First, our formal ground rules for organizing our roleplaying games; we have only a few. Rules of order: Players will take turns when the game or the level of chaos demands it. The GM will call your name (or your character's name) when it's your turn. Be prepared to act on your turn, or the GM may auto-delay your character. Table talk is OK, but please don't distract players who are paying attention to the game. Emergency rules of order: When necessary (e.g., 10 players crammed into our condo), the group may impose stricter rules of order. Players must not speak out of turn; if you must interrupt, signal the GM and wait to be recognized. The GM will skip your turn if you are not ready. Appeals: The GM interprets and enforces the game rules. You may appeal a ruling at any time. Mid-session arguments should be brief and to the point. If an argument drags on too long, any player may request a final judgment. Players are welcome to re-open arguments during breaks or between sessions. Open house policy: All players are welcome to join or leave our game as they wish. We will not urge or compel any player to leave, except in dire circumstances (assault, vandalism, betrayal, etc). We will accommodate each player as best we can, and we assume that truly incompatible players will leave on their own. While those are the only ground rules we've all explicitly agreed to, we have a few more rules that we traditionally observe. Rules: We stick to published rules as closely as possible. Most of our house rules deal with setting content (e.g., prestige classes) or situations not covered by the rulebooks; we rarely change core rules. I will not adopt a house rule that another player vehemently opposes, and the other GMs seem to follow a similar policy. We usually publish house rules on the GM websites. Walkthroughs: When learning new rules (or revisiting tricky rules), we often walk through them step by step, with open rulebooks. Most of the group learned D&D3 this way. Cheating, fudging, weaseling: We generally disapprove of shady or blatantly self-serving behavior. Attempted cheating or weaseling earns you the nickname "Weasel Boy." However, we tolerate occasional fudging (from players and GM both). I personally dislike GM fudging and avoid it when I referee; the other regular GM occasionally fudges to avoid PC casualties. Everyone rolls dice in the open, and we use GM screens solely as reference cards. Attendance and tardiness: We set aside the first hour of each session for socializing and late arrivals. If you're more than an hour late, we start without you (and tease you later). We encourage players to call ahead when they can't make a game (to help the GM plan), but we don't require it. Our GMs quickly learn to be flexible about party makeup. Direct game events such as things said by NPCs, events in the game world, and results of PC actions are handled by the GM. However, GMs often delegate bits and pieces to the other players. For example, novice GMs will delegate judgment calls to a regular GM, and the two regular GMs often confer with each other before and during the game. (We frequently chat about the latest rules controversy during our "warm-up" hour, so that there fewer mid-game surprises.) Our rules of order encourage players to settle mid-session arguments quickly. Everyone knows and has agreed to general rules of order. We don't have an appointed moderator. The GM, the host, or a neutral third party will keep things in order, as appropriate. In my experience, shared responsibility and consensus decision making encourage players to get their gripes out in the open. My groups have always had a firm separation between rules and setting. While each setting may have its own custom content (and some supporting rules), they share most of the basics. Furthermore, we don't invent anything tricky for se-ting-specific rules, so there's little opportunity for rules prob-lems to interfere with setting concerns. We do value consistency, but we won't stick with a bad rule just because it set a precedent. If we use a rule a few times before deciding that it's broken, we just write off the past events as a quirk or a mistake. Therefore, there's little pressure to get everything just right. I like simple rules. I dislike rules complex enough that one guy needs to juggle it all in his head. Better to simplify the rules (and the need for a human computer) than to give so much responsibility to one player. Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 12 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com