Rulings Not Rules

Posted by Sage LaTorra on Oct 16, 2012 in Games | 0 comments

I had a conversation recently (via G+) about the old school play tenant of “rulings, not rules.” If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s pretty well summed up by this line from A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming:

Most of the time in old-style gaming, you don’t use a rule; you make a ruling.

The exact conversation that this came up within was about a) why people like this and b) how common it really was. The exact details aren’t that important, the cool thing it led to was me digging out my copy of Moldvay (a pretty common occurrence these days) and transcribing these bits, as historical references for the usage of “rulings, not rules”:

From Moldvay, page B3:

While the material in this booklet is referred to as rules, that is not really correct. Anything in this booklet (and other D&D booklets) should be thought of as changeable—anything, that is, that the Dungeon Master or referee thinks should be changed. This is not to say that everything in this booklet 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 referee (the Dungeon Master) think that somthing should be changed, first think about how the changes will affect the game, and then go ahead. The purpose of these “rules” is to provide guidelines that enable you to play and have fun, so don’t feel absolutely bound to them.

From Moldvay, page B60:

“That’s not in the rules!” The players will often surprise the DM by doing the unexpected. Don’t panic. When this happens, the DM should just make sure that everything is done in the order given by the outline or sequence of events being used. Minor details may be made up as needed to keep the game moving. All DMs learn how to handle both new ideas and unusual actions quickly and with imagination.

Quite often a DM can decide on a solution to a player’s actions not covered by these rules. Other times, a problem may have no simple solution. One quick way for a DM to decide whether a solution will work is by imagining the situation, and then choosing percentage chances for different possibilities. For example, suppose the DM is running a combat that is taking place on a ledge next to an unexplored chasm. One player suddenly decides that his character has no change to survive combat. The player announces “My character wants to jump into the chasm and escape!” There may be a chance that he will fall to a nearby ledge or land in a pool of water at the bottom of the chasm. The DM thinks about the dungeon for a minute, and remembers that an underground river flows through some of the lower dungeon levels, so there might be a pool of water below. Even so, the character will fall 60′, and a normal fall will do 1d6 points of damage per 10′ fallen. This character has only 7 HP, and seems likely to die even if the water cushions his landing and reduces the damage. However, there should always be a chance to do something nearly impossible. A player should have, at the very least, a saving throw or a stated percentage chance of a miraculous occurrence saving the character. The DM answers: “Looking down into the chasm, your character can estimate he has a 98% chance of dying, no saving throw, if he jumps. If you decide your character jumps, roll percentage dice. A result of 99 or 00 will mean that yor character lives, but any other result will mean that he will die in the attempt. Do you still want to jump?”

This seems like a pretty clear statement of the fact that rulings, not rules, was something intended and (likely) widely used, as it’s stated in one of the earlier editions of the game.

The interesting bit, though, is that “rulings, not rules” is a rule.

This dives into a whole rabbit hole of vague terminology, so let’s set aside any definition of “rule.” The procedure above, for making a ruling, is as clear a set of instructions as the instructions for resolving a melee attack (Moldvay, page B25):

A melee or missile fire attack does not automatically hit. The chance of an attack hitting or being successful is given as a number between 1 and 20 and is determined by comparing the attacker’s level or hit dice to the defender’s armor class (AC) on the tables below. one table is used when characters (PCs or NPCs) are attacking, the other is used when monsters are attacking. Roll 1d20: if the result is equal to or greater than the number indicated by the chart, the attack has been successful. Unless magical or silver weapons are needed to cause damage, (and not available) a roll of 20 will always hit, and a roll of 1 will always miss.

Both of them describe a series of steps to take to generate an outcome. (The next paragraph actually gets into situational modifiers, largely left to the DM, much like the rules on B60.) We can certainly find differences between them—the attack rules, for example, have a large starting point AC v. level table to set the base difficulty—but these seem like the same thing to me. They’re both series of steps that can be taken to resolve a situation.

In fact, the rules for attack seem like a subset, or implementation, of the general “DM make a judgement call” rule. The AC v. level table is just a shortcut to help the DM assign the likely outcomes. It even includes the “there’s always a chance” rule/guidance/statement from B60.

The section on covering what’s not covered by “the rules” is a part of the body of text that makes up the games—what could reasonably be called “the rules.” “This is a quick way to cover what’s not covered by the rules” as part of a rules document is a bit like “this statement is false.”

This isn’t an argument against “rulings, not rules.” That’s still totally a key part of old school play, and a great tool for a GM to use. The enlightening bit, for me, was discovering just how complete Moldvay is. It points out a few times that the book can’t cover everything, then provides a series of steps and guides for covering everything.

It’s actually a lot like Apocalypse World and other modern takes on GM instructions (including the BW Adventure Burner, Blowback, and many others). Moldvay works with the GM as a key part of the game, giving them a framework to make “rulings” in. These rulings are not some outliers, they are part of how the game was designed. It leverages the human intelligences at the table, using these huge mammal brains we’ve all got as a part of the system. It’s a completely genius idea that kind of got muddled along the way. Human judgement is another tool to be used in the game, just like randomness.

The thing that I think sometimes gets lost in the “rulings, not rules” mantra is that rulings can still be a part of the system—the system can give the tools to make rulings, some guidelines on how to do it, and so on. The larger system presented by the book can cover the things not covered by “the rules.” It’s the intersection of “rulings, not rules” and “system matters” that shines through here: the system includes the things explicitly handed over to the GM, and the tools the GM is given to handle them.

Moldvay in particular has a great system for covering what’s not covered. The tools and guidance (I’d just as soon call them rules, but whatever) the DM is given are fantastic: look at the fictional situation, assign probabilities, make a roll. The further instructions on that same page include “there’s always a chance” and “everyone’s here to have fun.” The method for deciding what rules to invoke (by looking at the fictional situation) is actually the same as Apocalypse World.

It’s an interesting space to explore, the confluence of “old school” and “indie.”