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I have been recently been posting my thoughts on certain rules and the way they are interpreted, which led me to realise that in our multi cultural gaming society that many of the rules written depend solely on 2 things origin and context.

If you do not take into consideration the origin of text is it possible to understand it context.

I was taught that in the origin english grammer a paragraph was made up of a main idea and supported by following details that give the main idea context i.e.

"You can always enter a building via door A. Models can always enter the building via door A unless; the door is obstructed by an opponents model, the door is locked or door B is closer"

If I was then to post a quote from the above paragraph using just the first sentence it would be totally out of context.

Is this something you as gamers take into account when having rules discussions or is this irrelevant.

kranki wrote:
I have been recently been posting my thoughts on certain rules and the way they are interpreted, which led me to realise that in our multi cultural gaming society that many of the rules written depend solely on 2 things origin and context.

If you do not take into consideration the origin of text is it possible to understand it context.

I was taught that in the origin english grammer a paragraph was made up of a main idea and supported by following details that give the main idea context i.e.

"You can always enter a building via door A. Models can always enter the building via door A unless; the door is obstructed by an opponents model, the door is locked or door B is closer"

If I was then to post a quote from the above paragraph using just the first sentence it would be totally out of context.

Is this something you as gamers take into account when having rules discussions or is this irrelevant.

While your question is, ironically, worded oddly, when I am writing rules I normally dispense with the first sentence you have there. It is completely unnecessary. I consider that to be more along the lines of fluff and flavor, which I think should be clearly distinguished from the text of an actual rule.

"A model may always move through an unobstructed doorway. A doorway is considered to be obstructed if the model's base would have to cross an obstacle in order to pass through the doorway. Note that enemy models are always treated as obstacles unless otherwise noted in the rules (see Enemy Models and Movement, page X). A doorway with a closed door is not considered to be obstructed unless the door is locked, even if the model is able to unlock the door. Unless otherwise noted in the rules, unlocking a door requires an action, and therefore impedes movement (see Movement and Actions, page Y)."

That is the way I would write a rule, which is just my personal style. I feel that a less 'crunchy' topic sentence would be distracting and potentially confusing. Rules have to be interpreted to a certain extent, and you don't want to throw in competing wording.

Thank you for your input, I am not an expert in grammar or spelling by any stretch of the imagination. I am trying to understand why people tend to pick and choose sentences from paragraphs whilst ignoring the point of what a paragraph is. It was pointed out to me that it might be that different countries view the use of a paragraph in grammar differently.

One of my friends had what we called the "second paragraph" problem in that he would almost invariably fail to read successive paragraphs in RPG spell descriptions.

When it comes to rules, I think people 'pick and choose' for a variety of reasons. But if rules are written well, there really should not be any way to ignore the "point" of a paragraph. Writing rules is a bit different from other types of prose. You're talking about expository writing, which has a different character and structure than, say, a narrative or a rhetorical argument.

In my example rule, the paragraph has no topic sentence. It is a simpe rule followed by a few bits of further, not strictly necessary, explanation. "A model may always move through an unobstructed doorway." That's the rule.

The rest of the paragraph simply defines a new term used "obstructed," and collects a few bits of relevant information about how that rule interacts with other rules and addresses questions or circumstances that might commonly arise during play. Presumably, elsewhere the rules describe what an obstacle is, and elasewhere the rules would state that an enemy model is considered to be an obstacle. One could, for example, make an inference that a "doorway" is a doorway whether or not the door is open or closed. But one might also wonder whether a door is treated as an obstacle if it is closed. The obstacle rules might provide a handy answer for this, but rather than force the reader to infer, I helpfully included the explanation that a doorway is not considered to be obstructed unless a door is locked, and referenced other rules that would explain why this is the case, i.e. opening a lock is an action and a model is required to interrupt movement in order to perform an action.

I voted "Yes".

What you described as the context or origin of a rule, I think is what most people call "the spirit of the law" (as opposed to "the wording of the law").

When an issue comes up on this, it comes down to the distinction of Rules As Written vs. Rules As Intended. In your case, it seems like someone was deliberately taking a sentence of the rules in isolation, to spin it to their advantage.

I've seen this happen and it's always a buzzkill, people trying to win by "suing" for victory with some weird interpretation of the rules, rather than by strategy. That just takes away from the spirit of the game!

So I'm curious, did you see something that prompted you to post this poll? What happened, man? Sounds bad.