Quote from: ClaudiusAs always, Balbinus saying something sensible and intelligent. :haw:

Let me second that view. The only person I didn't want to have a copy of the rules I was using was a rulesrapist that tried to twist the rules to his advantage by arguing over every little thing. I quickly killed off his character and threw him out of my games. Since then I've had a much more enjoyable time GMing.

I play rpgs with a bunch of miniatures gamers. They wouldn't play a wargame without knowing the rules. But it takes a little cajoling to get them to pick up rules for a game they can't lose.

Quote from: RoninI've been running a Star Frontiers game. The rules are avaiable free on the intar-web. If your interested in checking them out. Look in my sig below.

I think the somewhat pedantic point being made was that you'd failed basic grammar:

QuoteAmen, brother! I have the same problem. I cant even get one of them to glance over the rules. And their free!

What you meant to say was "and they're free".

Quote from: AnthrobotDo you mind players owning a copy of the game you run? Or do you think that it leads to rules lawyer behaviour?

In our group of Gamesmasters we always thought that would be the case.  So back in 1978 we decided to write our own individual sets of rules based off of the original three books, in part for that reason.  We then steadfastly refused to show those rules to the Players.  To date, no player has ever seen my full set of rules, and it's been 30 years.   I have, however, shown some of the rules to individual players under some circumstances - for example I do let them know the rules surrounding character generation.  

The problem I have now, actually, is that if I do publish my system, then it will break this modality once and for all.   I'm not sure what I want to do about that.

The other reasons we wanted to create our own rules was because we had changes to the base system that we wanted to make for various reasons.  In my case I wanted a low number of charts to handle a lot of different things, so I genericised my rules system.  

So Yes, I do think that once the Players have the rules in hand it leads to Rules Lawyering, and worse, it usually makes the Players focus on the Game aspect rather than the Story aspect.   I'm pro-Story, and always have been, so I wanted to minimize the Rules Lawyering from the get-go, and this seemed like the best way to go.

EDIT: Seems like I'm the only dissenting opinion.  Neato.  

Quote from: TrevelyanI think the somewhat pedantic point being made was that you'd failed basic grammar:

What you meant to say was "and they're free".

An error amusingly compounded by the misuse of your/you're in the reply.

Quote from: James McMurrayAn error amusingly compounded by the misuse of your/you're in the reply.

Sorry, I made a mistake. I guess I cant be as perfect as all of you.
Gammar aside, I'm sure you can still appreciate the gist of my post. Thats whats important.

Who has money for a Gammar these days? And why should I put it aside? If I'm lucky enough to have one, I'm keeping it right where I can see it.









Sorry, couldn't resist.

Quote from: RoninSorry, I made a mistake. I guess I cant be as perfect as all of you.
Gammar aside, I'm sure you can still appreciate the gist of my post. Thats whats important.

It was "amusing" not "moronic," smile a little.

When I started playing we had one set of rules per game.  Valuable resources could not be spent on backup copies, only on new games.  Now most of the people I know have copies of the game they play the most (D&D) and a small library of other RPGs that have caught their eye.

I would almost always prefer my players to own a copy of the rulebook and to be familiar with it. I am very good at shutting down ruleslawyers, and rarely play with them anyhow, so it's not too big a deal.

Quote from: AnthrobotDo you mind players owning a copy of the game you run? Or do you think that it leads to rules lawyer behaviour?

I love when players own a copy, especially for the really detailed games.

No rules lawyering problems for us.

Quote from: James McMurrayAn error amusingly compounded by the misuse of your/you're in the reply.

There ought to be an internet law covering that, if there isn't one already.

Unless anyone can point me to a pre-existing formalised law asserting the same, I hereby propose Trevelyan's Law:

Any post made with the specific intent of ridiculing a grammatical error, spelling mistake or typo will necessarily contain a similar error of its own.

(Godwin here I come!)

I agree with your law in principle trevelyan but I think I'm the walking, posting exception to it. Whenever I correct someone's spelling/grammar (and I do it often among friends who know I'm not just a pompous ass) I make damn sure that I don't have any mistakes myself.

That's no fun, Saskwach! Try instead using long posts (at least 3 paragraphs) to correct the errors, and injecting one or two obscure grammatical mistakes such as "which vs. that" or "different than vs. different from". If someone points it out, scour their post for the hidden error they injected.

Stop raynan on mii piriate.