Quote from: Cave Bear;1008239Let's get more specific.

Let's say you're playing D&D 3.5. A player creates a 1st level Psychic Warrior. For purposes of this scenario, let's say that you've decided to allow psionics in your campaign, but that you have the power to adjudicate any ambiguities in the rules.

Now, this psychic warrior has taken the Call Weaponry power at 1st level. Here is the power's rules:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/callWeaponry.htm

How do you rule in the following situations?
1. The psychic warrior calls an elvencraft longbow (from Races of the Wild) to their hand.
2. The psychic warrior calls a splash weapon, such as a flask of holy water, to their hand.
3. The psychic warrior calls an improvised weapon, such as a lantern, to their hand.
4. The psychic warrior calls a siege weapon, such as a ballista, to their hand.
5. The psychic warrior calls a monk's unarmed strike to their hand.

• I rule that actually teleporting some random weapon from across the multiverse into your hand with no listed restrictions is the stupidest fucking power I've ever seen.
• I rule that you form the weapon yourself like some psi-blade, and can form only weapons that you are familiar with and have trained in forming - as represented by your weapon proficiencies.
• I then tell the player they're banned from my table until they hunt down the creator of that power and kick them in the genitals repeatedly.
• We then never play 3.5 again.

Simple, and elegant.

Quote from: Cave Bear;1008239Let's get more specific.

Let's say you're playing D&D 3.5. A player creates a 1st level Psychic Warrior. For purposes of this scenario, let's say that you've decided to allow psionics in your campaign, but that you have the power to adjudicate any ambiguities in the rules.

Now, this psychic warrior has taken the Call Weaponry power at 1st level. Here is the power's rules:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/callWeaponry.htm

How do you rule in the following situations?
1. The psychic warrior calls an elvencraft longbow (from Races of the Wild) to their hand.
2. The psychic warrior calls a splash weapon, such as a flask of holy water, to their hand.
3. The psychic warrior calls an improvised weapon, such as a lantern, to their hand.
4. The psychic warrior calls a siege weapon, such as a ballista, to their hand.
5. The psychic warrior calls a monk's unarmed strike to their hand.

A. Buy me a DM's copy of what ever the fuck book the Psychic Warrior is in, so I can properly familiarize myself with the full rules for the class or you don't get to play one.  No, the SRD is not enough.

1. See A. Buy me a DM's copy of Races of the Wild so I can learn the rules associated with elvencraft longbows or you can't have one.

Omega: NO Psychic Warriors are not allowed in my campaign. Play a normal character class.  You would have known this if you had bothered asking me shit about my game world before making up your character. In any case i do not run 3.5. So this is a moot issue as it could never come up in any of the games I actually run.

Notice two important things. 1. The requirement of the player to provide me with teh full rules (at their own expense) for the non-standard stuff they want to do.  Players expect the GM to buy all teh books, so this seems fair.  2. The use of the word 'NO!". Why do some many people seem to have forgotten that this word exists?

Quote from: DavetheLost;1009443They are written like a legal contract.

If it's only 4 pages long that is a really, really simple (or a very poorly written) legal contract. Or both.

Quote from: bryce0lynch;1008125Someone shows up at your OP game with a character that is infinitely powerful. They found a rule loophole, and it seems legal.
What would you do?

I pull out my character sheet and sit down to see what adventure this "someone" has planned for us today. Simply put, there's only one "someone" that's infinitely powerful and that's the GM.

That being said, "infinitely powerful" is usually infinitely in one direction or "vector" if you will. Imagine east-west. A good GM will find an orthogonal vector or challenge (imagine north-south) against which this infinite power has no effect. So the character is "infinitely charming", send a horde of aliens which can't be negotiated with. So the character has "infinite hit points", send a horde of charming diplomats to negotiate a trade treaty. In my experience the more "infinite" a character is the more "polarized" the character is and the easier it is for a clever GM to find a loophole to the loophole.

PS, edit, think of a ring of three wishes. That's technically infinitely powerful, but just remember how a djinn can manipulate the wording of your wish to your PC's own detriment.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1008995"No, I won't allow that.  And don't be a dickweevil."

I'd still say that just not playing a game based on manipulative rules-mastery by players is the first answer. But the above is the best second answer if for some reason you must play that game.

Does anyone else remember the Diplomancer build for D&D 3.5? You know, the guy who was supposed to be so infinitely charming that he could get away with anything?

I solved the problem of that one by making the player role-play how his character was charming the target. He couldn't do it since his typical approach was to say to a NPC, "hey motherfucker, give me your stuff" and then roll dice. Most people who are capable of coming up with an "invincible" build like that can't role-play worth a shit because they are so focused on rules mastery.

Quote from: jeff37923;1009814Does anyone else remember the Diplomancer build for D&D 3.5? You know, the guy who was supposed to be so infinitely charming that he could get away with anything?

I solved the problem of that one by making the player role-play how his character was charming the target. He couldn't do it since his typical approach was to say to a NPC, "hey motherfucker, give me your stuff" and then roll dice.

Winner winner chicken dinner!

Yeah a 'RP then roll' aproach should kibosh that BS.

Quote from: jeff37923;1009814Does anyone else remember the Diplomancer build for D&D 3.5? You know, the guy who was supposed to be so infinitely charming that he could get away with anything?

I solved the problem of that one by making the player role-play how his character was charming the target. He couldn't do it since his typical approach was to say to a NPC, "hey motherfucker, give me your stuff" and then roll dice. Most people who are capable of coming up with an "invincible" build like that can't role-play worth a shit because they are so focused on rules mastery.

But fixed DCs! :eek: They are not text examples, mere suggestions to make judgments. They are the essence of Truth! :cool: Without hard, defined values to unify all (and in darkness bind them...) all is lost to a mad tea party of mother may I! :mad: You risk the very time-space continuum itself! :eek:

Quote from: Voros;1009947Yeah a 'RP then roll' aproach should kibosh that BS.

As opposed to "roll if you trigger a certain ability"?

And then we get PbtA games, which are "RP, then roll, if the RP triggers a certain situational ability".

This why I don't play most "modern" RPGs.  Too many damn rules.  If you can't fit it in 32 pages is it really worth playing?

Quote from: DavetheLost;1010106This why I don't play most "modern" RPGs.  Too many damn rules.  If you can't fit it in 32 pages is it really worth playing?

What are the non-modern RPGs that actually fit in 32 pages? I can't think of a single RPG that I knew of before the mid 80s that was that short (unless you used really large pages); maybe Melee/Wizard but it's not really an RPG before you include In The Labyrinth. Rules light seems more modern to me.

If you converted Original D&D to full size pages instead of digest size, it's 57 or 58 pages.

Pretty sure Metamorphosis Alpha was 32 pages.

I'll admit 32 is maybe a bit short. Old man grumbling for effect. But certainly a good game can be written in about 100 pages, including setting.  My players are always amazed at how short the rulebooks I use are.  Stormbringer weighs in at a hefty 165 pages!

Quote from: rawma;1010165What are the non-modern RPGs that actually fit in 32 pages? I can't think of a single RPG that I knew of before the mid 80s that was that short (unless you used really large pages); maybe Melee/Wizard but it's not really an RPG before you include In The Labyrinth. Rules light seems more modern to me.

Agree, rules light is the majority of modern games these days.