How do you personally deal with rules debates?

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**Byte**

Davor wrote:
kingbobbito wrote:
I can say with reasonable certainty that I know all the rules.

Really? First off, I say you are FULL OF YOURSELF. Nobody and I MEAN NOBODY knows all the rules. You even said yourself you have "to look something up" and right there you don't know ALL THE RULES. Second off, why "is it a lost cause?" Sometimes I think people need to look in the mirror, so you are MR PERFECT, you one of the smartest people on the planet because you know 40K rules? Come on, this was a one time even no? You haven't said anyone else did this.

And WHO CARES, you lost a game. "waaaa I lost because he didn't know his rules." Like really? You needed to bring that up because you lost a game with plastic toy soldiers, it's irrelevant to what you are saying except your ego.

Now just in case you made a poor choice in words (Hell I do it all the time.) all you can do is keep doing what you do. I am coming back to 40K after 5th edition so I get the rules wrong a lot. So when I think someone made a mistake, I correct them, or they correct me. If you see someone who gets mad STOP right there, tell them "they win" and just pack up. Explain to them. "I see you are getting mad because I view the rules differently than you and so I don't upset you anymore, I will stop playing now. There is no reason to get mad and upset because someone has a differing opinion. Thank you for the game." If this person was actually a nice person, he would be asking why you think that. And then you can explain to him "in my opinion you have made a lot of mistakes and I corrected you with all of them, and I find you are not playing by the rules in the book. I like to play rules by the book, not how people think they should be." or something like that. Even what I said there can be offensive to a few people.

Let him be TFG, not yourself. Right now, not knowing you but going off what you said, you are a bit full of it. Are you sure you were not a bit condescending? Maybe he got "mad" because you gave a sort of arrogance about yourself? We are humans, we don't mind be corrected some of the time, but EVERY time, even if the person is wrong, doesn't mean you have to be right or correct.

Also don't forget you said, "he played for a long time" so it's natural for people to get editions wrong. Hell WE ALL DO IT. For me I can't understand how you can't comprehend this aspect. It actually boggles my mind lol. We are all human, we all make mistakes, and Yes that includes you as well.

Quote failure.

Actually he said
"but I can say I know about 98% of the stuff in the core rules"

Anywho, If I point out something isn't right and get resistance depending on the opponent I take a few approaches. A new player, take the time to clarify via rulebook. Stubborn player, try to point out the issue but essentially agree to play it their way(I will benefit usually as well). TFG, (rarely if ever have to deal with this, but have) well I become my own version of TFG and try to make it a note worthy experience for everyone.

I have to admit. Having played 5 editions of the rules, I do have rulebook creep up in my small head. As a result, I actually like playing new players that only ever known one edition. Its healthy!

**mrhappyface**

The solution is simple,
They make a mistake.
You correct them on their mistake.
They disagree with you.
You shout in front of the whole store: "ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR SIR!?"
They stubbornly say yes.
You slap him across the face with your gauntlet and challenge him to a duel.
Bring everyone who goes to the store to come see your duel.
Either you die in honour or kill the fool who challenged your endless wisdom on the world of warhammer.
Everyone in the store now both fears and respects your knowledge of the game.

This method has never failed me.

**oldravenman3025**

kingbobbito wrote:
I have, or rather had, three people that I regularly play. One moved to another state, one has started working opposite shifts to me, and one of them is taking a break from the game to get more painting done (bought a lot of new stuff). I'm trying to reach out to some of the other people that go to our store that I haven't played too much outside of a game or two, and I'm running into a new problem I haven't really encountered.

I can say with reasonable certainty that I know all the rules. There are things I have to occasionally look up if I don't see them often, but I can say I know about 98% of the stuff in the core rules, and about 2/3 of the various codex specific rules. The guys I play with also knew the game well, or would on rare occasion turn to my knowledge or check something in the book. These new guys I tried playing.... things are "different". This most recent game was frustrating.

I'm a very polite, friendly person. I try, when you make a rules mistake, to be nice about it. Sorry, you must be thinking of x, that unit can only do y. My guys have this, so they're allowed to do this thing. So on, so forth. If you still disagree, I quickly pop out the good ol' BRB and look it up. Takes maybe a minute to find and explain.

The guy I just played yesterday had no clue how the current set of rules work. I recognize some of it from previous editions, just found out another bit was from an old edition, and some of it just seemed to come from nowhere. What do you do when someone is so off when it comes to the rules? I started off correcting everything he was doing incorrectly, but by turn 2 I had opened the book nearly a dozen times. Scouting, infiltrate, vehicle movement, jink saves, morale checks, multiple barrage, LOS, psychic phase.... the list goes on. It's not that he didn't know the rule, it's that he thought they were very different to what they actually did. It eventually got to the point that he was mad at me and I was sick of opening the rules so I just gave in to whatever weird rulings he decided upon, ultimately losing me the game, literally. And no, not a new player, I see him playing his friends every 2 or 3 weeks, and he's been at the game a long time. It feels like he never even read the rulebook, just learned everything he knows from reading dakka forums.

Would you try to teach someone in this case, or is it a lost cause? I feel like even all the rules that I did show and explain were just "sure whatever" instead of "yes I understand". Sigh...................

The best way to handle this is the "old school" way: Game Master or Referee. And all agree that their calls are the last word in a game.

**Kap'n Krump**

kingbobbito wrote:

And yes, I feel he might be a lost cause. I'm fine with someone not knowing the rules, being new to the game or this edition, etc. But he doesn't want to know the correct rules. 7th has been out for what, 2 years now? He's been playing and discussing strategy with people for 2 years. Knowing how often he plays that's at least 50 games, which is more than I've had since 7th dropped. And in all that time he never learned that you have to infiltrate models 12/18" away? Or that vehicles can only snap fire if they move 12"? Both of which apply to models in his army. Example: he goes to set up his infiltrators 8" away from me. "Sorry, aren't those a bit close to my models? " I get out my tape measure, "yeah, you're only at 8" there, you'll need to be a bit further out". He asks what I mean, I tell him "oh, yeah, infiltrators need to be 12" away or 18 if I can see them". He asks where in the rules it says that. "I can show you if you don't mind", I open rulebook, turn to page, read it to him, he insists on reading it himself, then gives me an angry glare and says he's not going to infiltrate if that's how it works.

Yeah, with things like this you are 100%, absolutely in the right. I agree, these are basic rules concepts that are plainly listed in the rulebook. If my opponent kept making rules mistakes of this caliber, I'd absolutely continue to correct him. Definitely allow him the chance to mulligan, like with the infiltrators, but if he doesn't like playing the game by the rules, he probably should find another game to play. Though oldraven has a point, an independent 3rd party for quick rules confirmations is often quicker and easier, and helps dispel distrust.

If you were bickering about exactly what constitutes 25% obscuring a vehicle for cover saves, or trying to squeeze out a 1/100th of an inch when measuring distances, it would be one thing, but stating unambiguous rules corrections is quite another.

**Griddlelol**

I open the rule book and look it up.

**Huron black heart**

mrhappyface wrote:
The solution is simple,
They make a mistake.
You correct them on their mistake.
They disagree with you.
You shout in front of the whole store: "ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR SIR!?"
They stubbornly say yes.
You slap him across the face with your gauntlet and challenge him to a duel.
Bring everyone who goes to the store to come see your duel.
Either you die in honour or kill the fool who challenged your endless wisdom on the world of warhammer.
Everyone in the store now both fears and respects your knowledge of the game.

This method has never failed me.

I'd like to use this approach with a few of my local opponents.
My current method however is to agree on the common sense approach and look it up after the game, if the opponent is being a dick about it I'll let it go, then look it up after the game and tell them at a later date if they were wrong

**carldooley**

I usually don't have so many opponents that I can afford to turn one away over a rules dispute. Heck, I was introduced to the game by a guy that played guard and ignored AP because he wanted his little mans to get their armor saves.

Generally, when it comes to a rule that I know, I am willing to take a minute and show them the why of why they are wrong. If I am unable to find it, I generally prefer to go with the defensive choice over the offensive. For instance, if it didn't specifically say that saves are for wounds instead of shooting, I'd be willing to let people take cover saves against markerlights.

**Davor**

Huron black heart wrote:
I'd like to use this approach with a few of my local opponents.
My current method however is to agree on the common sense approach and look it up after the game, if the opponent is being a dick about it I'll let it go, then look it up after the game and tell them at a later date if they were wrong

That is what I do. That happened to me when I use to play in 5th edition. There was like 6 of us playing in a game. Someone wanted to go through a wall. the 5 of us said you can't. He said he could. We looked in the rules and couldn't find it so after 5 minutes of not being able to find the rule we agreed you can't do it. About a week after that, I found where the rule is that you can go through walls. I said "yes you were right but couldn't prove it. Don't get upset, since when playing a game, we need proof that something cans be done other wise everyone would be having strength 10 weapons with toughness 10 just because someone said so." He agreed and was nice about it.

Actually it happened to me a few weeks ago playing my first game again. I was casting a Tyranid power and we didn't know how long it lasted. So we agreed it lasted only the current turn. Didn't make sense since casting the power and me going second didn't effect him. When I got home I found out how it works and next time I saw him, I let him know the mistake we made.

I would say if the rules were better laid out, looking for rules would be done a lot faster instead of everything being scattered all over the place.

**NoiseMarine with Tinnitus**

As I responded in the other thread about sore losers - a Dreadsock.

**Glitcha**

Personally, look it up in the rule book or roll off.

**Commissar Terrence**

Try and find the rule, if not possible. We roll off

**solkan**

Never let the wookie win.

If the game gets to the point that some of the people have described, where the game is painful to even consider playing, or there have been too many rules problems, then kill the game and be done with it. "I'm sorry, but I think there have been too many rules issues for this game to continue in good faith. Would you like to continue from here as a discussion of the rules (as a learning game)?"

If there's a rules disagreement, even if it's not critical to strategy or something, I'm fine with redoing things or making retroactive corrections. The whole "If I'd known that, I would have moved these models over to there." "Okay, move that stuff over there. Did you want to make any other adjustments?"

**Nightlord1987**

Look up the rules if it's debatable, or just let things go till the next turn to fix it for stuff we've been playing wrong.

**Davor**

Nightlord1987 wrote:
Look up the rules if it's debatable, or just let things go till the next turn to fix it for stuff we've been playing wrong.

Problem is, you can't find the rules in a lot of cases. So after a minute if we can't find the rules, it's "roll off" to see what we do. Hasn't failed me yet. Went against me but at least we kept playing, no arguing and have fun.

**War Kitten**

mrhappyface wrote:
The solution is simple,
They make a mistake.
You correct them on their mistake.
They disagree with you.
You shout in front of the whole store: "ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR SIR!?"
They stubbornly say yes.
You slap him across the face with your gauntlet and challenge him to a duel.
Bring everyone who goes to the store to come see your duel.
Either you die in honour or kill the fool who challenged your endless wisdom on the world of warhammer.
Everyone in the store now both fears and respects your knowledge of the game.

This method has never failed me.

This made me laugh harder than it should have.

**Dantes_Baals**

Usually I just concede if it's trivial unless my opponent is obviously wrong, in which case I refer to the book and show him. Very few of my games are anything other than casual so I have literally never had this turn into an issue.

If it's something that can't simply be resolved by a "that's fine, works for me " or " here, check it out" I roll off. Evens or odds, or sometimes if it's a stretch 5+ yup, otherwise no dice. The "deal it it dice it" method has always worked for both tournament and casual settings. Now there is occasionally some discontent at RAW vs RAI but that has nil to do with how the questioned rule plays out.

**kingbobbito**

mrhappyface wrote:
The solution is simple,
They make a mistake.
You correct them on their mistake.
They disagree with you.
You shout in front of the whole store: "ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR SIR!?"
They stubbornly say yes.
You slap him across the face with your gauntlet and challenge him to a duel.
Bring everyone who goes to the store to come see your duel.
Either you die in honour or kill the fool who challenged your endless wisdom on the world of warhammer.
Everyone in the store now both fears and respects your knowledge of the game.

This method has never failed me.

This one just about killed me. Looks like pistols at dawn it is. While hand to hand combat is cooler I don't think scrawny guy versus obese guy would be very entertaining for the assembled crowd.

**Dioxalyn**

Me and a buddy used to just roll if we can't agree. But this turned into him just disagreeing for the chance we could roll for it and I wouldnt be able to do something completely legal.. Eventually I called him out and refused to continue playing until we figured out what the rule really meant. I dont care if we sit here for 30 minutes trying to figure out this rule, i'm not going to lose because you wrongly interpret the rules to disadvantage me.

It really depends on the atmosphere of the game, if we are having a great time, laughing, joking, talking smack then a simple rule look up and "i think its this" and "well i see it as this" then each of you decide which is simpler and more fun. But if the guy im playing is challenging everything I do or being a huge dick about everything or if they try to cheat intentionally then you just stepped into the thunderdome because I can and will argue rules for DAYS..

Winning isn't everything, but I get to play warhammer maybe once every two weeks so I'm not gonna waste my 1 day I get to hammer losing and not having fun because my opponent doesn't know how to play. (no problem teaching noobies or playing with noobs but you better put forth some effort into learning your models)

**MadMarkMagee**

I find there are two types of wargammers. People who are good sports wether they're winning and losing, easy going, are able to calmly lookup and negotiate and deal in a reasonable way any rules disputes that come up and know the rules or admit ignorance and learn em;. These are desirable opponents. Than their are people who are rubber rulers, will argue every rule even though its obvious they are wrong, will not admit they're wrong even when they are, take their game of winning at toy plastic soldiers far to seriously, get cranky when they lose and/or don't bother learning a ruleset. Don't be one of these people.

I try to avoid the second kind of person, though in social groups and in tournaments it is hard.

**Pouncey**

Generally my mom and I look it up in the book, and if it's a bit ambiguous, we look at the actual situation happening on the tabletop and try to imagine how it would actually happen if it were a real battle in the 40k universe instead of just a game with rules. Then after the gaming session I go look it up on DakkaDakka to see if it's being debated and what the general consensus is.

**deviantduck**

The examples the OP listed are pretty cut and dry. There wasn't any room for debate. If this is a regular gamer at your shop then someone needs to teach him the rules. As painful as it is to stop and look up the rules every five minutes, if he isn't taking your word for it, prove him wrong with GW's words. I had a similar situation and my opponent was getting annoyed with me, and I simply said, "Don't get annoyed with me. I didn't write the rules. I just read them."

To be fair, though, I enjoy pissing people off. So maybe I'm not the best opinion to take on this.

**Caedes**

Dart board. Monkey. Blindfold.

That's how GW does it, that's how the emprah likes it, and it's worked out pretty good so far.

**sfshilo**

Bare knuckle boxing.