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The term "rules lawyer" gets tossed around a lot. A lot of the time, it seems to get used for someone who wants to play by RAW. Sometimes it is used for someone who wants to manipulate the syntax of a rule to gain some minor (or major) advantage that is fairly clearly not intended by the rules. A lot of times a person is accused of being a rules lawyer in a debate of ambiguous RAW simply if they disagree with another poster. Sometimes a person is even accused of being a rules lawyer if they simply want to look up rules during a game.

In my mind a "rules lawyer" is closer to the second type of person described. If you seek to read the rules in a way that gives you an advantage not intended by the rules, it is analogous to a lawyer attempting to win a case with a technicality. This most often happens in situations with ambiguous RAW (although sometimes it's quite clear), but it only counts as rules lawyering if the RAI is quite well defined despite somewhat fuzzy wording.

GW rules are not written to stand up in a court of law, and therefore some leeway must be applied at all times.

So, what do you think a "rules lawyer" is?

i agree with you. the 2nd choice sounds more like it would be used often.

Option 2.

Someone who looks up rules during the game is just someone who wants to check what a rule is. Someone who wants to play by RAW is playing the rules as they are written, and you can hardly fault someone for that.

People who disagree with me are idiots, not rules lawyers.

Could not have said it any better myself H.B.M.C.

Option 2.

A lawyer attempts to further their case, regardless of what the best way for the law to be applied is.

A rules lawyer attempts to win the game, regardless of what the best way for the rules to be applied is.

I voted because I see someone as a rules lawyer if they constantly look up the rules, argue with people about the rules and do stuff like drop in on other peoples games and argue about the rules. I see a rules lawyer as someone who may mean well but they are making the game unfun because the game has rules and they feel like they need to be the end all be all of the rules. The worst is when this person doesn't actually know the rules.

Option 2 is just someone being a douche.

Rules lawyering is simply that -- looking for loopholes in the rules for an unintended (by the designer) advantage. The term's been out almost as long as Avalon Hill first started putting out the first wargames.

2 it is...

ZF-

My confidence in Dakka has been slightly restored thanks to the fact that no one has voted for option 1.

'Rules Lawyer' is about as clearly defined as a term can get, so there's no need for anything other than option 2, really.

Bookwrack wrote:'Rules Lawyer' is about as clearly defined as a term can get, so there's no need for anything other than option 2, really.

Then how come it gets bandied about for so many other things by forum users? It seems like any time a person feels passionately about their own rules interpretation, but doesn't have a logical argument to stand on, they accuse the other party of being a rules lawyer.

Because the ad hominem attack is the last (sometimes first, sometimes only) resort of the idiot. And this forum has its share, that's for sure...

H.B.M.C. wrote:Because the ad hominem attack is the last (sometimes first, sometimes only) resort of the idiot. And this forum has its share, that's for sure...

Yup, just that. I hate em, and have been forced to stop one game unfortunately when the berk I was playing against went too far... I'm laid back, but there are limits

I think the second option should be amended slightly to read:

"Someone who seeks unfair advantage through mis-parsing syntax/semantics."

Parsing the rules correctly cannot confer an unfair advantage, since that would be playing by the rules, and any advantage conferred by the rules is (by definition) fair.

[rant]
It's worth reiterating the fact that rules written in a natural language such as English consist of a syntax, a semantics, a set of terms, and a grammar. Rules lawyers seek to mis-parse, obfuscate, or otherwise attempt to bend or break the rules, typically through what I consider the application of "RAW" ("Rules as Written"), or ignoring the implicit parts of the rules such as syntax, sematics, and grammar. Other people consider RAW to include considering all parts of the text and not just the terms employed. I find this position to be incoherent considering that RAW is then considered to not be RAI (Rules as Intended) when text is written to convey intent. The irony being that I'm often accused of splitting hairs when the RAW/RAI is actual hair-splitting (creating a dichotomy where no actual dichotomy exists), rather than any serious disagreement between philosophies of language.

Moreover, rules lawyers shouldn't be confused with morons that simply have weak reading skills, leading them to draw the wrong conclusion about the meaning of a rule. Quite who these morons are is also a point of contention, because, while it should be a simple matter to determine the intent of a rule, somehow or other the actual process of doing so seems to be considered to be a form of black magic around these parts. Nonetheless distinguishing these two types of player can be difficult because Rules Lawyers want to win the argument, and morons don't want to lose the argument.

The problem, as I see it, is that when people sit down to discuss the rules of the game, the discussion is usually treated as a form of competition or as a debate whereby one wins by showing one's own position to be true and the other's position to be false. I say 'usually' because, as I said, the actual process of hashing out what rules say is considered black magic around here. Instead, constructive criticism is construed as rudeness, people attempt to discuss technical matters in a colloquial tone, and personal attacks are de rigueur.

Even worse, certain opinions about the rules and how people should go about interpreting them are taken as gospel truth, to whit that GW writes vague and confusing rules, that interpretation is either RAW or RAI, that rules are a matter of "trumps", that truth is a matter of consensus, and that putting a serious effort into reading rules correctly is ridiculous (in a hobby devoted to painting hundreds of tiny toy soldiers...).

Rules Lawyers exploits all these things (and more), beyond misconstruing the rules themselves, much like a real lawyer uses rhetoric in a court-room to defend or attack the accused.
[/rant]

willydstyle wrote:

Bookwrack wrote:'Rules Lawyer' is about as clearly defined as a term can get, so there's no need for anything other than option 2, really.

Then how come it gets bandied about for so many other things by forum users? It seems like any time a person feels passionately about their own rules interpretation, but doesn't have a logical argument to stand on, they accuse the other party of being a rules lawyer.

Because they're using it wrong. The same way people who go, 'I hate RAW and never play by RAW, RAW is so stupid and anyone who tries to use RAW in a rules argument is a douche,' are using RAW wrong.

Then how come it gets bandied about for so many other things by forum users?

I find its an easy way for people to vent, if you try to call them on a rule that they are breaking intentionally or even unintentionally than they can often be called rules lawyers. I have been called this quite a few times simply because the group that I play with the most does not like to play strictly by the rules. Some things I have no problem with, like forgetting to shoot units, or assaulting a unit and then doing the combat phase for it before declaring other assualts. Others are just plain annoying, like people who insist on playing until all the models are dead even though the turn limit is up and I have to leave anyways. (Or one guy who tried to say that he could ride his models on his tanks as well as have another unit inside them....) Thats what I don't like. And if I think a rule is wrong I generally continue playing and look up the rule during his movement phase. If I find it and its wrong then I call him on it and we play from their with that rule. But a lot of people don't like it when you do that.

And by no means do I think I am perfect, my latest mistake was thinking because guess/ordanance weapons get cover saves based on location all blast weapons get the same. Once somone pointed out my mistake I apologized and continued on with that rule.

I despise rule lawyers beyond all reason, I believe them to be complete D-bags and will not play with someone who is like that

LOL I think its rather clear from this poll.

Whats the worst rule wording you have seen? Mine would have to be that the Drop Pods pods stayed closed and blocked LOS and that terms do not have term armour. Which I mean is kind of just slowed but whatever.

I put "Other", because a rules lawyer to me is someone you can trust who knows the rules without having to read every page of a rule book. Sort of like two sons going to their father to resolve a disagreement, I think.

I do hate lawyers though.

I would go to a much simpler definition:

"Someone who uses/looks up/expands the rules to a point where they are not constructive to gameplay, but degrading to it."

Typeline wrote:I voted because I see someone as a rules lawyer if they constantly look up the rules, argue with people about the rules and do stuff like drop in on other peoples games and argue about the rules. I see a rules lawyer as someone who may mean well but they are making the game unfun because the game has rules and they feel like they need to be the end all be all of the rules. The worst is when this person doesn't actually know the rules.

Option 2 is just someone being a douche.

sounds like option 2 and your (rules lawyer definition) are one in the same.

H.B.M.C. wrote:My confidence in Dakka has been slightly restored thanks to the fact that no one has voted for option 1.

Keep holding your breath, people are still voting


//Edge

Mostly option 2, but sometimes drifting into RAW in some extreme cases. One I can think of would be "Terminators don't have terminator armor because it's not listed in their equipment". While technically true and RAW it's an obvious oversight and anyone who actually tried to use this in game would be a rules lawyer in my book, as well as TFG.