In twitter arguments about playing an RPG Rules As Written, I have seen many a post with people quoting this or that TSR icon saying that changing your game to anything you want is perfectly ok...

Which it is. But I find that sometimes one can miss the forest through the trees.

Not that I am some RAW Nazi - My whole Sunday night Star Wars campaign has been run on a set of homebrew rules.

But I wouldn't have been able to do that, and have the game part run as well as it has, unless I had first been able to absorb how and why various rules systems did what they did.

I think that it is important to default to the idea that certain rules and restrictions were put in for good reasons, and playing the game RAW, gives you a practical understanding for why they are there.

i.e. It is about understanding why a particular rules pillar was put in place before you remove it.


As Moldvay said  on pg.B3 after he did his 'rules are changeable/make the game' your own spiel:
"That is not to say that everything in this book should be discarded! All of this material has been carefully thought out and playtested. However, if, after playing the rules as written for a while, you or your DM think that something should be changed, first think about how the changes will affect the game, and then go ahead."

Play the game RAW at first until you have a handle on things. Then if you want to change some stuff, you have a solid basis of why and how it will effect the rest of the game.

IMHO, removing various rules and restrictions from the game without understanding why they were put in, is part of the reason why WOTC D&D is where it is today.

The OSR Blog: Death Trap Games did a great series of posts of how that can happen:

https://deathtrap-games.blogspot.com/2020/11/how-d-was-engineered-away-from-old.html
https://grumpywizard.home.blog/2020/12/01/where-the-shift-from-old-school-play-came-from-as-i-see-it/#respond
https://deathtrap-games.blogspot.com/2020/07/what-is-role-playing-different-approach.html
https://deathtrap-games.blogspot.com/2020/12/on-shape-and-origins-of-new-school-pay.html

These changes in playstyle and core assumptions are highlighted when he plays though one of the candlekeep adventures with an OSR ruleset and players:

https://deathtrap-games.blogspot.com/2021/07/new-school-adventures-old-school-game.html


Contrast what is talked about in those blog posts to what Johnathan Tweet himself documented as part of his design considerations for 3e and you can see that game drift in action:

https://www.enworld.org/threads/3e-and-the-feel-of-d-d.667269/
https://www.enworld.org/threads/jonathan-tweet-streamlining-third-edition.667268/


Playing RAW at first is important because if you are going to make changes, it really helps to know what the knock on effects will be in player behavior are likely to be due to the mechanical effect of the rules change.

IMHO Moldvay's little pearl of wisdom has been lost in the current "rulings not rules/make the game your own" zeitgeist that seems to have forgotten that a set of good well thought-out rules are the framework for a Gm to make good rulings.

Well, I think this would be common sense, if you have never played/DMd the game then stick to RAW, and wait until you have a good grasp of the game before start making changes to it.

As for why WotC is where it is Iwould say a combination of hubris and hatred for the Hu-White mean who first developed the game, but that's just my opinion man.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 16, 2021, 07:39:02 PM
Well, I think this would be common sense, if you have never played/DMd the game then stick to RAW, and wait until you have a good grasp of the game before start making changes to it.

As for why WotC is where it is Iwould say a combination of hubris and hatred for the Hu-White mean who first developed the game, but that's just my opinion man.

Indeed.

If you need to make a snap decision for a unique situation, that's one thing. But I hesitate to lay hands on core mechanics because doing so can spectacularly break things.

I would go even further with that:  The more systems you play by the RAW, the better you get at making changes when you do make them.  Sometimes, it's not even learning what the system does right.  Sometimes, it's learning via first-hand experience exactly where a system gets it wrong.

I can't count how many times I've seen someone say that a mechanic is broken, be correct in general but wrong in the specifics.

Chesterton's Fence, once again.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 16, 2021, 10:28:39 PM
I would go even further with that:  The more systems you play by the RAW, the better you get at making changes when you do make them.  Sometimes, it's not even learning what the system does right.  Sometimes, it's learning via first-hand experience exactly where a system gets it wrong.

I can't count how many times I've seen someone say that a mechanic is broken, be correct in general but wrong in the specifics.

That sounds similar to the general rule for play-tester feedback generally (not just for TTRPGs). Testers are great at pointing out where a game is unbalanced/broken - but generally they're really bad at saying how to fix them. The same is true for GMs.

Ex: Melee characters are OP? The obvious answers are the nerf melee damage/accuracy and/or buff ranged. But often you'd be better off something more subtle such as lowering movement speeds - making it harder to close to melee. Or lowering HP across the board so the extra round of firing at range is more impactful. etc.

Understanding what the players mean when you ask them "What do you do?" develops rapport, prevents table-flipping misunderstandings, and in general keeps the game moving a lot more smoothly. You're going to be a way better GM if you're better at really getting what someone means and where they're coming from. Well, one good way to practice that when you're not in front of your group, alone with your books, is to actually read the books and try to really get what the author is getting at.

Note I'm not saying you should play RAW. Only that you should learn RAW. I completely understand if a GM has a specific vision that deviates from the written rules. But if someone can't be bothered to even try to learn the rules as written, that doesn't give me a lot of confidence in their skills as a GM. I certainly wouldn't want to be a "bother" to them. If someone has contempt for Rules-As-Written, will they have contempt for my Character-As-Played? If they feel RAW is beneath them, does that mean the GM will feel superior to me? If someone's going to brush off the rules because they don't like them, are they going to give me the brush off they're ever annoyed by me?


Next, I have a reason that I play RAW. I mean other than I happened to think the rules are really good. It's because I'm not quite rules-obsessed enough to start re-writing the rules. Note that's a reversal of the cliched arguments that people who play RAW somehow have a "slavish" devotion to the rules. (The word "slavish" always gets rolled out. Who even says "slavish" in normal speech?) I look at the rules and I see tools, ideas, and inspiration. I see things that get my mind going, and I see things that help me run the game. If someone can look at the same thing and see burden and constraint, then I'm sorry, but that attitude and outlook is going to have a negative impact on their GMing, and that doesn't go away just because they "fixed" a few rules.

I don't think rules changes fix most problems because mostly they're not rules problems. One really popular thing, whether it's in house rules, later editions of a game, or even spin-off RPGs, is to have some great rules to "make combat more interesting." I've got news for everyone. If the combats are boring, it's because the adventure is boring. The characters lack sufficient motivation to do anything other than just standing there whacking one another. The scenery is too homogeneous to encourage or inspire deviation from standard operating procedure. The story is too stagnant for there to be any oh shit moments during combat unless there's a string of critical hits. So if nothing else, committing to RAW redirects your focus from dicking around with rules to actually making your campaigns better.

I do think it can be helpful for a lot of people to play RAW before attempting to muck about with things. Often things work a certain way for a reason that's not entirely apparent until you experience it for yourself. I think the standard could be lower for those with experience with many systems, or actual game design experience. It would depend on how much, and how well that experience translates to your being able to understand the system you're currently looking at.

My point is that basically, whatever your experience or however you choose to go about it, you should at least try to have a good idea of why the RAW works the way it does, and how the parts go together, before you start tinkering.

Unless you don't care about that, and your tinkering isn't so much about fixing things as just doing things you find fun and interesting. Some people just like to experiment, and that's ok. If that's the case, and you find it fun, more power to you.

One reason 5e was successful was that Mearls did actually play the old editions as part of the early design process, and get a feel for how they worked. 3e was successful despite a complete failure to understand how the rules of earlier editions affected play, and what the accumulated changes would mean for long term play (Wizards Rule, Fighters Drool). 4e I get the impression was a much more conscious rejection of D&D's past, combined with a rather arrogant assumption that the existing player base would go along with what they were given.

On the main point, yes it's best to play RAW before you start tinkering. I found this with 5e; lots of stuff worked better in actual play than in theory. I ended up discarding most of my house rules, while bringing in a couple new ones (1 week long rests, and standing provokes opp atts).

Quote from: Lunamancer on September 16, 2021, 11:27:16 PMNote I'm not saying you should play RAW. Only that you should learn RAW.

I get annoyed by claims you can't houserule until you've played RAW, but I can get behind this sentiment.

If it's clear to me that RAW isn't going to give me the effect I'm after, I'm not going to waste time playing RAW first just so I can say to the no one in particular who cares what I do at my table, "See, I told you so!" But I do everything I can to understand the systems that I'm changing, including looking for clarification and insight from people with more experience than me, if I get the sense I might not be grasping all the implications.

Quote from: Sable Wyvern on September 17, 2021, 02:59:21 AM

Quote from: Lunamancer on September 16, 2021, 11:27:16 PMNote I'm not saying you should play RAW. Only that you should learn RAW.

I get annoyed by claims you can't houserule until you've played RAW, but I can get behind this sentiment.

If it's clear to me that RAW isn't going to give me the effect I'm after, I'm not going to waste time playing RAW first just so I can say to the no one in particular who cares what I do at my table, "See, I told you so!" But I do everything I can to understand the systems that I'm changing, including looking for clarification and insight from people with more experience than me, if I get the sense I might not be grasping all the implications.

I tend to learn by doing, and find that the difference between learning and understanding can be a great one. Then again, I have known people who can read rules and understand them without even putting them into practice. Maybe you're one of those types?
I guess what I'm getting at is that not every has that talent, and some of us have to play RAW to get to that point.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 17, 2021, 03:10:51 AM

Quote from: Sable Wyvern on September 17, 2021, 02:59:21 AM

Quote from: Lunamancer on September 16, 2021, 11:27:16 PMNote I'm not saying you should play RAW. Only that you should learn RAW.

I get annoyed by claims you can't houserule until you've played RAW, but I can get behind this sentiment.

If it's clear to me that RAW isn't going to give me the effect I'm after, I'm not going to waste time playing RAW first just so I can say to the no one in particular who cares what I do at my table, "See, I told you so!" But I do everything I can to understand the systems that I'm changing, including looking for clarification and insight from people with more experience than me, if I get the sense I might not be grasping all the implications.

I tend to learn by doing, and find that the difference between learning and understanding can be a great one. Then again, I have known people who can read rules and understand them without even putting them into practice. Maybe you're one of those types?
I guess what I'm getting at is that not every has that talent, and some of us have to play RAW to get to that point.

Oh, I have no problem with people who prefer to play RAW first. Or who point out specific examples of people who fuck with (and fuck up) rules they don't understand.

My annoyance is with people who claim no one, ever, should tweak rules without playing RAW first. The most egregious example I dealt with were a small handful trying to insist I shouldn't be making some modifications to Conan d20 before I'd played it, despite the fact that I had an extremely clear objective in mind with those changes and, importantly, that I'd been running 3e and derivative games for years. [Spoiler alert: The houserules did exactly what I was after, and my players thought they were great.]

Quote from: Sable Wyvern on September 17, 2021, 02:59:21 AM

If it's clear to me that RAW isn't going to give me the effect I'm after, I'm not going to waste time playing RAW first just so I can say to the no one in particular who cares what I do at my table, "See, I told you so!" But I do everything I can to understand the systems that I'm changing, including looking for clarification and insight from people with more experience than me, if I get the sense I might not be grasping all the implications.

Well, obviously everyone ramps up differently, and a new system might have a lot of correspondences to other systems that person already understands.  Plus, some things just naturally click faster than others.  That's kind of what I was getting at with the multiple system comment.  Heck, sometimes I see a part of a system and think, "That's probably not going to work at my table, because it sure looks like a house rule that I tried in the past that didn't work."  Usually, we give it a fair shot for maybe a session, maybe even part of a session, and "yep, it still doesn't work". 

Plus, it is more the "system integration" parts that require actual play to really know.  Don't generally like combat this way, initiative that way, break down of character abilities some other way, but I don't know, never tried them in System X's combination.  Maybe there are some subtle interactions that I haven't thought about.  Plus, I'm a software developer.  Every developer knows that you set up some tests knowing they are going to fail, because you don't know exactly how they going to fail, and either way you get a piece of useful information.  If I know more than when I started trying something RAW (or a house rule either, for that matter), then it's all good. At least as long as I don't annoy the players too much trying things.

I do appreciate it a lot when a game author tries to tell you which parts he thinks are crucial to correct operation of the design and which are cosmetic.  There are always essentially cosmetic parts, but they are not as obviously cosmetic in some cases.

Also, house rules for campaign flavor purposes are radically different from house rules to fix "broken" rules.  The latter have a lot higher bar to clear.

Quote from: Jaeger on September 16, 2021, 07:16:01 PMPlay the game RAW at first until you have a handle on things. Then if you want to change some stuff, you have a solid basis of why and how it will effect the rest of the game.

The problem is, just playing a game will often not tell you why a rule was created in the first place. There are things from older versions of D&D: Why are saving throws in these specific categories? Why do characters lose levels when changing alignment? Why are some doors randomly stuck? that you'll never know the reasons for just by playing. Only by carefully looking through older versions or interviews can you figure it out.

Any of you old enough to remember Avalon Hill games know that their rulebooks were often 1/3 designers notes. These were a great tool for figuring out how the game was intended to be played yet you rarely see anything like that in RPGs when, IMO, it is more important than in a boardgame.

RAW teaches you how to run just that one system. If you are willing to home-brew, it will be very challenging, you will discover things about these game systems RAW won't teach you, you will become a problem solver when you run into your mistakes. Home-brewing develops a more well rounded game master in my opinion.

I support trying out a system as RAW, but after you have ran that for along time, you should start home-brewing given what game masters learn as we do this. In my opinion most game masters stick to what they know because they are afraid that they will fail if they don't.