Rulings informed by rules

 This post is the first in a series loosely conceived as My Old School Manifesto, where I look at ideas and principles which, to me, are important to the concept of "old school" gaming.


"Rulings not rules" is one of the most oft-repeated mantras of the OSR and old school gaming generally, but in my estimation, it misses the mark. Taken literally, it implies no rules are necessary at all; that a DM has only to make rulings, and I highly doubt anyone takes it that far. In spirit it means that you don't need codified rules for every situation and trying to attain that standard is a quixotic endeavor at best. It would perhaps be more accurate, though less catchy, to encapsulate the intended spirit in the phrase "Rulings informed by rules" or "Rules sufficient to provide benchmarks for rulings."

What I want in an old school or old school-esque game is a body of broadly applicable rules for the types of situations most commonly faced in the game. These rules need not and should not be comprehensive, but instead a sturdy framework that can guide the DM in making rulings for a vast array of nuanced and sometimes unforeseeable situations. It's very hard to eyeball something without points of reference by which to judge, and a good ruleset, rather than trying to codify every possible eventuality, instead provides clear guideposts for the application of the DM's reason, experience, and intuition.

For instance, the game provides a general rule for the effects of falls, and from that general rule, the DM can decide whether a specific situation warrants a lesser or greater effect. If the rules call for 1d6 points of damage per 10' fallen in the dungeon (which the DM interprets to mean a landing on relatively flat stone floors,) that provides a point of reference for adjudicating falls onto other surfaces or materials, like mud, hay, or jagged rocks. Using the 1d6 per 10' fallen benchmark, the DM might decide on 1d10 damage per 10' for jagged rocks, 1d4 per 10' for mud or hay, and to ignore damage for the first 20' of a fall onto a soft, springy haystack. 

If the rules assign numbers to the damage done by a torch or a flask of burning oil, the DM can extrapolate from what he or she knows of these things in real life and make a reasonable ruling on whether a magical fireball will be snuffed out when cast at a pool of water or if it will instantly boil away the water or something in between. 

These same principles also work to inform the players' expectations of what can and can't be done, and at what cost, within the game. It's entirely reasonable for a player to infer that a character who can survive a fall of 30' onto a dungeon floor would be able to survive a much higher fall onto a haystack, and it's reasonable to expect diving into a 10-cubic-foot pool of water should totally prevent damage from fire attacks that do only a few times the damage of being hit by a burning torch.


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