Something I came up with in a rules thread made me want to expand the discussion here.
We constantly work with two conflicting goals when we play. On the one hand, we as players really want to play a fun game that is fair and balanced in its rules (hopefully, that's what we want anyway!). This requires people to play in the spirit of the rules and not "take the piss" as our British friends would say -- purposely trying to break the gameworld because of a loophole in the rules.
In some ways, though, this directly conflicts with what our characters want. Our characters are living in a world where we regularly make life or death decisions. Our characters have access to a range of abilities that we do not. This makes for a very blurry line between how far your character will go and where you as a player are purposely bending the rules to see how far they will twist.
Let me give a few examples. With the new rules, Polare will pretty much never memorize an Awaken. Shun is far superior -- I can "awaken" any of my allies from a Command effect or use it against an enemy. As a character, I see this as taking whatever steps are necessary to preserve my life and that of my friends. Out of game, though, I can see how this falls in the blurry area of the rules. It's not nearly so bad as some things I've seen, but it's not something that I can say for sure was intended.
So that example isn't so bad in the end. But let's go a bit deeper.
In a combat, Polare is hit by an enemy Dominate spell in a situation where this likely means his death. Before the enemy issues him a command, Polare quickly Dominates himself and orders himself to 'return to normal'. According to the strict letter of the rule, this is legal and Polare is all good. On an out of game basis, though, I'd say that it violates the intention of the rule by a much wider margin than the above example. But Polare would likely have been killed in the above example. Isn't that the type of thing he would have spent the time between events trying to figure out? Or what about figuring out exactly how much space is needed to make a room a "room" for the purposes of a Ward (see the latest rules thread)? Etc. etc.
Personally, I try to fall on the "better" side of that blurry line. When the hubbub about my sword physrep came up, I had no problem getting it to a white background -- the reason I wanted it as a black/red background was for in-game character reasons, not so I could hide it or make it appear a non-magic weapon (I can stick it under my cloak easy enough for that). But where do your characters fall? How far would your character go to avoid death? What situations have you found yourself in where you have to weigh the OOG concerns of "is this really in the spirit of the rule?" against the IG concerns of your character's life?
-Bryan
We constantly work with two conflicting goals when we play. On the one hand, we as players really want to play a fun game that is fair and balanced in its rules (hopefully, that's what we want anyway!). This requires people to play in the spirit of the rules and not "take the piss" as our British friends would say -- purposely trying to break the gameworld because of a loophole in the rules.
In some ways, though, this directly conflicts with what our characters want. Our characters are living in a world where we regularly make life or death decisions. Our characters have access to a range of abilities that we do not. This makes for a very blurry line between how far your character will go and where you as a player are purposely bending the rules to see how far they will twist.
Let me give a few examples. With the new rules, Polare will pretty much never memorize an Awaken. Shun is far superior -- I can "awaken" any of my allies from a Command effect or use it against an enemy. As a character, I see this as taking whatever steps are necessary to preserve my life and that of my friends. Out of game, though, I can see how this falls in the blurry area of the rules. It's not nearly so bad as some things I've seen, but it's not something that I can say for sure was intended.
So that example isn't so bad in the end. But let's go a bit deeper.
In a combat, Polare is hit by an enemy Dominate spell in a situation where this likely means his death. Before the enemy issues him a command, Polare quickly Dominates himself and orders himself to 'return to normal'. According to the strict letter of the rule, this is legal and Polare is all good. On an out of game basis, though, I'd say that it violates the intention of the rule by a much wider margin than the above example. But Polare would likely have been killed in the above example. Isn't that the type of thing he would have spent the time between events trying to figure out? Or what about figuring out exactly how much space is needed to make a room a "room" for the purposes of a Ward (see the latest rules thread)? Etc. etc.
Personally, I try to fall on the "better" side of that blurry line. When the hubbub about my sword physrep came up, I had no problem getting it to a white background -- the reason I wanted it as a black/red background was for in-game character reasons, not so I could hide it or make it appear a non-magic weapon (I can stick it under my cloak easy enough for that). But where do your characters fall? How far would your character go to avoid death? What situations have you found yourself in where you have to weigh the OOG concerns of "is this really in the spirit of the rule?" against the IG concerns of your character's life?
-Bryan
(If thats the case, if would have been funny to test it.. first JP has to lift shane.. then the 2 claws(at the same time) and then... all those stone elves. "crunch" )
