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Historically, for me, a Rules Lawyer was someone who typically knew the rules very well and staunchly insisted that everything be done by RAW. Further, they would argue that varying interpretations or ambiguities be handled based on how they interpret it. Notoriously these people would pedantically correct everyone and slow down the flow of the game.

Similarly, Rule of Cool, use to mean occasionally allowing something to happen for the sake of a cool scene or character moment, even if not allowed or within the rules.

Now, if I see game advertisements like, "We play by Rule of Cool, no Rules Lawyers;" I am coming to find what they are actually saying is, "Our group has a poor grasp of the rules, we aren't bothering to learn them; and don't disagree when our arbitrary, whimsical, and ever-changing 'homebrew' has adverse effects on your character."

I didn't know if this is a growing phenomenon or I just had some bad luck.

Edit 1: I was not the person accused of being the Rules Lawyer by these groups.

Edit 2: Since there were some request for context.

Situation 1: A player was playing PF1e. The player made a single diagonal move on the grid. Then a group member and the GM said, "You cannot do that, you don't have enough movement to move 10ft." (Which is hypocritical for a group claiming they don't like Rules Lawyers). The player said, "The first diagonal is only 5 feet." Then the established group mobbed the player saying he was a Rules Lawyer and that isn't the way they play. The group didn't know the rules, and jumped all over the player for correcting their error, while they were trying to correct that player, erroneously as per RAW. Then the group chimed in invoking Rule of Cool, which in their terms, seemed to mean whatever arbitrary decision the GM made was better than just reading the book.

Situation 2: Also, PF1e. A player cast a spell that was not subject to Spell Resistance. The GM said, "Roll to break Spell Resistance." The player, very normally, said, "This spell is not subject to Spell Resistance." The GM said "I think Spell Resistance should apply to any spell, or else what's the point." Then, once again, all the established players chimed in supporting the GM's off-the-cuff ruling and accusing the person of being a Rules Lawyer and power gaming, further adding that they play by the Rule of Cool, which made no sense based on my understanding of Rule of Cool.

I am not here to argue in favor of one side or the other. I posted this to just see if those terms may have morphed to mean something different than what I understood them to be for a long time.

I have been planning a Legends in the Mist campaign for the last couple of weeks. The whole idea was that death as a concept was literally dying, with my plan for it being a darkest dungeon-style dark fantasy, mildly eldritch horror campaign.

The issue is that, before even session 0, my players have all collectively decided to be part of the same mafia. While the idea isn't exactly bad, they didn't even give me a chance to explain the setting, basic premise, or the themes I was going for this campaign. They have told me in the past that they typically preferred more fantasy-oriented campaigns, so I planned for that, not for a mafia thriller, which I was only told they were doing literally yesterday.

It feels like they have just told me what campaign to run for them, and while a mafia-inspired campaign wouldn't necessarily be bad, it just isn't what I planned at all. Would I be in the wrong for shutting this idea down? They seem weirdly dead set on this idea despite the fact that I was never given a chance to even explain anything yet.

I'm in a sort of enviable position where my RPG group is on board to learn just about any system so we can stay together as a group with me as DM. We're just wrapping up a 4-year D&D 5e campaign, and I was suffering from pretty severe burnout, nearly to the point of wanting to drop RPGs indefinitely. However, I'm now in a much better space mentally, and we were able to wrap that campaign in a pretty satisfying way. My group loves playing and want to have me continue DMing, which I'm fine with, and they're down to learn any system I want. Narrative has always been my strong suit and what my group like most, and combat/encounter building are something I want to avoid for the time being. I've looked into a handful of games/systems like Wanderhome, PbtA, Cypher, etc., but I wanted to ask the community for opinions.

If you had complete freedom of choice to run a solely narrative (or at least just not focused on combat) RPG, what would you pick? Rules-light, super crunchy, grimdark, cozy, high fantasy, hard sci-fi; it's all on the table.

We've all seen this situation before. A player wants to leap over the mezzanine balustrade, swing from the chandelier, get the jump on Count Mangrod III and kick him into the fireplace before he is able to utter the Final Curse. Or perhaps you have a player that is arguing that they are technically keeping the sacred flame alight if they can catch an ember in a ball of fibre and put it in a tinder box. They saw it on youtube once. Its how neolithic people transported fire. It is usually clear that the GM needs to make a ruling. Whatever system you are playing, the rules aren't always going to help you.

Part of the complexity of both these situations is that there are many different ways the GM could resolve things. You could give the player multiple checks in the first example, you could identify risks in the second. You could disallow either stating it isn't the vibe of the game. You could allow either without any checks.

Whatever the case, it is important that the table is able to get on board with your decision. If players think you made the wrong call, the game might stop being fun.

I think it is really important to include players in the rulings process. This goes for all sorts of things: getting comfortable asking players what they think and being honest and open with players, respecting their creativity and reasoning skills.

GMing for me only actually started to feel fun when I took that pressure off myself to have all the answers. It is incredibly powerful to be able to say to your players: "What do you guys think?". Giving players that extra bit of power was such a revelation to me. They enjoy the game more and I enjoy the game more.

I use table consensus for other aspects of GMing as well. If I am struggling to invent details for a room, I ask the players for ideas. If I have an idea which seems a little implausible I will state it and check that the players understand and can believe it.

The wider point, I suppose, is that you can take a humanistic approach to GMing. Collaborate with the players. It makes for a much calmer and more inviting game.

Or gish/spellsword/mage knight

A bit of background: I've played RPG's with various gaming groups for decades, and most of the time I end up as the GM. I do a lot of improvisation and character voices in my games, and I can usually come up with a simple story and just let the players provide the input to fill in the gaps.

Fast forward to this weekend. I'm cleaning up some stuff and my daughter finds a pair of D20's and asks how they work. After showing her a few rolls, she wanted to "play" with them by each rolling and seeing whose was higher. I laughed and told her there were better ways to play with them.

So, after I finished tidying up, I grabbed the two dice and told her to follow me downstairs,. I said we're going to play a game where we make up a story and when it comes time for a choice, we'd roll the dice, and whoever got the higher roll would get their option.

My daughter absolutely loves The Smurfs, so I had decided to base the story in that setting: What villain was going to encounter the Smurf Village, which Smurfs would go on the adventure to solve the problem, and how they would deal with the villain were all determined by our dice rolls. I used my GM skills in improv to tell the story and I used as many voices as I could for each of the characters. In the end, the Smurfs ended up rescuing some of their friends from Gargamel's castle by luring the Ogre Big Mouth there with a blueberry pie. They then escaped using a magic catapult which flung them back to the Smurf Village after trapping Gargamel's cat Azreal in a broom closet.

Let me tell you, I have never had so much fun playing a game with my daughter as what we did today. She laughed at the funny outcomes, cheered at the results of the dice rolls, and we both had a blast. This was roleplay as I have always enjoyed it, and we're definitely going to try it again soon! Just figured I'd share, but I think this was a great first step in showing her some of the games I like to play!

My friend is trying to get me into the Infinity Wargame and I noticed that they had a TTRPG as well made or produced by Modiphius. I've had no experience with their games and the only thing I've heard about them was a negative review from one of my other friends so not really any well sourced argument.

I discovered this site on Twitter. https://tools.roleplaying.jp/tools/japanese_name_generator/

It generates random Japanese names based on actual name data. From my perspective as a Japanese person, the names it produces feel less like the common, everyday names you encounter frequently in real life, and more like the slightly unusual or rare names found in novels and anime. That might actually make them great for TTRPGs, though.

You can use this site with some translation tools. Enjoy!

I just wanted to know if anyone did, so I could know approximately long I’ll be waiting, as well as how people are having fun with the book itself compared to PDFs.

I’ve been wanting to explore the post apocalyptic genre, in particular the crazy/far out kind of vibe. In terms of games I like I tend towards more narrative games but I can sway to some crunch as well. Any suggestions are appreciated!

With One Page RPG Jam 2026 kicking off on Monday, thought I'd list down my favourite entries from previous iterations of the Jam.