The Rule of Cool can be used and that does not make the game good, nor does not using it make the game bad.

the same could be said for the natrualism argument: which is a trope itself “Willing Suspension of Disbelief” they try to do this with interally consistant detail with a beileve that the rule of cool, the rule of scary and the rule of scary do not overule this,

So they are simply averting a trope and playing another as a deconstruction perahps.

Again its not good or bad its just a tool.

TV tropes states that a trope is not a substitute for good writing.
IMHO a trope is not a sbustitute for a good GM, becasue the coolest adventure can be ruined by a bad GM.

Steve “Qwilion’ Russell
ritepublishing.com

Chgowizs last blog post..Collaborative Review – _Kobold’s Guide to Design, volume 2_ subtitled: "How to Pitch, Playtest and Publish" by Wolfgang Baur

@Donny: Hey, Long time no see man! For the record, none of them said ‘you are doing it wrong’ so much as they ranted about hating what it stood for (at least how they interpret it).

@Benpop: Thanks man. Yeah, this is one dead twitchy horse we got here. Time to move on!

Perhaps the flak against the RoC is reductio ad absurdum? I hear “this will encourage inexperienced GMs to sacrifice logical consistency for what they think their players will like”. Any “rule” or tip can be misinterpreted (and taken ad absurdum as well), and potential for abuse is not grounds enough to claim its unsuitability.

Am I wrong? Or is this a thread that’s gone on too long already? ;-P

with all due brevity, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Anyone who tells you “you’re doing it wrong” without referencing a book is a dick.

If they have the book, they’re just anal : )

It follows closely behind “anyone who says they have all the answers, probably forgot the questions.”

Why does this keep coming back to editions? I mean REALLY!

In any event, was good to come back over. We need to have a beer sometime!

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2. Typically some statements are self-evident to many people but revelations to others. Especially when it comes to roleplaying, which is typically first learned in isolated groups with particular styles and preferences.
(I could not complete a statistics exercise. It turned out that there was nothing to do in the exercise; write a definition and it is pretty much done. I was looking for something to actually do. Same phenomenon.)

From the way I am preparing my old school games, I make the “fiat” rules (aka houserules where OD&D is loose) known up front. I’m impartial to what the environment does to the PCs or what the PCs do to the environment. If the PCs do something that I have to rule on, it’s more of an interpretation (aka sometimes “Best Guess Outta My Butt on How Much to roll…”) of what is the fairest way to rule. I’m also upfront as to when I’m ruling and why.

I wonder perhaps the thought is that the “fiat” is something that is geared towards screwing the player. I don’t see OD&D as “screwing the player” as much as I see it allowing each GM to set up the kind of game that he/she wants to set up. People can choose to play or adjust the rules as they see fit. Maybe I’m mis-interpreting what you mean.

I think that the old school gets an unfair beating that the DM was always a sadistic bastard who chewed up players for the fun of it – just like the newer editions have their munchkins, min/maxers and the like. You’re going to have bad apples, and you’re going to have a whole lot of games where everyone goes home satisfied.

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As Morten Greis says. With the caveat that I still retain a strong compulsion to maintain an internally consistent story in the adventures I write. That’s deeply ingrained in my natural style and my post on the RoC was my realization that I should strive for something a little less stiff and a little more action oriented and focused on factors closer to the players’ actions (i.e. cool stuff).

I’m done here! I’m moving on to other subjects, feel free to continue, but as usual lets stay civil

Well, for one thing, I don’t think that anyone stated, that the Rule of Cool is in any manner new. As I see it, Chatty DM changed his preparation-techniques (as you’ll notice, that is why I asked Chatty DM to sum up the basic elements of his approach to the rule) in order to have a more satisfying gaming experience. To this Graham added an example of how to use the Rule during play, which is kinda, what I consider an approach to Say Yes or Roll – which both Tommi (If I read him correctly) and I use – but perhaps a bit toned down, for in Grahams example, you don’t roll, you ask wether or not the it is acceptable to the game’s internal logic.

Now Chatty is playing according to his interpretation of the rule, and he is having succes with this. He is getting the gaming experience he and his fellow players want.

Thus one cannot help wondering about people complaining about this choice of gaming style, especially when they declare that it will result in unsatisfying gaming, as this is proved to be inherently wrong. It does not automatically result in this – both the RoC-style and the Prep-style (old school or whatever) can result in unsatisfying gaming.

Futhermore several counter points seems to be complaining about CGI-explosions, bad anime, removing the risk of failing etc., which are not implied in Chatty’s description of his use of the Rule.

Let’s quote Chatty on this:
“Which basically makes me think that my efforts as a DM should not so much be on far-reaching World Building and tight nitpicking-proof plot lines and such.

I should go all out for encounters and role playing that will swamp my players in coolness. Think combat on ice Bridges, negotiating the release of prisoners in a flooding underground prison, hopping from floating island to pieces of flying ruins in order to catch the thieves of the Star jewel of Radnia…”

Do notice that want he wants to dispense from is “far-reaching World Building and tight nitpicking-proof plot lines” and instead focus on “combat on ice Bridges”.

I find that I’m agreeing with this style, and I find that most criticism fail to address these points – they read other elements into the style, and then start critizing those points. Nobody claimed anything new here, just a description of a gaming style.

Logical? Sure it is, depending on where you start. For example, if you’ve defined an internally consistent universe where channeling hellfire is possible then it’s not illogical that someone could learn to do so and show you that they can. Now if by the laws of this universe you *must* to wear a spiffy ring to do so and someone does it without a spiffy ring, that’s illogical.

It’s a personal pet peeve so please don’t take offense as none is intended: believability and realism are two different scales in my games. If something is realistic, that’s based purely on our own reality and what we know of it. Chainmail is made by doing X, gravity says it takes Y seconds to fall distance Z. If something is believable, it may or may not be real but it doesn’t set off mental logic alarms.

In Exalted, there exist beings who can channel the energy of the sun — the most powerful god. Of the ~30 bits of energy they start off with, 10 of those is roughly equal to a nuclear bomb. How do they jump 50 miles? Use enough brute force magical energy to tell physics to go cry in a corner. How do they block or dodge a Death Star laser? Spend a tiny bit of magic and then block or dodge. They can do these things because the setting says they can.

In the D&D I’m aware of, those things aren’t possible. That’s not to say that people in D&D settings can’t do things that would be impossible in our own world, but they can still do them.

I try to make things believable. Realistic? Only when I can’t otherwise figure out how to drive a point home. I try to stay away from physics.

All of the so-called Rule of Cool’s tenets that you are citing – not wasting time prepping loads of bumph that nobody will read, not concentrating on world-building over Game, not insisting on a 100% coherent setting – stem from that. Make the game fun. Why is this new?

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To alter your statement:

The former focuses on covering up holes in writing, the latter focuses on making play enjoyable for the player and preparation survivable for the GM, regardless of holes in writing/plot/logic.

One of the main tenets of the Rule of Cool in RPGs is that, if it’s cool, people will forgive inconsistencies and holes.

Magic, for example, follows this rule. Is it logical that people could channel hellfire? No, but it’s cool, so players don’t worry about it.

I think the major difference is that the TVTropes version is often used to cover up writing holes, while the RPG version is more often used to cover up logic holes. But it’s used in RPGs to cover up writing as well (load-bearing bosses, for instance) and it’s used in TV/movies to cover up logic (the Force, warp drive), so there’s not much point in splitting hairs.

The TV Tropes definition and the RPG (Chatty?) definition of “Rule of Cool” are different things. The former focuses on covering up holes in writing, the latter focuses on making play enjoyable for the player and preparation survivable for the GM. The use of a single term for both is unfortunate, but languages make use of different meanings for terms all the time. Just look at the definitions of “sanction”.

With all this confusion and grief, I’d propose a new name for the RPG-version of the Rule of Cool. But given how much air time the name has received, and the obstinacy of people in general, I doubt such a name change would work.

So I please ask for all to take some time to familiarize themselves with the differences between the definitions. I don’t like the phrase, either, but we’ll have to get used to it!

Edit after reading the 6d6 post:
I think all the detractors are entirely missing the point. I hear from Chatty, “this is how I see it, and it means this, not this” and the qualifications are entirely ignored and the core argument pushed ad absurdum. Of course nobody wants epic failures like the Matrix sequels or Michael Bay movies — that’s not what Chatty said, why are you even bringing it up? There’s much to be said about depth along with “cool”, but I think that’s confusing the issue.

That isn’t similar to the Rule of Cool.

That is EXACTLY what the Rule of Cool prescribes.

Add in “putting the players in new and interesting situations” and you’re 100% playing by Rule of Cool.

.

Oh, and for anyone who can’t see what Rule of Cool is besides Michael Bay style cgi explosions and such, see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1m-t_AAVpQ

Pure RoC, on a 1986 budget.

I do use something very similar to RoC in actual play. It is encoded in two principles; first, use player ideas; second, if something is not flat impossible and suits the genre and setting of play, accept it or roll dice to see if it happens (the latter one also called “Say yes or roll the dice”). I just have a gut reaction against the name of the thing.

Philippe;

The difference between player against environment and against GM is in the hands of the GM. If the GM plays the role of arbiter, then there is a clear difference. If the GM has, say, a particular story in mind and forces it on the players, then there is no difference, but there is high probability of broken play happening. (GM telling a story can work well when the players are receptive, as should be evident to you; with adversial players, it can be ugly).

Second his counter arguments are not based on actual examples from RPGs either, but only on the assumption that gaming experiences based on the Rule of Cool must lead to unsatisfactory games and hence must be bad, and that if you use the Rule of Cool you also ends up abusing the very same rule. But as long as no one, who is opposing the rule, can come up with any non-hypothetical examples, I simply aren’t buying their counter arguments. So far I’ve only seen people demonstrating that the use of rule leads to satisfactory gaming experiences, and that us also my very own experience.

No one who is arguing for the Rule of Cool is suggesting, that the use of the rule should result in encounters being silly, filled with meaningless action or otherwise unsatisfying.

I strongly disagree with it, especially some of his further comments to defend his points but I link to it as a valid part of the debate :

http://6d6fireball.com/rpg/the-rule-of-cool-only-for-idiots

In fact in his last comment, I get from it that he warns against using the RoC as a fundamental philosophy that guide most of your GMing decision. In that I tend to agree. There is such a thing as too much cool, pretty much like everything else.