What You Guys Need Is A Lawyer!

When The Issue Is Plausibility Yarnn raised the plate to his face and sniffed appreciatively of the rich aromas erupting from the steaming dragon steak. "Ahhhh" he murmured happily. Knife in hand he dived into the meal, shovelling huge lump of meat after huge lump of meat into his mouth with barely a pause in between. "You're fucking disgusting!" snapped Merron as he picked delicately at his own steak. "Nothing wrong with likin----" Yarnn's attempt to both eat and talk ended with a large lump of meat lodged in his windpipe. He began to make deep choking noises and was motioning awkwardly with his arms. Eventually, some thirty seconds later, his colleagues realised that he was dying not laughing. While Jaccotan rifled through Yarnn's pack, Merron began raining blows onto his broad shoulders, trying to dislodge the fragment. Meanwhile, beside them, Parlan leaned back on his bedding lost in thought. As Yarnn and Merron assumed what looked like a homosexual love position, but was presumably an attempt at the Manoeuvre of Heimlich, he muttered to no-one in particular: "Since when do adventurers choke to death on a piece of steak? I mean how plausible is that?" The above example describes a much more challenging rules lawyering problem. Sure, you can stick to the easy scenarios where the GM has made a definite mistake in his understanding of the rules, but these situations are generally rare (unless you are lucky enough to have a truly shit GM). Much more likely are situations where a character's life depends on an interpretation of the rules, or even a judgment on the probability of an event. To be a truly great rules lawyer you must learn to manipulate these more fluid situations to your advantage.

How do I do that then? Back... Page 2 of 6 Copyright � 1999 Critical Miss Gaming Society