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I’m interested in how we derive the meaning of the rules, which seems to be the point of YMTC after all. In deriving meaning, we have three sources – author, text, reader.

Author is what the original author of a text was trying to convey. This is RAI, or rules as intended. (not Rules as Interpreted as some would say, because everything is Rules as Interpreted).

Text is what the text simply says. RAW.

Reader is what the text is normally taken as saying by those who read it. RAP.

On YMTC, there seems to be three types of threads. The first could most readily be described as a clarification / inquiry – these are the three-post threads for someone who was unsure of a rule or didn’t even have the rulebook. There are also the “work-it-out” threads, where a very confusing interaction of the rules receives genuine input from the community, and it is worked out by a judicious application of logic and rules. These generally are one time issues – a random game posited a problem that will probably not happen again soon.

And then there are the RAI vs RAW debates – whether DoM gets an invulnerable, whether the Mawloc can have its initial DS on top of an unit, whether Calgar gets a bonus attack, etc. These are the 10 page threads that tend to be locked.

So perhaps we should discuss the RAW vs RAI vs RAP debate in a setting that’s not based on a specific rule, and in a setting that’s hopefully intelligent?

I’ll take the first stab. I lean on the RAW side of RAI. I still think 100% RAW is not going to be the best way to play the game, but I think we need to honor that where we can. Some things do seem to be clear, just poorly written.

What about you? Where should we fall on that spectrum, and why?

Text is what the text simply says. RAW.

I only wish it was simple.)

Ironically, I've never seen a definition of RAW, it means different things to different people. Sometimes it's logic based, by someone that obviously understands logic systems, either from philosophy or mathematics. Sometimes people just say "logically", and then don't really have a logical arguement. Other times we ar parsing words, constructing arguements like we are Perry Mason, or just yelling the same thing over and over in the attempt to outshout the next guy.

My wish would be that the author of the rules was attempting to write the rules logically, and that what they put down on paper is actually how they envisioned the game being played. Sadly, that seems sometimes to not be the case, and makes the job of the people trying to play the game much tougher.

And even if we knew for certain that the writer knew what he wanted to write, and did so in a logical manner, and we had a logical system to apply to interpreting rules by RAW, it still could fail because not all the people on the forum have a knowledge of logic.

But I do wish things were simple. I'd get more time to play.)

Here is a new term I have coined:

RAIWTTB - Rules As I Want Them To Be



Sad but very true.

G

True, and of little help to a discussion on the way things should be.

In a rules discussion, I lean towards RAW over RAI for the simple reason that we generally have no way of knowing what was intended.

Although having established what the rules actually say (whether or not everyone agrees on a single meaning for that particular chunk of RAW) I'm more than happy to discuss how people actually play it.

For playing the game, it really varies. I go for a mix of RAW and what I think makes sense.


Given the lack of clarity in GW's rules, it would be great to be able to establish RAI for rules issues. But not always useful, given that GW themselves will sometimes rule in favour of RAW, sometimes in favour of RAI, and sometimes go for a completely different interpretation and change a rule for no apparent reason.

I usually lean towards RAI, but only if its very clear if what the intention was, if the intention is unclear and the rule is badly written i would definately go with RAW.

Such as the mawlocs rule, although i think i should be able to DS onto models, the RAW state that it must be at least 1" away and since the rule is badly written i agree with this ruling.

As i said i love RAI, but only if its completely clear what was intended because sometimes, we can never know.

No offense intended to the OP, but the question "what should we do?" is moderately amusing to me. I firmly believe that there is no "one way" to deal with the myriad of wacky rules issues that arise in 40K.

For instance: both sides of the dreaded 'Deff Rolla' debate would swear on a stack of Bibles that THEY (and they alone) are arguing strict RAW. The problem is: both sides are right, while, at the same time both sides are very possibly wrong.

Strict RAW interpretations depend wholly upon the premise that the writer used each word with specific and exacting intent. If this is not true, then RAW is not really any more accurate than RAI - simply because the author paid less attention to technical writing than the people interpreting it.

I'd like to think that we can all agree that GW's design studio does not write rules in a manner that is designed for finite analysis. They do not write in a technical sense - as a matter of fact, they often write with what seems like a fiction writers flair; more intent on grabbing your imagination than on allowing for a super-literal interpretation of the words or phrases. This is not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion - it just makes a constant RAW position less than tenable.

The other primary concept - an possibly the most important one - of the RAW camp is quite simple: without knowing intent (and we really can't know what intent is), we must adhere to RAW, since it is the only hard evidence we have as to how a rule/situation should be played. But, assuming what I stated above about technical writing (or lack thereof) is even close to accurate, this is slippery ground and can lead to some truly idiotic situations.

That stated: as a default, I begin at strict RAW (no laughing, Bill!) But I'm not afraid to add a helping of common sense and perceived intent when a RAW interpretation is less-than-clear, or if the RAW seems to act in opposition to an existing precedent.

So, in the end, I say we take up a collection and help GW add a technical editor to the staff.

Without one, the 'flame war' rules arguements and these RAW vs. RAI vs RAP debates will have to continue in perpetuity ...

Be well,
Dave

Perhaps it would be good if they would publish a biannual edition of "Our Rules Explained", based on them creeping around forums like dakka to get an idea of the misinformation.

Nightwatch wrote:Perhaps it would be good if they would publish a biannual edition of "Our Rules Explained", based on them creeping around forums like dakka to get an idea of the misinformation.

Say what you want about Andy Chambers, at least he did his best to police the rules. His 'Chapter Approved' Eratta and FAQ articles helped put some of the stupid debates to rest.

RAP can be used as a precedent to argue against blurry RAW situations, such as GWAR did in a thread questioning whether Valkyries can outflank with troops on board.

Sorry to be redundant, but stupid debates are stupid.

If you are playing friendly decide amongst yourselves like civilised people. If you can't decide, roll off.

If it is more important, i.e at a tournament, somebody impartial should be making the calls anyway.

I think I follow your point. You are asking about a methodology by which interpretations are made. This could easily be a discussion about the Judicial Branch, supreme court decision process, or whether you are liberal or conservative... lol, but hopefully we can avoid that segway.

I think the question is valid for a committee or counsel of members interpreting rules for the benefit of all. Example, principles the INAT faq counsel uses before applying changes to rules or interpretations / clarifications to rules.

At least, that's how I see the point to your post when you say, "...how we derive the meaning of the rules..."

So I see this as conservative vs. liberal... or perhaps progressive is a better term.

- I see a conservative approach to rules interpretation as a commitment to change as little as possible and apply meaning based upon text as written litterally as a principal unless that simply made no sense. A general reluctance to change unless expressly stated would be commonplace. The fluff and a models point cost would have little weight in the final decision. Impact on existing rules would have a larger impact. Precident would be a factor, though not heavily weighted.

- I see a progressive approach to rules interpretation reading the text and then applying considerations for outside influences with significant weight to the final interpretation. Outside influcences would include the fluff, precident, previous versions of the rules, how fair the model is before / after the interpretation, etc.. then make a ruling based upon how you believe it was meant to be intended if the text doesn't quite match.

Neither of these is necessarily wrong or right in all cases... however, if you generally apply the latter 'progressive' in the majority of your interpretations, you may find that over time, the game turns into something very different from what others play. If you generally take the conservative approach as a primary position, then you may find less suprises when you travel to game with others.

To other posters points, it may be wishful thinking to organize a public forum of posters into a common train of thought or perspective when approaching rules interpretation discussions. Different skillsets, competency, technical understandings of the rules, and methodology to rules interpretations are only some of the differences at play in a public forum. However, I would like to think that any organized body of individuals (such as the INAT group) to have such guiding principles in place, and hopefully enforced in audit and quality control before publication... but you can only expect so much from volunteers and a hobby game.

Interesting topic,

Tac

Part of the problem is ignorance. The rules as intended are stated by the rules as they are written, so the whole RAI vs RAW is a false dichotomy brought about by ignorance, namely ignorance about how language works to express systems of rules such as those of Warhammer 40k.

Another part of the problem is that people think that the rules should be a machine-code that they can mindlessly implement, and then wonder why it's so buggy.

The text of the rules expresses some intended system of logic, or set of rules, and maps it onto a model or semantics. Of course, the problems of doing so with an ordinary or natural language was recognized several centuries ago and formal languages, the precursors to formal programming languages, were invented so that mathematics could be more clearly expressed and understood.

Nonetheless, the problems of expressing the rules of Warhammer 40k should not be the same as those of mathematics. Some mathematicians, for example, are Platonists and believe that their mathematics merely describes transcendent entities, rather than being an interesting set of notational rules. They believe in these transcendent entities because you're unlikely to trip over a triangle, for example. Sure, you can trip over many a triangular object, but an actual triangle doesn't exist. Not so in Warhammer 40k where the rules describe the interactions of real things: players, models, tables, rulers, and so on. Warhammer, unlike formal mathematics, has the advantage of having a particular semantics that makes some statements about its rules true, and others false.

Again, the problem is ignorance: not only do people rarely have an idea of how to figure out which statements are true and which are false, but they rarely have an idea that they don't actually know how to figure out which statements are true and which are false. Many posters have adopted the pernicious and extremely stupid doctrine of epistemological solipsism, which is basically "I'm a smart cookie, so if I don't understand you, then you're wrong."

What exacerbates this is the lack of ability to connect the dots. You see it in the INAT FAQ, and you see it in YMDC: People have an opinion, but when pressed on the matter cannot connect the dots between their premises and their conclusion, between their evidence and their premises, and between the game's logic and the logic they're employing, as though it was their own opinion at stake, rather than whether their opinion matched up to the reality of the matter.

So rather than Rules as Written and Rule as Intended, you get those who believe that the rules are intended to be read and applied literally, like computer code, and those who (correctly, ed.) believe that the text indicates a particular logical structure which must be both extracted from the text, filled in by the elements of the game we actually play, and expanded by means of valid inferences to cover that entire game. In addition you get people that believe the rules must interpreted as though written in a technical manner, and somehow lack sufficiently defined terms, and are somehow impenetrably vague, as if their basic reading comprehension had somehow fled from them in the process of sniffing all that glue. Finally you get the people who believe that the rules mean how they play the game, rather than how everyone should play the game - that the rules describe how they play, rather than recommending how everyone can play.

It's arrogance and laziness then, that are the true enemies. Arrogance about our own abilities and intelligence, that what's clear or obvious to us should be clear to other people, and conversely that anything that isn't immediately clear and obvious to us must be wrong and therefore requires no effort on our own part to understand it. Those who are in the wrong have no interest in being corrected, those in the right have no interest in teaching them the basics of reading comprehension, critical thinking, and logic, and those in the middle just want the answers without the cost of having to understand them.

Nurglitch wrote:The rules as intended are stated by the rules as they are written,

Except where they accidentally wrote the rules differently to how they intended them to work. Inquisitors and Assassins, to bring up my over-used example as the most memorable case of this.

Another part of the problem is that people think that the rules should be a machine-code that they can mindlessly implement, and then wonder why it's so buggy.

A perception brought about by the fact that so many other games do have much more structured rulesets that can be directly interpreted in that way.

Avalon Hill rules used to read like legal documents.

It made them pretty difficult to read which is why GW have gone the other way and made their rules like inspiring fiction containing some hints at playing a game. (I exaggerate...)

GW could help themselves a lot by simple things like establishing a hierarchy if it exists, listing a full index and contents, always referring to rules terms consistently (blast template vs blast marker for example.) It has all been said many times before.

I have never found GW rules hard to understand but that is just lonesome old me apparently.



G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Here is a new term I have coined:

RAIWTTB - Rules As I Want Them To Be

Sad but very true.

G

These are the best...

OP - "If you take this sentence fro BRB, add three words from this codex, add the stuff in brackets from this 4th ed codex, all of a sudden, Eldrad can cast Mind War twice everyturn!"

Everyone else - wtf? no.

5 pages later.

OP - "I've made my argument and haven't seen anything that defeats it"

You can usually see stupid in someone's post when they say something like "clearly" or "obviously" or "I don't see why" or my favourite "it doesn't say that".

Kilkrazy wrote:Avalon Hill rules used to read like legal documents.

It made them pretty difficult to read which is why GW have gone the other way and made their rules like inspiring fiction containing some hints at playing a game. (I exaggerate...)

It is possible to find a happy middle ground, though.

Star Wars Miniatures And D&D minis (both used more or less the same ruleset) used easy-to-read rulebooks that followed the CCG style of using defined keywords. That meant that the overall style of the rules writing didn't have to be overly lawyeristic, but you knew that when a rule uses a given word, it has a set meaning that is applied. And when a rule is referenced, it is used exactly as written.

mikhaila wrote:

Ironically, I've never seen a definition of RAW, it means different things to different people. Sometimes it's logic based, by someone that obviously understands logic systems, either from philosophy or mathematics.

Oh how i wish more people had these skills.

Green Blow Fly wrote:I have never found GW rules hard to understand but that is just lonesome old me apparently.



G

nah. yer not alone. I do however get annoyed when transport debarkations or exact charge distances get nudged here and there. Those rules like 'Don't play like a jerk' were sadly forgotten, and often over-exploited by the people that like to quote rules for everything that matters to them, but ignore it if it's questionable.

My Shuriken catapult shoots so far, so hard, and costs so much. And my guy moves this far. What becomes confusing is the stackable rules, where you have someone blatantly taking advantage of slight oversights in the phrasing that can then be extrapolated into a logical 'win' by cross referrencing different books by different authors written at different times.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nurglitch wrote:You can usually see stupid in someone's post when they say something like "clearly" or "obviously" or "I don't see why" or my favourite "it doesn't say that".

and you said it all!

Guitardian wrote:

nah. yer not alone. I do however get annoyed when transport debarkations or exact charge distances get nudged here and there. Those rules like 'Don't play like a jerk' were sadly forgotten, and often over-exploited by the people that like to quote rules for everything that matters to them, but ignore it if it's questionable.

My Shuriken catapult shoots so far, so hard, and costs so much. And my guy moves this far. What becomes confusing is the stackable rules, where you have someone blatantly taking advantage of slight oversights in the phrasing that can then be extrapolated into a logical 'win' by cross referrencing different books by different authors written at different times.

Examples?

Because when I actually run into people with a similar sentiment to this in-game, they don't know the rules nearly as well as they think they do, are playing some mix of 4th ed + 5th ed rules, and are the first ones to throw out the words 'cheesy', 'beardy', and 'WAAC'.

A good example is an issue that came up a couple years back, where suddenly Eldrad got nixxed on his shooting phase psychic power just because a new Chaos codex came out that explicitely allowed Ahriman to do so, because they added it to the codex, therefore, by omission I guess Eldrad cannot because his book came out earlier, and as soon as one comes out that specifies, he becomes nixed because his codex didn't specify?

Guitardian wrote:A good example is an issue that came up a couple years back, where suddenly Eldrad got nixxed on his shooting phase psychic power just because a new Chaos codex came out that explicitely allowed Ahriman to do so, because they added it to the codex, therefore, by omission I guess Eldrad cannot because his book came out earlier, and as soon as one comes out that specifies, he becomes nixed because his codex didn't specify?

Not really sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying that you had assumed Eldrad could cast more than one Psychic Shooting Attack in a turn, but that opponents said otherwise once the Chaos Codex was released?

If so, your opponent were correct, but not just because of the Chaos Codex.

No. He could use a psychic power instead of shooting, and extra 2 powers a turn. That isn't very specific. Ahriman came along and they cleared that up in his book, which meant that Eldrad could no longer use 2 in shooting phase, only because it said specifically that ahriman could. codex creep, man.

Guitardian wrote:... which meant that Eldrad could no longer use 2 in shooting phase, only because it said specifically that ahriman could

Ahriman's entry is completely irrelevant. Eldrad never could use 2 psychic shooting attacks, because his rules never said he could.

An ability that enables him to cast more powers per turn does not over-ride the usual restriction on psychic shooting attacks. Eldrad can cast 3 powers in a turn, one of which can be a psychic shooting attack. For him to be able to cast more psychic shooting attacks, his rules would have had to specifically say so.

While the Chaos codex may have been the proof of this for the group you game with, that simply means you were playing it wrong to begin with, not that the Chaos codex suddenly nerfed Eldrad.

All of which is completely irrelevant to the thread at hand, other than to serve as a perfect example of how rules that are perfectly clear to one person may seem completely different to someone else...

other than to serve as a perfect example of how rules that are perfectly clear to one person may seem completely different to someone else

Yep. Pretty much exactly what I expect when people start touting the 'rules are perfectly clear' line.

All you can really hope to do is come to a majority consensus with your local group, and find out as early as possible what a tournament you want to go to allows and adapt to that.

Some of the RAW arguments I can see as reasonable, like the Deff Rolla.

Some of them however seem slightly ridiculous to me, although I'm sure they don't to their proponents, like that a Mawloc's main ability can only happen on accident, or that the DoM has an entry in it's profile that does nothing for it.

Evidence shows that trying to reach a consensus on forums like this just doesn't happen, it has to either come from GW, majority consensus in the local group, or a third party FAQ used widely by tourneys.

sourclams wrote:

other than to serve as a perfect example of how rules that are perfectly clear to one person may seem completely different to someone else

Yep. Pretty much exactly what I expect when people start touting the 'rules are perfectly clear' line.

Some rules are very clear, like move, shoot, assault. I find it mostly difficult when all the complexities of codex specialties start to warp things, usually in the form of specialty characters or elite stuff with their own special rules. 10 guardsmen with lasguns is not a problem, or 30 orks with choppas and sluggas, or etc. Throw in Captain shrike flanking with a squad of termies and things start to get messy. I imagine the more 5th ed. codex come out, the more complex the arguements will become, since some unfortunate armies are stuck with outdated rules wording, while others actually play into 5th in their terminology (nids!? swolves?! guard!? all of whom are almost abusively powerful compared to their prior codex.)

wording isn't everything, but it does give whoever has the most recent book a rules-lawyer advantage.

yeah,
It's very common that RAW=RAI=RAP

And when a rule is unclear In my experiance RAI = RAP

I've never played anyone who uses a LoopHole/BaddlyWorded rule...

@GreenBlowFly RAIWTTB is genius! acronym asimilated.
DeffRolla being a prime example, I find that it's the ork players who want the DeffRolla to kill tanks.

Panic...