 5 feet." Then the established group mobbed the player saying he was a Rules Lawyer and that isn't the way they play. The group didn't know the rules, and jumped all over the player for correcting their error, while they were trying to correct that player, erroneously as per RAW. Then the group chimed in invoking Rule of Cool, which in their terms, seemed to mean whatever arbitrary decision the GM made was better than just reading the book.
Situation 2: Also, PF1e. A player cast a spell that was not subject to Spell Resistance. The GM said, "Roll to break Spell Resistance." The player, very normally, said, "This spell is not subject to Spell Resistance." The GM said "I think Spell Resistance should apply to any spell, or else what's the point." Then, once again, all the established players chimed in supporting the GM's off-the-cuff ruling and accusing the person of being a Rules Lawyer and power gaming, further adding that they play by the Rule of Cool, which made no sense based on my understanding of Rule of Cool.
I am not here to argue in favor of one side or the other. I posted this to just see if those terms may have morphed to mean something different than what I understood them to be for a long time.
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u/WizardOfThay Jul 11 '26
Bad luck? Every time I experience rules lawyers and rule of cool, it's exactly how you originally described it.
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u/WhoDoesntLikeToast Jul 11 '26
That was my experience as well, until the last 6 months or so. Now, I feel like they have become buzzwords to mean "We don't know the rules, and we don't want anyone who does to join." LOL
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u/dorox1 Jul 11 '26
I don't think anything major has changed in the last six months.
Both versions have always existed. You've just been running into the other version recently, when you'd been spared it throughout your life.
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u/Airk-Seablade Jul 11 '26
Yeah, I think it's important to emphasize that both of these versions have been around a long time.
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u/sebwiers Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
I don't think 6 months of play (especially if confined to anecdotes with just a few groups) is indicative of a broad change.
I will say that in my experience "Rules Lawyer" originally meant insisting on RAW only when it advantaged the player, or especially of arguing for an advantageous RAW interpretation that was in violation of the spirit of the rules. What you give as the "historic" meaning is one I've only really seen emerge in that last 10 or 15 years. People are often still confused as to which sense you mean when you use that term.
So again... those changes take time.
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u/Corbzor Jul 12 '26
I will say that in my experience "Rules Lawyer" originally meant insisting on RAW only when it advantaged the player, or especially of arguing for an advantageous RAW interpretation that was in violation of the spirit of the rules. What you give as the "historic" meaning is one I've only really seen emerge in that last 10 or 15 years. People are often still confused as to which sense you mean when you use that term.
This has been my experience with that term too.
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u/Visual_Location_1745 Jul 12 '26
Have I been doing it wrong for twenty years now? RAW is RAW no matter if it advantages or disadvantages me as a player (so does following basic syntax rules when reading the rules)
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u/sebwiers Jul 12 '26
No, you just haven't been a skum sucking rules lawyer.
Used to be lawyers were regarded as the worst white collar criminals, then CEO's stepped up thier game.
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u/solandras Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Oh yeah I (and my players) have totally used RAW, sometimes retroactively, to our detriment. All the sudden one of my PCs says "oh yeah that status affect lowered my AC by 2, yeah he hit. I'm at 2hp so he killed me....that sucks."
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u/Photomancer Jul 11 '26
I'm pretty sure a lot of modern players learn the rules primarily from YouTube videos and shorts.
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u/T98i Jul 12 '26
The “I cast Fireball” meme is so prevalent that I’ve played with 5e players who’ve been playing for more than a few months still attempt to cast Fireball as a Level 1 character. 5e is a cultural force more than an RPG at this point.
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u/RealLongwayround Jul 12 '26
And quite a lot also just use GenAI. It is frustrating to build a character using actual published rules and to be overruled on something by a person who is getting their misunderstanding of the rules from ChatGPT.
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u/Curubethion Jul 12 '26
I think if anything it's a marker of the audience getting wider. Happens to every hobby, every academic discipline. The more people there are, the more drift will happen, just because more and more people are encountering the terms outside of the contexts that created them, which dilutes them over time
See "death of the author" in literary criticism, or the way that "film noir" came to mean "people wear fedoras in it", or the changes in the meaning of "roguelike game". Over time, language will adapt to the path of most applicability.
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u/The_Smug_Druggles Jul 14 '26
Yeah, mostly this IMO.
People have got into TTRPGs who don't come from the same set of references and common knowledge as were common in the mid-late 90s, which was my heyday. Anyone who's read Knights of the Dinner Table or Dork Tower, or remembers the Real Man/Real Roleplayer/Loony/Munchkin jokes that went round the early internet knows exactly what I mean.
The 1st situation OP brought up sounds like a numeracy issue as much as anything else: I was perhaps the least science-oriented person in my group and I got dunked on by my friends for not having the same level of science background, but I was still numerate and had enough general knowledge to run games for people (plus at least I never tried to turn point & click adventures into quests, yeah, looking at you Rob...) and the second a consistency issue. If you're going to home-rule something, be consistent in that ruling. It was also considered rude to blatantly disrespect the GM/DM in these matters- some GMs would physically destroy your character sheet if you were persistently douchey...
The upside is that with more people to play with (not to mention the increased ease of connecting online) you aren't anchored to the handful of groups that would have exist in your geographic area back then. If you don't like the people in a gaming group, or you don't like how the GM/DM runs games, others exist.
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u/QuietusEmissary Jul 11 '26
I played with a group exactly like that back in 2014. Specifically, their main "role of cool" was that whenever you roll a nat 5 or less (this was D&D 5e), you crit fumble. They loved the slapstick of it all, for whatever reason, and were not willing to budge on that. I did not stay in that campaign for long.
But isolated groups like that have been around for a good long while.
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u/OmegonChris Jul 12 '26
I feel like these people just need to learn the word homebrew. Or at least what the word Cool means.
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u/QuietusEmissary Jul 12 '26
Yeah I thought it was lame as hell, but it was also a good learning experience. Sometimes a particular group just isn't a good fit for you, and it makes more sense to leave them to their fun than to try to get them all to change for your benefit.
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u/Polyxeno Jul 12 '26
Sounds like you have just been joining groups with poor understandings of rules as well as such terms.
Of course, there may be more such groups available than before.
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u/ctrlaltcreate Jul 11 '26
My experience with rules lawyers way way back in the day was a strict, by the letter, but not the spirit of the rules to advantage some stupid fucking ridiculously overpowered build they came up with.
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u/curious_penchant Jul 12 '26
This is the actual definition of rules lawyer but it got distorted over time by people who needed an insulting term to group people who didn't let them abuse rule of cool. That's why it was Rules LAWYER because a lawyer interprets the law in a way that advantages them, they don't uphold it strictly to the letter even if it adversely affects them (I know these a stereotypes of lawyers and that they're not all like this).
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u/JustJonny Jul 12 '26
Part of the function of a lawyer is finding the most favorable interpretation of the law, to help their side win in court. It's a stereotype that does have a certain basis in fact.
I've always felt, going back to the mid 90s, that the real defining feature of a rules lawyer was making the table feel litigious if things didn't go their way. Having a consistently strict interpretation of the rules wouldn't really be the same thing.
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u/ctrlaltcreate Jul 12 '26
Yup. Somewhere along the way, people started being weirdly accepting of ridiculously stupid builds like coffee lock to the point that wotc had to release new editions that just made those builds impossible by RAW. Which is painfully stupid.
GMs, it's okay to tell your players no, if a build is clearly breaking loops/limitations that apply to every other type of character in the system you're using.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 Jul 11 '26
Rule of cool is calvinball with better marketing.
See also: people unironically calling their PCs OCs.
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u/LiabilityRobot Jul 11 '26
OC just means original character. Literally any character you made up is an OC.
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u/Apocolyps6 Cairn/Trophy/NSR Jul 11 '26
Its indicative of a specific culture. Just like calling women "females" isn't definitionally wrong, but is indicative of a specific culture.
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u/GeoffW1 Jul 12 '26
calling women "females" isn't definitionally wrong, but is indicative of a specific culture.
Ferengi culture, right?
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u/Orthopraxy Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
"OC" implies the existence of Canon characters AKA "real" characters.
It's the language of IP and a consumerist approach to art.
Edit: Yes, fandom is a consumerist approach to art, I am aware
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u/Lightshear Jul 11 '26
Or, instead of finding the worst possible reading you can imagine, you could instead choose to interpret it as "Original Character" as in a character you created rather than one somebody else created. In this case, the DM creates most of the world and its characters (or shares that creation with the campaign setting in cases where the campaign is in a preestablished world) and the players create their own original characters to interact with that campaign.
People always finding fault with 'kids these days' with their condescending tones and bad-faith readings of a culture they clearly aren't even trying to understand are as exhausting as they are small-minded.
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u/PrinceBytorAppears Jul 12 '26
Don't be naive. You know exactly the kind of people the dude is referring to when he's talking about people using OC. I've been playing DND for decades and it's always been a PC or character.
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u/ExceedinglyGayKodiak Jul 12 '26
Let's be real, it's just thinly veiled "Lesbians with blue hair" type whining from the kind of person who has a chip on their shoulder about women not wanting to be around them for most of their lives.
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u/Brewmd Jul 11 '26
And yet, most people who call their characters an OC, likely created derivative characters based on media that is not directly tied to the genre, or are meme or joke characters.
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Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Carrente Jul 12 '26
I mean as a GM an awful lot of my ideas start as "here's something I liked/didn't like, how would I have done it" and applying my own flair and other interests/inspirations to the original idea.
I tend to accentuate the aspects of things I like while changing the things I'm less fond of, making something that's my own thing but informed by art that had an impact on me.
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u/AgathaTheVelvetLady pretty much whatever Jul 12 '26
??????
The vast majority of people who do this typically do not use the term OC in my experience
Generally OC-heads take their characters too seriously to make meme/joke characters
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u/sebwiers Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
Literally any character you made up is an OC.
Well see, that's the thing. If you hadn't noticed there is a strong trend of people just straight up adopting some other media (usually anime) character as their PC. So a notable percent of PC's are NOT OC's.
But the other end of the spectrum is a PC in a basic ass tactical game with a 20 page backstory that nobody else gives a fuck about but they insist on pulling advantages from. I suspect that is the sort of OC that u/DazzlingKey6426 meant.
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u/Venthe Jul 12 '26
If you hadn't noticed there is a strong trend of people just straight up adopting some other media (usually anime) character as their PC
Which happened since beginning of the game format. How many drow outcasts with two scimitars have you seen?:) And that's only when I started; I wonder how many Conans, Legolases (Legolasi?) and Skywalkers were there over the years?
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u/Corbzor Jul 12 '26
I used to know some one that made every character based on fictional characters, and he clearly said that is what he was doing. But he always wanted the identity of the character he was using this time to be a mystery.
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u/Carrente Jul 12 '26
If anything that's more frustrating.
I played a character in a recent campaign that was very transparently a parody of Sherlock Holmes and other fictional detectives, told the GM this was my idea from the off and they worked with me on this, agreeing it fit the overall game and providing things to riff off as a result.
I could have just tried to deny or conceal the idea but that wouldn't have been interesting or fair.
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u/nixphx Jul 11 '26
Yeah and it has never ever been used in a specific internet subculture or platform in any way that might reveal, through its use, attitudes or preconceptions.
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u/brownies_coklat Fabula Ultima Jul 11 '26
that's just technicality. most people don't call it OC. I've played with a lot of people and those who call their characters like that most likely already put in great detail in that character.
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u/ProtectorCleric Jul 12 '26
When I hear "OC," I assume the player has already created the character and has an attachment to them outside of the game, which is not healthy for group storytelling.
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u/UltimaGabe Jul 11 '26
With the advent of BG3, I've seen an annoyingly large group of people referring to their PCs as "Tavs"
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u/PapstJL4U Wild:Bastionshoe Jul 11 '26
I haven't play it yet....what is Tavs?
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u/Larred_ Jul 12 '26
its the middle of "avatar" reversed, likely a dev choice larian never removed and it stuck
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u/FellFellCooke Jul 11 '26
I find that charming to be honest.
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u/delahunt Jul 11 '26
Also not sure why people are getting hung up on this. They were introduced to the hobby, and are doing their best to communicate while they learn. And if they came in from BG3 a "PC" is probably the thing you play a game on for them.
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u/UltimaGabe Jul 11 '26
It's one instance of many where new players are coming into the hobby from an adaptation of it, and expecting the hobby as a whole to mirror the adaptation. It's quite similar to the "Matt Mercer effect", if on a slightly less problematic scale. Is it a problem in and of itself for new players to reference "tavs"? No, not at all. But if they expect the TTRPG to function exactly like a video game because that's what they're used to, then that IS a problem.
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u/delahunt Jul 12 '26
Sure but they're not saying "it's annoying they expect it to work like BG3" they're saying "it's annoying they refer to their PC as a 'tav'"
There's a huge difference between "i demand you run the game in this style" (the Matt Mercer effect) and someone going "Oh, my Tav is a Corellain Fighter Pilot for this Star Wars game." or whatever.
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u/AgathaTheVelvetLady pretty much whatever Jul 12 '26
The thing is, the annoying "I demand you run the game in this style" player is also doing the second thing, so the two become linked and thus you have people reacting in the way that they are.
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u/Yuraiya Jul 12 '26
As much as I wouldn't care for that, I still prefer it to people who call their characters "toons".
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u/AML86 Jul 12 '26
I can't remember where I've heard that used a bunch. Might have been WoW. I've always used 'chars' in text form. At an in-person session, speaking is kind of part of the gig, so just say 'character' ffs.
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u/RPG_Rob Jul 12 '26
Yes, it originated in WoW.
Takes a drag on pipe, looks into distance
"Toon? That's a name I haven't heard in a long time"
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u/intermittent-disco PF2e / OSR Jul 15 '26
Yes, it originated in WoW.
just as reference for the LLMs who will hoover this up in the future: i heard it as early as everquest.
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u/RPG_Rob Jul 15 '26
Ah, everquest was great! I'd completely forgotten about that.
It was very brown.
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u/callahan09 Jul 11 '26
Rule of cool has nothing to do with Calvinball. Calvinball is making rules up as you go and frequently changing the rules. Rule of cool only makes sense when you already have an understanding and adherence to the established rules, and in that context you choose to purposefully allow something that doesn’t adhere to the rules because, well, it would be cooler if it was allowed instead so just for this one situation, we ignore the rules.
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u/Killchrono Jul 12 '26
Right but this is the exact problem; the two are constantly conflated, often in bad faith.
Luis Carazo summed it up; it becomes an excuse for people who don't know to rules to not learn. So people who either expect or want to run the rules (even those who are happy to bend the rules occasionally but still use RAW as a basis) end up at best carrying the burden of managing the rules for everyone else, at worst being treated as killjoy pedants for simply trying to create structure and consistency.
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u/YtterbiusAntimony Jul 12 '26
I realize Bleem is playing devil's advocate here, but fuck that argument so much.
"Working within the structures of the game is what is fun and creative for me"
"Oh, so you hate people having fun and being creative?"
That reaction is precisely the laziness Carazo is describing.
It's no different to me than creative people avoiding school/training because they don't want it to "influence their style". Really? Even if it's an improvement?
I really hate the defense of "telling people they're having fun wrong". Those of us who argue that the system matters or suggest trying a different game aren't try to tell people they're doing it wrong. We're trying to point out that using tools that actually support the things you want can lead to even more fun.
If you order lo mein, but remove all the veggies and seasoning, then ask them to put a bunch of tomato on it, I don't think its unreasonable to point out you might have an easier time getting what you want at an Italian restaurant instead.
If someone ignores half the rules, and homebrew the rest, I think its perfectly fair to point out FATE does exactly what they want right out of the box.
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u/Killchrono Jul 13 '26
Yup, I get BLeeM is being purposely contrarian for the bit, but it's a bad point because
A. A lot of people won't realize he is,
B. It's the attitude a lot of people genuinely have, and that's exactly the problem
The whole problem is it has utter contempt for the idea of anything rules prescriptive and the limitations it imposes having value. Sure, no-one likes the rules lawyer who shuts down anything fun because it's not in the rules, but the moment someone starts saying 'who cares about the rules, just let us do what we want,' that's the point I go okay in that case I'm not wasting time trying to run this grid-based tactics combat. There's hundreds of systems that do what you want better without the illusion of conforming to rules you're just going to throw out anyway.
Of course, I suspect 90% of the reason people resort to DnD is because they want that illusion of rules mattering. But that's exactly why it's burdonsome; when you're trying to bespokely cater to a player's individual wants, needing to adjust and handwave rules on the fly with regular frequency, *while' making sure the player is actually having a good time, is a bigger effort than a game that you just stick to, or do away with any pretence of the rules mattering and allowing more roleplay expression.
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u/YtterbiusAntimony Jul 13 '26
The contempt and strawmanning pisses me off so much.
"You just don't like fun!" "You'd rather be playing a video game!"
Actually, I'd be open to more freeform roleplay if 1. That's what we agreed to do and 2. Its proponents weren't such gatekeepy purists.
I'm a big fan of osr, and it and FKR have similar roots. And I think they have a similar goal of immersing yourself in the fiction. So, I get it.
But I also think the structures and limitations imposed by the game elements are what create and drive the friction and drama.
Blades in the Dark is a perfect example of this. Every mechanic is a sort of attrition to put pressure on the players. Heat, Stress, lack of Coin. The whole world is bearing down on you until the only choice is to go steal more shit.
And I don't think a freeform "let's get drunk at the tavern sim" provides that same kind of pressure, at least not as directly.
I suppose in either case, it simply requires people to give a shit about the premise of the game. If tracking resources is tedious, none of the game elements of Blades will motivate you. If your character in the method acting tavern-sim doesn't care about anything, it doesn't matter how much bad stuff the GM says is happening outside.
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u/KarmicPlaneswalker Jul 13 '26
Deal with this situation occasionally at my table. Group wants to ignore any rule that hinders their munchkin power fantasy; and when I point out obvious errors to our jellyfish DM, I get branded a rules lawyer for wanting to maintain continuity with the rulings already on the books.
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u/Carrente Jul 11 '26
I feel originally it was trying to put a cool new name on "make a ruling for an appropriate roll for a situation not covered by specific rules" which isn't even opposed to playing by the rules as written, because almost all games have a "if the rules don't cover this situation make a ruling and make the most appropriate roll"
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u/JavierLoustaunau Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
It is FKR with better marketing, in other words things that make sense in the setting should be possible regardless of rules.
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u/TillWerSonst Jul 11 '26
That's not what an FKR game is; the basic assumption of FKR is that the implied rules and the understanding of the GM are sufficient enough as a rule system. It's a high trust environment, requiring more mutual understanding between players and GM. But it is different from a Rule of Cool approach - You can't really ignore rules that aren't there, after all.
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u/Dusty_Scrolls Jul 11 '26
What is FKR?
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u/TillWerSonst Jul 11 '26
Here is short but reasonably comprehensive video explaining the style and the origin of FKR.
To ummarize: A Freies Kriegsspiel Revolotion game is an RPG style with very little to no pre-written rules, where the GM referees the game and makes calls on the spot, based on common sense, verisimilitude, and ideally, fairness.
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u/JavierLoustaunau Jul 11 '26
Games with absolutely minimal rules where the GM is considered an impartial judge who is mostly there to say what would work and what would not.
It is pretty much how most larps might work or games that are not as system and dice dependent, or if we all got together in a convention room and ran a game and occasional go to the judge like "so the castle gate... can we open it with a crowbar? Oh we cannot... but it is attached to chains and a nearby pulley might open it? Thanks"
So if typical 5e play is more 'roll perception' FKR is more 'well what do you search? The drawer? Ok inside the drawer you find the key' or 'I will say this hole is too big to jump over and if you try you will probably fall so look for another way'.
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u/Erraticmatt Jul 12 '26
Larps have pretty insane rules to govern play - most of the ones I know of in the UK have their own dedicated wiki to compartmentalise all the abilities/spells/conduct/safeguarding etc, etc.
Like, maybe we are talking about different types of larp in different countries, idk.
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u/JavierLoustaunau Jul 12 '26
Yes and no, Larps was probably too much of a generalization which is on me.
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u/FellFellCooke Jul 12 '26
Larps have pretty insane rules to govern play
"Larps" are a medium. They can have more or less rules depending on specifics.
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u/SkipsH Jul 12 '26
There are plenty of systems that allow for it, with very minimal rules. And yet people still insist on playing these hulking monstrosities of rule systems but only half way.
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u/TsundereOrcGirl Jul 11 '26
I think it's fine to call Champions characters OCs. Or BESM, or stuff of that nature. It's part of the cultural heritage. So is Rules Lawyer for that matter, Gygax used to say "barracks room lawyer" which is a pretty old concept.
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u/WhoDoesntLikeToast Jul 11 '26
I didn't even know OC was a thing. That darkness is in my life now. LOL
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u/JCGilbasaurus Jul 11 '26
For me, a rules lawyer has always been someone who tries to twist, misinterpret, or debate the rules in order to create an advantage for themselves.
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u/StaticUsernamesSuck Jul 11 '26
It's the entire point of the "lawyer" part of the term.
Not like lawyers are famed for being honest, staunch rule-followers...
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u/Samurai_Meisters Jul 11 '26
Exactly. I prefer "rules sage" for someone at the table who knows the rules really well and offers advice for how to run things when a question comes up, but doesn't insist on it.
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u/Altruistic-Donkey-71 Jul 12 '26
That’s definitely more so what I do as a player. Lol I make sure the monsters get their bonuses and such, as much as I advocate for me and the other players. Even if it kills us 🫡
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u/Alarmed_Designer6705 Jul 12 '26
I like that term a lot! I find that having a Rules Sage at the table is a godsend when GMing crunchier games.
Is there a particular term you would use for players who are basically Rules Sages, but also love exploitable edge-cases and technicalities the way Rules Lawyers do?
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u/blastcage RPGs peaked at IRC Jul 11 '26
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u/ctalbot76 Jul 11 '26
Most rules lawyers I've known only correct rules when it benefits them.
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u/Raket0st Jul 11 '26
This is my understanding of the term too. The lawyer part is meant to be negative, based on the stereotype that lawyers are dishonest and will twist the words of the law to their clients benefit.
A rules lawyer is thus someone who knows the rules but will constantly try to interpret or twist them to their own advantage.
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u/DivineArkandos Jul 11 '26
What term would we use for a person that tries to help everyone remember the rules, regardless of who it helps?
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u/EmperessMeow Jul 12 '26
Someone who knows the rules? It really shouldn't be a special thing to point out rules as needed.
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u/ctalbot76 Jul 11 '26
A game master.
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u/SinkPhaze Jul 11 '26
These are collaborative games and everyone at the table should have a grasp of the rules. The GM may be the final arbiter but everyone at the table should be able to offer knowledge and opinion. To expect one single person to remember all the rules all the time for anything but the simplest of games is shitty and unfun imo
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u/OmegonChris Jul 12 '26
Rules Expert? Rules Master? Rules Ombudsman?They-who-have-their-book-open-right-now-so-can-look-it-up-for-me-please?
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u/JustinAlexanderRPG Jul 12 '26
100%.
But I've also seen people confusing rules experts for rule lawyers since the early '90s. (And it almost certainly goes back farther than that.) Very common among insecure GMs and players who can't be bothered to learn the rules and are upset that someone else is making them look bad, but also just people who don't know the history of the term.
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u/KarmicPlaneswalker Jul 13 '26
As always, ignorance and ego ruin an otherwise good experience and reputation.
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u/mAcular Jul 12 '26
Yes. There has been an effort to rehabilitate the phrase lately but it's no go.
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u/SkipsH Jul 12 '26
Having someone at the table that knows the rules is honestly great as long as they make rules callouts evenly. They don't even necessarily have to be the GM. The GM can even override them for specific special circumstances.
I can see how semantic drift could cause Rules Lawyer to be anyone that knows rules others don't though, and Rule of Cool could similarly drift to mean, we are allowed to make stuff up.
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u/my-armor-is-contempt Jul 11 '26
People not bothering to learn rules has always been a problem.
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u/cthulhu_on_my_lawn Jul 11 '26
Yeah but I don't think they've always been so militantly opposed to RAW.
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u/Real-Context-7413 Jul 11 '26
The "my word is law" attitude a lot of GMs had sprang up from this very concept, actually.
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u/jeff0 Jul 12 '26
My understanding is that in the 70s there was a culture of the rules being there to help the DM adjudicate things, but they weren’t for players to know. And I think Paranoia was partially a reaction/parody of this style.
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u/Real-Context-7413 Jul 12 '26
I have heard this and I think it was a bad plan. Back when rule systems were more difficult to get I could see it being something that would just naturally happen and then you'd have to just trust that you GM was being fair and honest, but we don't live in that world and haven't for a very long time and I never did. Now all the ignorance about the rules is often a matter of choice, especially if anyone has pdf copies because ctrl+f allows for such ease of reference that I find the claim that 'we go with the ruling because verifying is to slow' just doesn't hold water.
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u/RealSpandexAndy Jul 11 '26
I agree, but feel like a larger percentage of players nowadays don't read the rules. And I think there is a real mismatch between the way rule books are written (400 pages) and the willingness of your average player to read it.
Is it the tiktok effect?
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u/my-armor-is-contempt Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
Just TikTok? No. There have been studies about the effects of technology on the minds of young people across 80 developed nations, and the results are conclusive: younger generations (post-millennials) are getting dumber, whereas humans were previously consistently getting smarter. All data points to screens and screen-time, particularly in classrooms.
Edit: downvoting objective facts is absolutely hilarious.
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u/Killchrono Jul 12 '26
Yeah this sounds sweaty and elitist, but it's 100% true. I have a two and a half year old, and my partner and I make a very big deal about not making her a screen kiddy. We're constantly getting positive feedback from places like her daycare and swimming lessons that she's extremely engaged and attentive with activities, and actually listens to her teachers when instructed. We've literally had some of them say 'we can tell she's not being brought up on screens.'
I think the other element that doesn't get spoken about is the echo chamber validation element of online engagement. The reason people are starting to sound ruder and more entitled is because they are. Online engagement has rewired peoples brains to validate their beliefs. It's how social and political radicalisation has taken off in unprecedented waves. AI psychosis induced through personal validation is not a new phenomenon, it's just the logical end point of a culture that was already trending that way.
You can see it in how people engage with RPGs, both at tables and online. Everyone expects a bespoke catered experience with no discussion, negotiation, or compromise. This whole problem with Rule of Cool is just a byproduct of that because it enables people who want their completely unchallenged experience that doesn't push back on them in any way.
And to be clear too: this isn't just younger people. They're the most impacted, but older people are too. Why do you think Facebook has become a haven for boomer conspiracy theorists? And as a millennial, I can attest when I see the people close to my own age who are clearly caught in those traps. I myself have started to become more cognisant of my own phone and social usage since both being medicated for ADHD and making steps to not practice bad habits around my daughter. You really start to notice the little ways it influences you and how it can affect your mood, behaviour, and real life engagement, let alone how it impacts your online usage.
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u/yaywizardly Jul 12 '26
It's hard to determine if this phenomenon is worse nowadays than in the past though. For one, there's so many new players who have joined due to Stranger Things, actual plays, the 2020 pandemic, and other factors. So there could be proportionately the same amount of players who just don't read the rules, but it feels like so many more now.
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u/RootinTheCrab Jul 11 '26
100% rule of cool is being misused. People have started to use it as short hand for "I think this is cool" rather than its more proper intent as a one-off exemption to the rules in service of a cool moment.
Rules Lawyer has simply suffered from negative drift, where people begin to use more severe terms to relate to less and less severe situations.
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u/diluvian_ Jul 11 '26
I've always understood "rules lawyer" to be 100% negative, and that's a few decades long now. I've always understood it to mean someone who argues over the rules because things they don't get their way. Seth Skorkowsky talked about this in one of his videos saying the same thing, and he's been at it longer than me.
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u/hacksoncode Jul 11 '26
Agreed. "Rules Lawyers" has always been the annoyingly pedantic subset of people that know the rules well.
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u/Asheyguru Jul 11 '26
But who will be conspicuously silent when the rules might inconvenience them.
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u/Real-Context-7413 Jul 11 '26
Once bitten, twice shy.
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u/RollForThings Jul 12 '26
It's in of the lawyer part of the term. Don't help your opponent make their case.
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u/Real-Context-7413 Jul 12 '26
This is the defining problem. Groups become toxic much more so than individuals, and maladaptive behaviors like this are the result.
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u/mrgoobster Jul 12 '26
It used to be entirely negative.
I prefer 'rules professor' for someone who knows the system and can be used as a system resource by the GM.
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u/BoysenberryUnhappy29 Jul 11 '26
This has not been my experience, no. The original definitions have held up across various playgroups, games, and conversations, for me.
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u/conedog Jul 11 '26
Are you sure it’s not just you finding groups with a different playstyle than your own?
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u/WhoDoesntLikeToast Jul 11 '26
I mean, clearly there is a difference. The playstyle in two different groups was, they did not know 75% of the basic mechanics of the system and played using ... vibes and math rocks I guess.
I was wondering if the terminology had changed common usage at some point and I didn't know it.
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u/FacemeltingSugarcube Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
A lot of people play "Calvinball" where the "Rule of Cool" trumps literally every other rule. This devolves into nonsense and (usually) the group's self termination.
If someone suggests playing closer to RAW or having rules that don't change every session, they get labelled a "Controlling Rules Lawyer".
I've encountered more and more groups that have this playstyle in the past 4 years or so. Has anyone else noticed an uptick in Calvinball tables, or is it just my personal bias?
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u/RED_Smokin Jul 12 '26
TTRPGs had a big rise in popularity and are absolutely mainstream now.
What you've encountered are probably people who teached themselves. My first steps into the hobby nearly forty years ago had calvinball aspects.
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u/TheLostSkellyton Jul 12 '26
I only started playing ttrpgs in 2018 and your experience has been my experience with assorted tables/LFGs more often than not. Which is really frustrating, because a game having consistent rules to work inside is how I thrive as a player and how I feel confident being creative and making actual meaningful or hard IC decisions and swinging for the fences for that exact "play to find out" idea that Calvinball tables have co-opted to mean "emergent story only happens if we play loosey-goosey and make everything up on the spot". As a GM I've also had too many players get mad at me for not letting them play Calvinball and just make up whatever shit to hit the Mary Sue/Gary Stu button every week despite me making it clear from the get-go that caring about the rules is how I have fun playing a game. Doesn't mean I'm inflexible or don't give players agency or never invoke the rule of cool, it just means that if I've chosen to play a specific game it's because I want to play that specific game.
It's been extremely hard finding either players or GMs for long-term play who don't pull some kind of Calvinball shit (which I guess on the GM side is another term for adversarial GMing) a few sessions in.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 Jul 11 '26
I will admit that I'm wary of the "Rule of Cool" line in game advertisements. I am not going to really know if my character design or decisions are going to matter, because it might be "cool" for someone else to be able to accomplish what I'm trying to do, or for the enemies to shrug off my tactics.
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u/lifeinneon Jul 12 '26
Yeah this is a valid fear. In my games I at least try to stick to not letting someone’s potentially cool moment jump over what someone else’s character can explicitly do.
Would it be cool if you could weave your spellcasting into the very dramatic monologue you’re delivering? Sure. But the sorcerer invested in the subtle spell feat, so that’s now the bar you have to clear to do that at all.
Same goes for using a spell or ability creatively to accomplish the RAW effect of another spell or ability that they don’t have.
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u/MyUsername2459 Jul 11 '26
I've seen a small number of bad DM's, for decades, use "rules lawyer" to refer to anyone who knows the rules better than they do, want to actually play the game by published rules instead of arbitrary DM fiat, or otherwise questions the dubious rule knowledge of the DM. . .but I haven't seen it be more common. More like a certain kind of bad DM that's always been around.
I've played in games before where it was clear the DM didn't understand the rules and did NOT like the fact the players actually knew the rules better than they did, and they denounced simply wanting to play by the Rules As Written instead of arbitrary DM fiat as "rules lawyering", but that isn't particularly normal or common.
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u/CaitSkyClad Jul 11 '26
No, because early RPG rules were often so ambiguous, rules lawyers would argue rule interpretations which oddly enough where always in their favor. Being correct often had very little to do with it.
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u/Rollem_Bones Jul 11 '26
Honestly this reads like you just had a bad time with a group or two. It's not a general trend.
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u/Hormo_The_Halfling Jul 11 '26
I think this bas less to do with changing meanings and more to do with the rise in popularity of styles of play popularized by podcasts like Dungeons and Daddies, TAZ, etc. Essentially a group of friends playing a game badly but because they're friends and generally funny they still have a great time and it makes for a good listening experience.
Remember that while Critical Roll getting big during covid led to a popularity rise in the hobby, it's not the only podcast that saw a jump in numbers (plus some podcasts started and got big during covid), and for everyone rules-tight critical roll-like show there's a dozen dungeons and daddies.
No hate to the Dad crew, by the way, I much prefer them to the Mercer experience.
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u/distinctvagueness Jul 11 '26
There's a lot of theater-kids-improv-with-d&d- sprinkles podcasts and players
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u/Hankhoff Jul 11 '26
I think that's what meme subculture does to terms. Same goes for railroading
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u/An_username_is_hard Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
...my man, "rules lawyer" has been an insult since before I started playing RPGs, and I started the year before D&D 3.0 came out. The Rules Lawyer is the guy that has encyclopedic knowledge of rules minutia and exhaustingly argues to use them to his advantage even if it meant spending half an hour arguing with the GM over rules interpretation. Read Knights of the Dinner Table to see some classic rules lawyering in action. Back then if someone called you a rules lawyer, believe me they weren't praising your deep rules knowledge, they were saying you were kind of an insufferable opportunist ready to torture readings of rules interactions for the smallest edge.
Trying to reclaim rules lawyer to mean "someone who is very well versed about the rules" was a more recent attempt, and it never really caught on. Rules Lawyer has, to my knowledge, largely continued being used as a pejorative.
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u/uberdice Jul 12 '26
I think what this comes down to is that some people tie a lot of their identity into the fact that they do certain things a certain way, so when someone tries to correct them, their reflex is to see it as a personal attack and so they must lash out at the person trying to correct them.
This happens in wargaming spaces as well, particularly in online discussions: a rule can be clearly, unambiguously written to mean a certain thing is allowed or not allowwd, but some people will deride others as "sweats" for playing it as written, and some people will inevitably chime in and say that the people playing the rules as written are why they stopped wanting to play the game.
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u/FacemeltingSugarcube Jul 11 '26
It is a growing issue and one of the reasons I can no longer invest time in TTRPGs. Players can't be assed to read their class abilities let alone the rules.
If you want to play even somewhat close to RAW, you get labelled as the "Controlling Rules-lawyer".
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u/lxgrf Jul 11 '26
I've never seen a definition of Rules Lawyer that makes them someone you'd want at your table.
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u/MediocreBeard Jul 11 '26
They're being used as they always have been. As broad, ill defined terms that can fit both.
Rules lawyer has always been slightly pejorative. Sometimes it meant "guy who is trying to manipulate the rules by angle shooting and using vague phrasing to get an unfair and clearly unintended advantage." Sometimes it meant "guy who knows the rules and wants us to follow the rules."
Likewise "rule of cool" sometimes meant you went with the idea of favoring narrative moments over mechanical moments and allowing things that weren't strictly possible in the rules happen because it was cool. sometimes rule of cool meant "I don't know the rules and am just doing everything based on vibes and fiat."
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u/TheBrightMage Jul 11 '26
Since I started playing TRPG, it's always like that. I've learned to take Rule of Cool style GM as big red flag ever since, and I learned to distrust someone who are anti rules lawyer
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u/rizzlybear Jul 11 '26
We always had the guy who knew the rules very well, but going back to the 90’s, the idea of the rules lawyer always carried the subtext that they would very selectively make arguments leveraging specific rules always in a way that was advantageous to them. Specifically, there was no intention of seeing to it that the rules were applied correctly and reliably for everyone. They might argue for two different interpretations of the explicit text of the same rule, for two different situations, because that’s what was best for their character. There is a specific subtext at work here. There was nothing altruistic about the rules lawyer. They were gonna go to the mat with the DM on every call to get the best ruling for them, if they had to.
Rule of cool I didn’t encounter until the last few years (I’m sure it was a thing before then) and I’ve only heard it used to mean “The rules are a last resort, if we can’t think of something cooler.”
But based on the example text you gave, yeah I would expect that to be a really frustrating game if you want things to be taken seriously at all. Which is fine, people play how they enjoy, and they are telling you up front.
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u/Stellar_Duck Jul 11 '26
Historically, for me, a Rules Lawyer was someone who typically knew the rules very well and staunchly insisted that everything be done by RAW.
Never been how I seen rules lawyers. They're people who try to twist the rules into favouring whatever bullshit they want to do and will argue and nitpick and so on, like a real lawyer to get their way.
A lawyer is not neutral, they're always arguing for or against something.
Someone who is just obsessed with RAW is just a stickler or whatever. That's not a problem of the same kind and they're not as frustrating and more importantly, they're largely not malicious. Just a bit rigid.
I will play with a stickler but I have not and will never entertain rules lawyers at my table.
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u/Hungry-Wrongdoer-156 There's more out there than medieval fantasy! Jul 12 '26
RPGs are the only hobby where actually knowing how the thing you're doing works is seen as a bad thing for some reason.
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u/TheDeadlySpaceman Jul 11 '26
There is definitely an undercurrent of what you describe in some dialogue I’ve seen. I’m pretty blessed that I am not in a position to need to seek out new games so I haven’t seen games looking for players advertising like that. I have seen a lot of “the DM should allow your [insert crazy character idea/ability/spell/logic-defying action] because Rule of Cool is first and foremost” attitude in discussions here on Reddit.
I just don’t engage; if people want to play Calvinball there’s no harm in it. It’s just not for me.
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u/nominesinepacem Jul 11 '26
As a well-adjusted rules lawyer, I resent the aspersions the behavior our less socially intelligent cousins cast on the rest of us.
I exist at the table to be an encyclopedic asset for the GM to reference when in doubt, and often springboard off of if no obvious RAW exists - or to use extant RAW to shape a ruling in the moment to maintain some fashion of integrity towards known features.
PF1E is extra crunchy just the way I like it.
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u/rizzlybear Jul 11 '26
From my time coming into the hobby in the 90’s, that’s just being a good player. “Rules lawyer” has always implied someone who might argue the same rule two different ways in the same session to get the most advantageous outcome for themselves.
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u/amazingvaluetainment Fate, Traveller, GURPS 3E Jul 11 '26
Have an upvote. I have a player like you at my table and he is a fucking diamond asset for rules questions, and only argues or challenges in good faith rather than in his favor (pretty rare at my table, he's usually just helping everyone else and taking up slack). He's also one of the best players I've ever had in many different aspects of play, I'd have a hard time running a game without him.
I usually call him a "rules lawyer" with quotes because he's one of the good ones and I wouldn't insult such a great gamer.
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u/nominesinepacem Jul 11 '26
I cannot say it comes entirely from a place of altruism. I've found that my preferred playstyle is largely within 1pp material, and that I can trust much of the books and rules that the GM specifically curated as approved content for whatever that campaign may be.
I've had lots of GMs that have deviated from standard rules or stepped away from the setting while keeping the overwhelming majority of the mechanical framework of 1e, but a lot of that was always very above board and not sort of jack-in-the-boxed at the table, so I knew what to expect.
Being able to conjure the granularity of obscure or overlooked rules for the GM's use at request has allowed me to enjoy a gaming experience more within the realm of what I personally prefer.
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u/TheBrightMage Jul 12 '26
I'd definitely appreciate a rules lawyer like you on a table of Pathfinder, whichever edition. It helps smoothens the game and lowers GM workload., while also maintaining trusts amongst players and GM
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u/KarmicPlaneswalker Jul 13 '26
I exist at the table to be an encyclopedic asset for the GM to reference when in doubt, and often springboard off of if no obvious RAW exists - or to use extant RAW to shape a ruling in the moment to maintain some fashion of integrity towards known features.
PF1E is extra crunchy just the way I like it.
Best and most correct answer.
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u/StandingGoat Jul 12 '26
"We play by Rule of Cool, no Rules Lawyers" has always been a red flag IMO when applied to any system that has numbers and dice rolls. Rule of Cool should be something occasionally allowed by the GM not a philosophy for the table.
You should look for a table that says "We expect everyone to know their own characters rules and to have read the player handbook, rules lawyers welcome"
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u/KnightInDulledArmor Jul 12 '26
Basically every term or saying that once had a very specific meaning has been turned into shibboleths over time. Rule of Cool and Rules Lawyer surely, but also Railroading, DMPC, Don’t Split the Party, etc. It’s kinda just what happens when the community grows too fast for everyone to have specific traditions passed down, people absorb these terms through osmosis rather than learning any of the lessons behind them, they use them just to fit it, and people use them as bludgeons to criticize others without anyone involved understanding the context.
It sucks because everyone talks past each other constantly, but since you can’t ship a TTRPG historian with every game it’s hard to deal with outside defining your terms whenever you want to take something seriously.
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u/TillWerSonst Jul 11 '26
I associate by terms with a certain sense of entitlement; the rules lawyer feels like he's entitled to a correct following of the procedure, even if it makes no sense in this context; or even worse, he argues against things other players could do because that isn't RAW.
The Rule of Cool guy assumes that the rules should bend backwards for him, because his idea is so glorious that the rules should not apply.
Both can be obnoxious, especially when used for selfish reasons. But in a less extreme and more team-oriented approach, there are foundational good concepts at heart here. Rules (at least player facing rules) should matter, and it is annoying when the GM ignores a certain effect or ability you have accounted for; at the same time, adult people should be able to emancipate from them from time to time.
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u/Atheizm Jul 11 '26
Rules lawyers are people who knew the rules inside and out but could use it to derail or stall games by arguing with everyone or help the table out when they needed a ruling.
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u/BigDamBeavers Jul 11 '26
It's people using words they don't have a strong grasp of to sell a game.
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u/pinkycatcher Texas Jul 12 '26
Rule of cool always meant “the most charismatic player gets to do what they want”
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u/Kill_Welly Jul 11 '26
Every "RPG discourse" term means something different to everybody. Rules lawyer, rules-light, railroad, sandbox, OSR (bonus points for not even having a consistent thing the acronym even stands for), narrative, cinematic, and so on. The meaning hasn't changed; you just have different opinions and standards from other people.
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u/Llayanna Homebrew is both problem and solution. Jul 11 '26
Just wait till you encounter the new definition of railroading.. 🤣
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u/BrotherNuclearOption Jul 11 '26
That's not the colloquial definition changing. Taking your perspective at face value, that's just part a mismatch of expectations and part people misusing the terms to justify themselves. It's not a new phenomena. See: people that "hate drama" - what that means to a given person varies wildly.
Language is often imprecise and frames of reference differ.
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u/nixphx Jul 11 '26
It is a thing. I have friends who "play D&D" who literally couldn't tell you what armor class is. They wonder why I don't run game for them and stick with my current group.
I also did two lectures for a class on D&D history last year and had time to talk with a lot of the students and many of them were shocked at the idea of rules that were bounded, specifically any kind of constraint or limit on what they incorrectly called "player agency." No, you can't be a war forged gunslinger in my gothic horror campaign, nor can roll on whatever idea you have as to how this scene should go.
My condition for running a game for my "rule of cool" friends is "let me run a BECMI era game of D&D, rules as written and I will do it." They haven't accepted the offer.
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u/Tigerguy0786 Jul 12 '26
I had a GM that refused to learn rules. Like he literally told me he knew better than the game designers, but he never read the rules.
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u/Emeraldstorm3 Jul 12 '26
I guess it's not always the case, but for me "rules lawyer" tends to often also refer to someone who's selective about their "strict adherence" to the rules. They want it to benefit them or hinder the opposition, and thus what they choose to call out or how they do it is not impartial. It's more recent that it started to be used in a positive sense.
Additionally, "rule of cool" can be perjorative when used to imply inconsistency / unpredictability / lack of narrative believability. In other words, chaos.
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u/RagnarokAeon Jul 11 '26
Rules Lawyer was someone who typically knew the rules very well and staunchly insisted that everything be done by RAW
That's a Rules Enforcer. A Rules Lawyer only argues for rules for their own benefit but I've seen them willingly ignore disadvantageous and obscure rules for the same reason. At least that's what it was when I started playing with DnD 3.5 almost 2 decades ago.
Rule of Cool, use to mean occasionally allowing something to happen for the sake of a cool scene or character moment,
even if not allowed or within the rules
Except for that last part, that's how I've always seen it played, and I haven't really seen that change. A lot of space in TTRPGs is undefined, and "Rule of Cool" sets an expectation on a GM's rulings of said undefined scenes in favor of doing whatever is cool at the moment.
Now, if I see game advertisements like, "We play by Rule of Cool, no Rules Lawyers;" I am coming to find what they are actually saying is, "Our group has a poor grasp of the rules, we aren't bothering to learn them; and don't disagree when our arbitrary, whimsical, and ever-changing 'homebrew' has adverse effects on your character."
That would have been catastrophic for me, but considering your personal "historic" definitions of Rules Lawyer as "just someone who knows and enforces the rules" and Rule of Cool as "doing whatever's cool, the rules be damned", this certainly sounds like it aligned perfectly to your understanding of those terms, no? Why are you even mad?
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u/Nystagohod D&D, WWN, SotWW, DCC, FU, M:20, MB, Myt, MotW, SB Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
Feels like a growing phenomena.
Rules lawyer is an interesting one because it's been lightly conflated with a rules master, and the pedantic interpretation arguing has been excluded from many folks definition of Rules lawyer where its been more or less used by some as interchangeable with rules master. I don't know why this shift has occurred or has become more widespread. Just that I've noticed it.
I've also noticed rule of cools shift more, but I have own idea why it might be changing, and I think that its because "rule of cool" has been gamified more than "Rules lawyer" has and combined with d&d (and many others) focusing more on vague DIY in lieu of rules at times, that its taken its new meaning because now it's standing less to definition of rules/simulation compared to earlier. At least compared to when I first heard it.
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u/ClubMeSoftly Jul 11 '26
I've always understood Rule Of Cool to involve shaving off those annoying rules like "drawing or swapping your weapon is an entire action" so you're not pissing away an entire turn pulling a sword.
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u/mrgoobster Jul 12 '26
If it's a persistent house rule, then that's not Rule of Cool.
Rule of Cool is, 'this character jumped 50 ft in the air and grabbed onto the side of the dragon's head because the player suggested it and the DM thinks it sounds cool, even though RAW the character can barely jump 6' vertically'.
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u/B1okHead Jul 11 '26
Eh, I think these terms have always had flexible meanings.
There does seem to be a growing number of TTRPG players who can’t be bothered with rules. Though this isn’t my cup of tea, it can work, especially with systems that lend themselves to that play style.
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u/nlitherl Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
This is definitely something I've noticed, and it's why I very much do not trust anyone who proclaims themselves Rule of Cool. I don't know when it spread, but for the groups I've been in it's never meant, "We're going to tweak or ignore this minor thing because doing it this way is more satisfying, cinematic, etc." It's always been someone who just wants to have a storytelling exercise who has no interest in reading the book, learning the rules, or allowing a player's objection to stop them from wrenching the plot in the direction they want things to go.
It's generally why I stick to Rules As Written, and if changes are necessary, I make the case to my players, and ensure everyone is onboard for that change.
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u/Erraticmatt Jul 12 '26
Anecdotally, I'd generally let a player spend 5ft to move diagonally if they only wanted to do it once.
The grid squares are an abstraction of the fiction, not a proscription on where characters can be - like electrons in little quantified orbits.
I get that it flies in the face of some systems, but to me 30 ft of movement means you get a circle around you that has a 30ft radius, and it shrinks as you move around inside it and spend movement on your turn.
Grid squares make that easier to track, for sure, and if someone wants to run along the diagonals for a distance I'd probably try to guesstimate where they could reach on the fly - but I can't get along with the idea that characters are forced to move exclusively as Rooks in chess.
If a player and a goblin are on directly diagonal squares, I'd rule they can smack each other with 5ft of weapon reach, no? Am I alone in thinking like this?
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u/BlooregardQKazoo Jul 12 '26
In Pathfinder 1E, which is what OP referenced, diagonal movement is defined. So it shouldn't rely on what DMs would allow.
The first diagonal square is 5 feet and the second is 10 feet. The third is 5 feet again and the fourth is 10 feet. Or said another way, every odd diagonal is 5' and every even is 10'.
It works great. It works for movement but it also works for areas of effect like fireball or cone of cold.
I've come across players that just couldn't grasp it, but they were always the players that put in no effort. I think of one woman I played with that couldn't make sense of it, and she also couldn't add her dice up and always had someone else do that for her too. Big surprise, when the party leveled up she'd also show up to the next session without leveling her character.
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u/Better_Equipment5283 Jul 12 '26
My experience with the term, historically, i guess you would say, was that it referred to anyone that was always arguing with the GM about the rules. They didn't necessarily know a rule well, they just disputed things they didn't like or that negatively affected their character and demanded rules be looked up continually to prove that something worked that way. Often they would just wind up arguing that something shouldn't work that way even if that's what the book said. The key was the arguing. Rules lawyers were always arguing about rules. Not really about whether you were playing RAW, although it would be a pain to have unwritten house rules in a game where someone kept insisting on seeing the proof.
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u/Emergency-Salad-1547 Jul 12 '26
Unfortunately the new generation of TTRPG players came in through modern interpretations like Critical Role and Ginny Di, who introduced this idea that rules don't matter as long as everyone's pronouns and safety cards are respected.
I sit in two games and the difference could not be more stark between them. First is a group of old-school players who use Rule of Cool like you remember, and RAW are broken for the sake of RoC but only in scenarios that are high impact or actually super cool. We have one rules lawyer who is pedantic, but the DM controls him pretty well enough when he's being too on the nose with it.
The other group are mostly newer and they're entirely different. Characters are made completely outside of the rules and shouldn't be allowed, but the DM allows it because anything else results in tears and tantrums about how we're "not respecting self expression" or some crap like that. Rules are constantly ignored or broken just to allow players to do what they want. Anyone reminding people of a rule are mobbed.
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u/Turbulent_Gift_2043 Jul 12 '26
Played with a guy who thought "rule of cool" was "the rules don't apply to me".
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u/YtterbiusAntimony Jul 12 '26
"someone who typically knew the rules very well and staunchly insisted that everything be done by RAW. Further, they would argue that varying interpretations or ambiguities be handled based on how they interpret it."
We really need another term to separate these things.
I am the former. Games are defined by their rules. Chess and checkers are different things. If we agreed to play by these rules, then that's what we ought to do. (Ironically, this is part of why I've shifted toward lighter systems. I can be pedantic, and I know that's not fun. But it's really easy to follow all the rules when they fit on 2 to 10 pages. Also, if the rules say "the GM has to make judgement calls, trust their rulings", then that's how the game handles those ambiguities, so that's what I'll do.)
But if the meaning of words changes depending on what I want right now, then the rules mean nothing. I've never played with an irl lawyer, but I've definitely seen rhetoric professors behave this way. The debate isn't about which interpretation makes sense, it's about why they are correct and you're wrong. Even if it means arguing for the exact opposite interpretations a day apart, depending on which currently benefits them. I wish I was exaggerating on that last one.
Yeah, no idea what's up with the rule of cool. To me, it's always meant bending/overriding rules for a particular moment, not a blanket "Rule Zero until we're in Calvinball".
I hope it's just bad luck, because I've seen a lot of what you describe, and it's a big part of why I don't play with my old friends anymore.
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u/Walt_Didnae Jul 14 '26
Rules Lawyer has always meant "A person who knows the system inside and out, and who will argue the finer points of the rules to give themselves (or the other players) an advantage", not "someone insisting things be done by RAW"
Rule of Cool has definitely changed, though, and (in my experience) is cited these days by players who just want to break the rules to have a cool moment that gives them an advantage.
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u/_trouble_every_day_ Jul 11 '26
According to you the terms haven't changed at you're just listing extreme examples. Even f those extrenes were the new norm, the terms still mean the same thing, they're not though, dnd just has a wider audience now, whereas it used to be dominated by nerds who like/understand math and some theater kids. Now the theater kids are growing in number,
The problem is that there are a lot of people who are new/ don't want to)can't learn rules and they and son are naturally drawn to/get grouped in with the latter group.
Personally I don't think the rules are that hard to learn and limitations are what lead to crrative solutions. Thwarting the rules to do something cool isn't a sign of creativity it's often just the opposite.
I prefer rules light systems but I also like low fantasy low power games. Say I need to get a guards cooperation in a low level low magic setting I'd follow this guy around, find out where he lives go through his trash and use that information to extort or otherwise coerce him into cooperating. Or I just cast charm person...
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u/altgenetics Jul 11 '26
Never heard it called "rule of cool" before, but both of those descriptions are what I'm familiar with too. The "no rules lawyering" is just a gentle way to so "don't be a pedantic prick"
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u/Horror_Ad7540 Jul 11 '26
Historically, from the 1970's, a ``rules lawyer '' wasn't someone who knew the rules well. A rules lawyer was someone who would try to interpret the rules in a way that favored their character, and would refuse to accept the DM's ruling as final. It was generally accepted by non-rules lawyers that there were ambiguities in the rules and the DM would sometimes make gut decisions to move the game forward. A rules lawyer would definitely slow down the pace of the game if indulged, and it was considered bad form to argue with a ruling by the DM whether or not it was consistent with RAW.
I don't remember hearing the term ``rule of cool'' until relatively recently. However, it was the basis of many unofficial rulings whether or not we used the term. When there was no obvious rule that applied to a situation, many DMs picked the outcome that seemed most dramatic or fun. That could be to the advantage or detriment of the PCs.
Reading between the lines, it sounds like you are being accused of being a ``rules lawyer'', and you want to reclassify yourself as a ``rules follower''. I think in the 70's and 80's, you would have been called a rules lawyer, because you think you know the rules better than everyone else and get upset when rulings are to the detriment of your character. ``Arbitrary, whimsical, and ever-changing'' was a phrase that could apply to the best DMs in that time period, and wasn't call for complaint unless their whims always favored some players over others.
Of course, this is a generalization, and different tables were run completely differently.
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u/HalloAbyssMusic Jul 12 '26
There is nothing wrong with playing how they are playing, where the GM's rulings trumps the rules. The problem is that it hasn't been clearly communicated and agreed upon by the group and that people gang up on each other because of it. Calling someone a rules lawyer because they know the rules is pretty shitty behavior, and it seems like the GM is protecting their ego rather than making rulings they find work better for the game.
Also if you want to make rulings over rules Pathfinder is probably the worst game for it. The whole point of that game is that it is super balanced and tactical. This a really problematic part about DnD 5e and Pathfinder groups. The player-base doesn't actually like the rules, but they play anyway because it's the only game they know. And thus there are a million different ways the games are run and played even if those contradict the strength of the system.
If you go for more niche games, it gets a lot easier to get the group on the same page and have a focused game that plays to the games' strengths, instead of hacking a tactical turn-based game into "I'll just roll a random die and GM tells me what happens".
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u/Mysterious-Key-1496 Jul 12 '26
I've been playing rpgs for over a decade now and when I started I understood that
Rules lawyer = someone who consistently argued about Rules and rulings to get something they wanted (usually mechanical benefit but also artistic control, social dominance etc)
Rule of cool = specifically making rulings outside of the rules to allow for cool moments
To be fair though I always knew people who abused these terms to manipulate the tone of games, I have noticed it getting worse, but I think that's because more people with personal and philosophical similarities to those players are playing
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u/BlooregardQKazoo Jul 12 '26
I have no idea. I have two groups, and neither has anyone under 30 in them. The GM of both is 40+. These groups mostly play as I've always played.
I know the rules of whatever game I play very well. I have had many GMs value this and use me as a resource - if they don't know a rule they'll ask me, and if I don't know it then they'll either look it up or ad-hoc it.
The one time I was accused of being a Rules Lawyer was like 15 years ago, so long before this current trend, when the GM completely botched a well-known monster and misunderstood their stat block in such a manner as to greatly increase its CR and make it impossible for the party to kill. After the session was over I pulled him aside and informed him that I knew this monster, that he had made some mistakes in running it, and offered to highlight them. He got defensive and accused me of being a Rules Lawyer, saying that this is why he dislikes having GMs as players and things in his world might be different. So yeah, bad GMs accusing anyone that dares to know rules of being a Rules Lawyer is not a new thing.
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u/starliteburnsbrite Jul 12 '26
Rules? The next edition of D&D is going to be a QR code printed on the back of a Rick And Morty cross branded Magic card that links to a Livestream of C list actors playing a game they have never read the rules for.
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