Pjoe [pjuː]

How I Keep Seeing “Rules Lawyer” Used Now

“Rules lawyer” was always a pejorative term with very negative connotations, but super often in the past few years I’m seeing the term “rules lawyer” used pejoratively towards people for no other reason that they know the rules of a given TTRPG, want to play by those rules, and want to use the rules to their/their PC’s advantage. Here’s a few examples of where I have seen someone be called a “rules lawyer.”

Example 1

Like, saying in any context that you should try and understand and play by the rules of a game before you start modifying, overriding/ignoring, etc. the rules so that you actually understand what you’re modifying.

Example 2

Saying that people should find games whose rules natively support a certain type of campaign they want to play, and play by those rules, instead of changing all of D&D5e’s rules to sort of look like that concept.

Example 3

Saying that it’s good to read and be familiar with a TTRPG’s rulebook at all.

Example 4

A player reads the rules of [TTRPG with a heavy focus on combat] and figures out that by combining certain equipment and abilities, their PC can be very good at a certain aspect of combat. I.e. battle axes get bonus damage when used by characters with high Strength, so if they pick character options that maximize Strength, and pick a battle axe, their character can be very powerful with that battle axe.

Example 5

A GM says “If you want your PC to kick the gun out of [NPC]’s hand, they have to succeed on a Disarm Action because that’s what the rulebook says is the mechanic for when one character tries to knock a weapon out of another character’s hand. They can’t do it automatically just because it would be cool.”

Example 6

A character attacks another character in a game where this requires a roll, and the roll at first appears to be a success at the bare minimum number required to roll, and everyone starts going with that as the outcome. Then, the “rules lawyer” speaks up and says “Wait, since [character] was behind cover, according to the rulebook there should be a -1 penalty to the attack, so that would actually be a failure.”

What “Rules Lawyer” Means Originally

“Rules lawyering” or “being a rules lawyer” by the original meaning actually doesn’t even always have as much to do with knowing the rules as it does relying on other people not knowing the rules, to get away with cheating. “Rules lawyering” by the original definition describes a specific form of cheating.

It involves making spurious arguments you know are wrong or otherwise against the intent/spirit of the rulebook to gain an unfair advantage, and applying those spurious interpretations of the rules selectively rather than consistently. I.e. conveniently ignoring the rules interpretation you made just minutes ago now that it no-longer favors your character to interpret it that way.

I’m going to take the examples above and rewrite them to actually be examples of “rules lawyering” by the original definition. I'm going to skip examples 1 and 2 because there is no way to possibly twist them into fitting this definition.

Example 3

Saying “If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying hard enough.”

Example 4

A player reads the rules of a TTRPG with a heavy focus on combat and figures out that the rulebook says “A character can attack once per turn with each weapon held in their hand.” but it never specifies exactly how many weapons a character can fit in one hand. The player gives their character 20 swords and argues that because the rulebook doesn’t place a limit on the number of swords per hand, his character can make 20 attacks per turn by carrying 20 swords. (Extreme example for demonstration purposes, an actual rules lawyer would probably more realistically only try this with like 3 swords.)

Example 5

A GM enforces the rules arbitrarily and inconsistently, either relying on the culture of GM fiat and “rule 0” to get away with it or just getting by on nobody else at the table being familiar enough with the rules to argue, leading to the rules not actually mattering, since they only get brought up in defense or support of something the GM has already decided is going to happen no matter what. (Usually this will also be combined with the GM lying about their dice rolls or lying about the stats of NPCs/changing them arbitrarily in their head but that’s not really “rules lawyering” that’s just more conventional cheating.)

Example 6

When the rules lawyer’s PC is attacked, he says “The rulebook says ‘Cover’ is ‘any object a character could hide behind from an attack’ and [PC] was hiding behind the curtains when the bad guys saw him and started shooting, so the curtains should count as Cover and they should get -1 penalties to their attacks. Also, the rulebook says ‘Characters who are moving when they attack get a -1 penalty to the attack,’ and the bad guys had to move to draw their guns and pull the triggers, so they’re moving and should get another -1 penalty.’ Notably, earlier in the session when a character was getting shot at while hiding behind a small chair, the rules lawyer stayed silent and didn’t bring up the Cover section of the rulebook at all. Next turn after the bad guys miss their shots the rules lawyer has his character shoot back. (Even though his character would have also needed to “move” to draw a gun and shoot and so accounting to him would have a -1 penalty, he stays quiet and hopes nobody is paying enough attention to realize this.) When the GM says “Goon #2 is hiding behind the bed so he is in Cover and the attack has a -1 penalty,” the rules lawyer says “Oh come on, bullets can go straight through a feather mattress, there’s no way that counts as Cover.”

What is This Shift Downstream of and Why Should You Stop Using the First Definition?

Besides the regular Dunning-Kruger Effect of people having a couple of D&D5e rules explained to them and then thinking they know everything there is to know about TTRPGs as an artform, this is, like most things in the hobby right now, ultimately traceable to Hasbro’s dishonest marketing of D&D5e and its resulting toxic play culture.

This post

sorta gets into it with a lot more detail, but the short version is D&D5e wasn’t really created with a lot of thought put into how it would actually play by its rules, but that doesn’t matter to the shareholders as long as it makes money. To make more money, Hasbro/WotC has to maximize the number of people playing D&D5e. To do this, they market D&D5e as “the game that can be whatever you want it to be” and encourage a culture of play where if you don’t like the rules you can just change or ignore them (instead of playing a different game that already has rules that you would like following).[1]

[1. Sidebar] I promise that learning a different game’s rules is not as hard, time consuming, or expensive as you might think. D&D5e’s rules are at the upper end of all of these metrics. Even rulebooks which have twice as many pages are often easier to learn than D&D5e’s rules.

By treating any of the first set of examples as a faux-pas and subject of derision or mockery you are playing straight into the hands of a monopoly that has a deadly stranglehold on the TTRPG industry. Ironically by treating the rules text of D&D and by extension other TTRPGs as essentially meaningless, you’re actually more of a corporate bootlicker than you would be otherwise.

How Does this Affect People Who Enjoy Playing by the Rules? Can’t They Just Mind Their Own Business?

I am extremely aware of the fact that many people who play D&D(or some other popular TTRPGs but mostly D&D) don’t really care about the game part of D&D, but rather treat it as a sort of “social lubricant,” an excuse to hang out with friends more so than a specific activity. They would be just as happy (perhaps even more happy) if D&D was swapped out for any activity on earth, like bowling, sitting around a campfire talking about anything, watching a movie, etc.. To these people, being told to pay attention and understand the game they’re playing is an offense. After all, “it’s just a stupid game, who cares, aren’t we here to have fun?”

Yes, we are here to have fun, but have you considered that the fun of the people asking you to pay attention is being disrupted just as much? Would you have the same reaction to somebody leaning over and telling you not to talk or use your phone in a movie theater? Come on. Or even in a home viewing experience, your friend asks you to come over and watch this movie he really likes, and you’re just blowing it off as some stupid movie, not caring if you talk over all the cool scenes he wanted you to see. In simplest terms, that’s rude.

The shift of the pejorative “rules lawyer” from “cheater who makes spurious arguments about the rules to gain an unfair advantage” to “player who wants to play the game by a written-out and consistent set of rules” is making the guy who actually wants to do the activity everyone nominally said they would do into the bad guy. Imagine if it was the activity or piece of art that you were passionate about.

Convincing people that it’s not “just some stupid movie” becomes much harder for that person when it was already hard as hell because of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Many people don’t realize that it can be anything more than “some stupid movie” because they never paid attention to a movie before. They are skeptical that paying attention might result in them having more enjoyment than just talking, and now getting them to pay attention is that much harder because the act of going “shh, don’t talk over the movie.” is the subject of mockery.

I am also extremely aware of the large percentage of TTRPG players who are passionate about D&D and other TTRPGs, but are passionate about the version that Hasbro marketing presents(this is completely synonymous with the “folkloric version of the game” that exists in oral tradition and “not letting the rules get in the way of the story”), not the version that actually exists in the rulebooks. This post has already gone on long enough and beyond this point I would just be repeating things I have already written other essays about so I’m going to just link a few posts. The TL;DR of these posts is that buying into this marketing of the rules not mattering supports Hasbro and disadvantages anyone else who wants to make it in the industry or even just cares about exploring and evolving the medium as it exists. As Hasbro’s marketing goes, if the rules don’t matter because you don’t let them get in the way of “the story,” then there really is no reason to move away from D&D5e.