Drawing Clear Lines

RAW Ranting

I won’t lie, as much as the rules attorneys irritate the shit out of me, there are some things I’m finding out on my own that raise an eyebrow.

Recently, I found some optional rules that look like training wheels for new Castle Keepers, new players or both. Welcome to Luck Points, Hero Points, Fate Points and Siege Points.

Admittedly, I skimmed over these parts as, once I hit optional rules, I tend to barely give them a once-over glance. My reading is done. I know the basics of the game, movement, conflict resolution among character, let’s not overcomplicate things, right?

Well, sometimes, those optional rules simplify further that which may seem simple to you or me but might not be so for another player. Let me break it down

In pages 349 - 350 of The Castle Keeper’s Guide, they break down simply into these explanations:

1. Fate Points: These are points that you use for more cinematic play. When the hero is down and things are looking dire, the fate points allow the player to make small but significant effects to the game itself.

2. Hero Points add to truly heroic spectacles performed by a character

3. Luck Points can be used in combination with Hero Points to affect dice rolls

The Siege Points are a bit of a different animal. You won’t find them in the core rulebook, in fact, you’ll find them on page 21 of the Adventurer’s Backpack, a supplement meant to take a lot of the guesswork out of equipping your character. The Siege Points specifically apply to the Magic User. They tend to be used to enhance attribute bonuses, imbue a weapon with a bonus to hit or damage, grant a bonus to armor class, heal hit point damage, or even enhance the power of spells cast by others.

The thing all of these share in common is, like I said before, they’re optional rules.

But it does beg the question, according to the Rules Attorney, if we’re truly going to play Rules As Written, do we include them?

This is something never clarified by them and I’m not exactly which way the prosecution will land. With eternal cries of “Read The Fucking Manual!” and the like, my question is…which one? For example, I have all of these at present…

Before I go on here, I’ll narrow it down. The PHB, CKG, Monsters & Treasure, Adventurer’s Backpack, Mystical Companions, Player Archive. Those are the books that I know for a fact will mechanically shape the game. Do we just go with the core books or do we integrate all the books I’ve mentioned. The Codeces deal more with the various mythologies around the world. Codex of Aihrde is more of a setting, rich with lore. Players Guide to Aihrde, Rune Lore and Tome of The Unclean (which will be Codex Infernus soon) so out of all of these books, speaking only of Castles & Crusades, I’m certain that the Rules Attorneys here will tell me that I should be reading the rules and playing the game as the creators intended which would be again, troublesome for them considering…

And Troll Lord Games has kept this message and their game consistent. Castles & Crusades also celebrates 20 years, having been born into the world in 2004. For 20 years, Troll Lord Games and their flagship game, despite some minor tweaks here and there, have been consistent in terms of how it’s played.

So if the creators of this game intended for the rules to be modified and custom-tailored to each table, sharing common threads, then what happens to the argument of playing the way the creators intend? Also, scroll back up and look through the book listing. These are not all of the books for Castles & Crusades that I possess. In fact, I have more.

The inconsistency behind the philosophy that the creators intended something only what was written in the books would require them to remember everything written in the books. Is that an expectation of the creators of a game?

Rule Zero:

I wrote a defense of rulings over rules and cautioned against abusing it in a previous article. I still stand by every word of the article.

Rule Zero is meant so that, even past playtesting, to modify rules that are bogging down gameplay, making it drag on needlessly or dispose of rules altogether. Also, it’s meant to take people completely new to a system and learn the rules as you go.

Abusing it can easily paint a GM into a corner and make players’ characters overpowered or vice versa. It’s reasonable to use it but not to abuse it.

The natural response is that “If you’re not going to use the rules, why buy the book?” because every game since before games like Dungeons & Dragons was ever created has had some form of Rule Zero. In fact, the origins have been researched and documented and you can check them out yourself.

Zealous Overcorrection:

Far too often, when we see extremes like this, it has to come from somewhere. Some catalyzing event causes people to flee from what they didn’t want to be, that they become it anyway.

For years during The Satanic Panic, parents, churches and even law enforcement began to become overzealous in their approach to a game or a style of music. Years later, others became overzealous to control others with the same cult-like approach, even in tabletop gaming and now we see an overzealous correction to the ongoing problem that there are people who have played by so few of the rules that the games hardly last long.

So to wrap all the individual questions into one, to the Rules Attorneys in particular, where are we drawing those lines?

Game designers, I’d like to know from you. What are your attitudes toward the modifications of your own rule sets? What, if anything, do you do if someone does modify the rules to a game you created in a way that makes improvements?

Everyone can comment in the links down below.