CK Consistency

[alcyone]

As a player, is it important to you that the CK makes a ruling, fixes it in stone and moves on? Or are you willing to sacrifice predictability for the possibility of judging every situation on the fly in ways that may in some cases be more favorable to the player (and sometimes not)?

This would be for both emergent new house rules and interpretations of existing rules.

I seem to have players on both sides of the fence (and of course, sometimes the same player can be found on either side depending on the benefits to them, understandably...)

[Omote]

I fix as many rules into stone as possible. If the rule comes up broken, I will make a quick fix if necessary and revisit the rule after the session. I will fix the rule by the next session if needed.

~O

[Drygur]

As a player, I like to know where I stand. If I know the rules are fix I can act accordingly.

[redwullf]

As a player, is it important to you that the CK makes a ruling, fixes it in stone and moves on? Or are you willing to sacrifice predictability for the possibility of judging every situation on the fly in ways that may in some cases be more favorable to the player (and sometimes not)?

This would be for both emergent new house rules and interpretations of existing rules.

I seem to have players on both sides of the fence (and of course, sometimes the same player can be found on either side depending on the benefits to them, understandably...)

A "rule" can mean a vast array of possibilities, from what types of checks are allowed for situations and when they're allowed, down to details such as what ingredients a Wizard needs in order to make ink for a particular scroll. Regardless, to insure consistency and fairness, they should be documented as they come up in a running list of House Rules. This, of course, is my opinion only, though I imagine many CKs handle rulings this way.

Having said that, some situations are so "out there" that they only come up rarely and are so "situation specific" that a documented rule may not be required. Adjudication on the fly still has its place.

[Relaxo]

As long as it's consistant and fair, and fun* it's all good.

*sometimes, it's no fun to have a PC die, but if it's fair and consistent, that's just like fun... and the right thing to do. Am I making sense?

[ArgoForg]

It really depends on what you mean by "ruling". If you mean, "a way of interpreting a rule", I agree that consistency and fairness are paramount.

If you mean "judgment call that there is no set rule for outside of possibly 3.X/PF," I am all about a CK handling it on the fly. And usually, I've found, that will generally still be consistent if the CK's a good one. For instance, I may take a -2 to a check, and another player only takes a -1, or gets a +1. I trust that the CK has a good reason for doing so... I would usually like it explained to me, but I'm more about letting a CK judge on the fly.

[alcyone]

Trying to think of a good example of the sorts of things that have happened. Don't dwell too much on the specific examples, the responses so far have been helpful, and my thoughts aren't too organized at the moment.

One would be the withdrawal rules. Last night, I decided that since some skeletons were entangled by a druid, they wouldn't take a free attack if someone ran up and grabbed a plant and ran off. If I were to run it consistently, there would reliably be an attack.

Another situation, a group of ogres are guarding part of a room. There is a little room to run between them. Someone tries to flee through them. I might give them a free attack since they were specifically trying to block the door. I might not give a free attack to someone already in combat facing the other way when someone runs past behind them. If I were consistent, anyone passing anyone would be subject to a free attack.

These interpretations I try to handle fairly for player and monster, but I can't say I always do everything the same. Partially because situations arise where common sense would break a rule, and partially because my memory is bad. I may write something down but like the rules in the book, if I have to look for them it's usually going to slow things down.

One thing I don't want is for my nice light C&C game to end up with a rule for everything, until I may as well be referring to the D20 SRD, so I don't promise that level of consistency and reliability, especially on the battle grid.

Actually, that may be a great deal of it. We play with minis. I am reluctant to adopt the entire suite of rules for playing on a grid that 3.5 and 4e offer, and find that keeping things small and simple usually means things are open to interpretation.

[serleran]

Consistency is good only when consistency matters. Situations that break the norm should require extenuating resolutions. For example, you might rule that a character with a 3 Intelligence is quite easily fooled by an invisible, silent, stalker but if the floor is cluttered with dust and debris, or the stalker suddenly turns out to be Kevin Bacon auditioning for The Watchmen, things change.... so it would if this man-beast flew. A general consistency, for "internal logic" is one thing, but I like to think that a good DM can be fair and arbitrate without "choosing sides." That, in my experience, is where many complaints stem... Player 1 thinks the DM is being unfair or oppositional. They could be right, or the DM simply has information that, upon revelation, removes the mood.

If the game purports to be of the imagination, I see no need to then supplant unnecessary rules upon said imagination.

[finarvyn]

I go back to the days of OD&D where the rules were loose and the DM/CK was expected to "wing it" a lot, and I use similar philosophies when I run C&C.

[Joe]

Players seem to have opinions that lean torward favorable outcomes for them. Unfortunately some GMs do too.

Your examples sound like reasonable judgement based on common sense rather than inconsistency with rules.

I lean towards flexibility. Someone raised the question about the difficulty of opening locked doors. I stared blankly because I cannot imagine ANY medieval doors all being identical in strength and construction.
"What if I say it takes a 21 to break down a door and then next time say it takes a 23?"

Still staring blankly I answered, "Tell them its a different door."

Your the GM relax. Make a quick judgement call and move on.

(Sounds like someone has been playing 3.x for too long)

[Rikitiki]

For my 'style' of GMing, DMing, CKing (now that my game-of-choice is C&C) is: yes, be consistent to a degree, but avoid conformity (ugh!).

By this I mean, apply the rules consistently - combat roles are always rules-as-written (role a D20, add level modifiers, etc. .vs HD subtractions and so on), BUT the CK can (and should) add her/his own tweaks/variations during game-play. Y'know, situational modifiers, etc, but also elements that make sense during the adventure: "You've just run up a rock scree hillside to get within attack range, so there'll be a -1 (or -2 depending on STR/CON) to your 'to hit' roll since you're somewhat out of breath" (or perhaps that -1 or -2 would be applied to any damage done due to the attack swing being wild after that run and/or weaker just after running up that slope).
Yeah, stuff like that.

[Pilgrim]

I like the rules to be fast and loose, however, where specific mechanics are concerned especially in the areas of combat, I like for the rules to be pretty concrete. It just makes it easier when everyone knows what does and doesn't fly at the table, plus it keeps things moving along pretty quickly so the CK doesn't have to stop every time trying to determine whether or not a certain situation calls for a different ruling.