Why do people fetishize Magic Tea Party

[TiaC]

So, the correct response to a disagreement between two members of the audience is to ditch one of them. So apparently, game designers should only write games for personal use. I'm not sure how the hobby is supposed to bring in new players like that. A new DM cannot function in Zak's world.

[Fuchs]

I think that we've gotten our answer to why people fetishize rules-light games: they are too arrogant or lazy to learn a rules-heavy game.

Or they have, after 20 years of rules-heavy games, finally realized that most rules really do not add anything to their games. That's neither lazy nor arrogant. Zak is completely right that many rules are not worth the time to look them up. I noticed how a number of combat modifiers tended to get forgotten in our Shadowrun games, and it didn't affect the game at all.

[Fuchs]

Perfect summary.

If you cannot handle a monster attacking your character without suspecting the GM to have it out for you, then obviously there's some trust issues there that's far beyond the help a rule can give. No amount of rules will be able to solve that issue. If you cannot trust your GM to pick a target for his monsters without being an asshole to someone, then you need to pick a new GM or group. But that's between you and the GM/Group, not a fault of missing rules. You probably think he is watering down your soda too, or picking snack food you hate.

A minimum amount of trust needs to be there to play a game like D&D together. The examples brought up ehre often do not have that amount of trust.

I'm going to quote Fuchs' post in its entirety. Not because it makes any sense, but for posterity in case he deletes it later. Could he possibly have said anything that more thoroughly proved my point?

Keep in mind that were he to arbitrarily be taking the side of the player in that dispute, he would have said something like this:

If you cannot handle a player questioning your decisions without suspecting the player to have it out for you, then obviously there's some trust issues there that's far beyond the help a rule can give. No amount of rules will be able to solve that issue. If you cannot respond to player objections and requests without being an asshole to someone, then you need to pick new players or a new group. But that's between you and the Group, not a fault of missing rules. You probably think he is watering down your soda too, or picking snack food you hate.

A minimum amount of trust needs to be there to play a game like D&D together. The examples brought up ehre often do not have that amount of trust.

Because the fact is that any dispute has at least two sides. And Fuchs' claim that he can always instantaneously resolve all disputes by telling people to not be assholes is laughable on the face of it. Consensus is bullshit. People don't always agree. And usually, when two people don't agree there is at least some reason on both sides. Arguments where one person or the other is clearly wrong are rare. Arguments where one side is only arguing because they are "being an asshole" are rarer still.

Fuchs' reduction of all human disagreement to black and white "asshole vs. trust" is totally immature. And by "immature" I actually mean that it is literally medically classified as an "immature defense mechanism" called Splitting.

-Username17

The point you keep missing is that this is not about whether I sympathize with the GM or player. It goes for both. If I do not trust my GM or player not to be an asshole, then I have no business playing with him. I am not arguing that you can reduce all interaction to "be an asshole or don't be an asshole", I am saying that you shouldn't play games if you don't trust the other players. That is all with regards to "We need rules to keep the GM from being an asshole to us".

How to solve disputes at the gaming table where no one is being an asshole is another matter. But in such cases people usually easily come to a solution. (In our case, we usually just flip a coin or roll a die to decide if something is contested.)

[K]

I think that we've gotten our answer to why people fetishize rules-light games: they are too arrogant or lazy to learn a rules-heavy game.

Or they have, after 20 years of rules-heavy games, finally realized that most rules really do not add anything to their games. That's neither lazy nor arrogant. Zak is completely right that many rules are not worth the time to look them up. I noticed how a number of combat modifiers tended to get forgotten in our Shadowrun games, and it didn't affect the game at all.

If you are too lazy or arrogant to use or even look up the rules, then how do you know that they aren't worth it?

The answer: you can't.

Ignorance is the result of laziness or arrogance. You can dress is up as a conscious decision, but changing it to "willful ignorance" doesn't improve it any.

[MGuy]

I think that we've gotten our answer to why people fetishize rules-light games: they are too arrogant or lazy to learn a rules-heavy game.

Or they have, after 20 years of rules-heavy games, finally realized that most rules really do not add anything to their games. That's neither lazy nor arrogant. Zak is completely right that many rules are not worth the time to look them up. I noticed how a number of combat modifiers tended to get forgotten in our Shadowrun games, and it didn't affect the game at all.

How is that an 'or'? You just provided support for K's claim. Either you're too lazy to memorize/look up/use the rules or you feel you/your game are 'too good' for da rules. Perhaps a diminishing returns argument would've been better but here you just straight up say that you're lazy and imply that you/your games are 'too good' for DA RULEZ.

[Fuchs]

If you are too lazy or arrogant to use or even look up the rules, then how do you know that they aren't worth it?

The answer: you can't.

Ignorance is the result of laziness or arrogance. You can dress is up as a conscious decision, but changing it to "willful ignorance" doesn't improve it any.

Because I looked up minor rules for years. Rules I kept forgetting since they very rarely came up in the game. And then I started to not look them up, and simply decide a DC or modifier on the fly, and things went as before, just faster. And no one complained.

[Fuchs]

How is that an 'or'? You just provided support for K's claim. Either you're too lazy to memorize/look up/use the rules or you feel you/your game are 'too good' for da rules. Perhaps a diminishing returns argument would've been better but here you just straight up say that you're lazy and imply that you/your games are 'too good' for DA RULEZ.

No, it doesn't mean I am "too good for the rules". I means I simply don't need most of the usually quite minor rules. Time spent memorizing them would be better spent on something else since they do not add enough to the game to justify the effort to learn them all.

[NineInchNall]

Or they have, after 20 years of rules-heavy games, finally realized that most rules really do not add anything to their games. That's neither lazy nor arrogant. Zak is completely right that many rules are not worth the time to look them up. I noticed how a number of combat modifiers tended to get forgotten in our Shadowrun games, and it didn't affect the game at all.

I literally couldn't have contrived a better example of the strangeness of rules-light doublethink. And by strangeness I mean incoherence in the logical sense.

Not using a subset of a game's rules changes the game. It is impossible to change a game without affecting the game, since "to affect" is literally "to bring about change".

It's a bloody contradiction used to support a position. So the argument is essentially ex falso quodlibet.

[MGuy]

How is that an 'or'? You just provided support for K's claim. Either you're too lazy to memorize/look up/use the rules or you feel you/your game are 'too good' for da rules. Perhaps a diminishing returns argument would've been better but here you just straight up say that you're lazy and imply that you/your games are 'too good' for DA RULEZ.

No, it doesn't mean I am "too good for the rules". I means I simply don't need most of the usually quite minor rules. Time spent memorizing them would be better spent on something else since they do not add enough to the game to justify the effort to learn them all.

Then it just means you're too lazy. That's all. You ditching the rules is basically being a cheat (hoping your players don't notice) or you straight up told your players that you're effectively just substituting rules (that you could look up) with ass pulled numbers. You haven't even made a claim that you just made up a better rule just that you prefer to ass pull numbers.

[Cyberzombie]

Then it just means you're too lazy. That's all. You ditching the rules is basically being a cheat (hoping your players don't notice) or you straight up told your players that you're effectively just substituting rules (that you could look up) with ass pulled numbers. You haven't even made a claim that you just made up a better rule just that you prefer to ass pull numbers.

Maybe we should start a new thread about fetishism towards being a rules nazi. I realize that D&D is SERIOUS BUSINESS! but come on man. Nobody at the table even cared enough about the rule to learn it, so why does it even matter if you get it right?

Obviously no PC based any tactics around that rule because the entire table doesn't know what it is. At that point, it is superior to just make something up and get the game moving. The ruling that takes 2 seconds is superior to the ruling that takes 10 minutes, because that's 10 more minutes of fun gaming as opposed to 10 minutes of your life wasted on looking up something nobody gave a shit about in the first place.

If the majority of gamers didn't even bother to learn a rule, that should make the designers question if it's worth putting in the rulebook at all. There's a point where a game becomes needlessly complex.

[Kaelik]

Nobody at the table even cared enough about the rule to learn it, so why does it even matter if you get it right?

You are making a probably false assumption. Fuchs doesn't remember the rules, whatever. But I'll bet a lot of his players did. After all, he looked up the rules that he didn't remember, why did he do that? Because his players remembered it, and doing exactly what Fuchs says he does when players bring up rules or question his rulings (no seriously, just look at any thread about players bringing things up to the MC) he looked up the rule to tell them they are wrong, and then to tell them that his rule is better.

And eventually, they just decided that telling him about rules he doesn't remember isn't worth it anymore, and they stopped bringing them up.

[Zak S]

Alright Let's deal with Frank's Bullshit First

For starters, the Applejacks argument of "I like it, therefore it's good enough" is in fact a particularly weird form of the informal fallacy "argumentum ad populum." It's an invalid form of argument. Every person will like some things more and other things less, so whether something is on the white side or the black side of the line for you says nothing about whether it could be improved or not.

Nobody ever said rules-lite games were unimprovable.

Again: you just made that up.

Earlier you thought I was advocating no rules (despite running a blog full of rules and rules improvements for 4 years) now you're saying I want no improvements (despite running a blog full of rules and rules improvements for 4 years) and inaccurately evoked the Oberoni Fallacy (which is about the alleged harmlessness of bad rules rather than about the unrelated issue of the positive contribution of having some rules that are absent on purpose and left to be customized) .

Do not waste time arguing with these straw men of your own devising. No one can disagree with you, because nobody here holds these positions.

Here is what I'm saying:

Some improvements are universal (fix typos) but most of them move it in a direction--toward one audience and away from another. Be aware that you are doing that, and describe it. Don't pretend a solution is a panacea for all audiences, don't pretend a feature for some audiences is a universal bug.

As far as what the rest of FrankTrollman, Lord Mistborn, Zugschef, K and Cyberzombie are saying, it all seems to hinge on the following point:

Z: "How do you know rules-lite games always result in fights?"

Phonelobster: "I'm extrapolating from personal experience and...since my argument makes sense to me, I'm assuming it results in predictable events in the real world"

...which is pretty thin.

The reason Rules-Lite folks aren't listening to you is because your entire argument hinges on the inevitably of fights that they aren't getting into week after week after week after week.

That is: in the necessary not just commonness but universality of events that only occur in your own head that you have no proof of.

Deal with that issue.

You are not dealing with that issue and that's why you are having trouble convincing people.

You want to say people who can handle a rules-lite game without arguing are rare--then fine, say that, I won't argue with that--but there's no law or moral imperative saying you can't or shouldn't make a tool for a small audience.

Even if 9 out of 10 people get in fights without heavy rules, there's no reason at all someone in that 10% should not make a product for themselves and people like them.

So: if they don't exist--explain actual reality.
If you say they're a small minority-- so what?

You prefer the unicycle analogy to the training wheels analogy, ok: "unicycles are bad" is a stupid thing to say.

Like when Cyberzombie goes

"It's never a good idea to come up with that on the fly and be stuck with it for the rest of the game."

You're effectively saying to people "remember that campaign you played? That didn't happen. The game in my head happened."

You'll never convince anyone of anything that way.

Other stuff....

deaddmwalking

'This is bad and here's why' is at least as useful as 'this doesn't work for me and this is why'.

The first is confusing opinion for fact, the second is fact. The first is responsible for 90% of pointless monkey shitfights on the internet.

"Since Zak S has been very vague on what he actually plays, "

You could, y'know...ask.

I play a very simplified version of 3.5 that, after all the hacking, probably looks more like Castles and Crusades than anything else.

If you have specific questions.....ask.

Now..

Nineinchnail

Your examples concern interclass balance.

To put it simply: in many cases this is a thing rules-lite players intentionally want off.
As I said before:

The challenge is not "how do I build a PC that can win" it's "how can I win despite my crappy PC".

It is fun to find ways to make your 7th level thief steal the spotlight from the 10th level wizard.

However: if a GM builds a rule that proves to make things repetitive or dull two things can happen:

1.The group changes it and there's a fight
or
2.The group changes it and there isnt'

If 1--rules-lite gaming isn't for you
if 2--rules-lite gaming is for you

K

I mean, I've literally watched him be a dick to his players in his games for purely rules-related reasons, and I never thought he was trying to be a dick.

I'm sure you watched "I Hit It WithMy Axe" and took some part where the show was edited to make playing D&D look dramatic and conflict-filled like a reality show and, through the lens of avid confirmation bias, interpreted what you saw as "Zak being a dick". Suffice it to say: this is an illusion and nobody in real life thought that.

And we've all had years to talk about it and think about it and they still keep coming back week after week and are still excited about the game. This is all about as well-documented as anybody's D&D game in history.

However, if you are unconvinced feel free to ask me or the girls about the incident in question. We have played heavier games than that, with more rules--you can go ahead and ask them which they liked more--all their twitter info is on my blog.

If the only evidence that would support "games that aren't like mine MUST result in fights!" is seeing a fight, I'm sure you can see fights where there aren't any.

Now, TiaC

So apparently, game designers should only write games for personal use. I'm not sure how the hobby is supposed to bring in new players like that.

Then I will explain:

Write a game you'd like to play. Be clear, even about things you assume--explain things you already know, but do not include rules youyourself would not use. The thousands or tens of thousands of people who are like you or close enough to like you will play it. BING! Done. Lots of video games get written that way, works fine for them.

A new DM cannot function in Zak's world.

Again: you're just contradicting lived experience. You're saying things that occured (people learning to play D&D using, say, Red Box) never occurred.


Here's a radical solution to this problem which would solve everything:

Come play a game.

Come on Google + and show up and play rules-lite D&D with people who don't have any problems doing it and then watch and see if your gigantic conjecture about the outside world actually holds.

[silva]

Or they have, after 20 years of rules-heavy games, finally realized that most rules really do not add anything to their games. That's neither lazy nor arrogant. Zak is completely right that many rules are not worth the time to look them up. I noticed how a number of combat modifiers tended to get forgotten in our Shadowrun games, and it didn't affect the game at all.

This is so true I wanna give you a blowjob.

[NineInchNall]

Nineinchnail

Your examples concern interclass balance.

To put it simply: in many cases this is a thing rules-lite players intentionally want off.
As I said before:

The challenge is not "how do I build a PC that can win" it's "how can I win despite my crappy PC".

It is fun to find ways to make your 7th level thief steal the spotlight from the 10th level wizard.

However: if a GM builds a rule that proves to make things repetitive or dull two things can happen:

1.The group changes it and there's a fight
or
2.The group changes it and there isnt'

If 1--rules-lite gaming isn't for you
if 2--rules-lite gaming is for you

You completely missed the forest for the trees, and thus you did not in any way respond meaningfully to my post. I wrote about typical intuitions regarding fairness, in particular which things are generally perceived as fair or unfair. I understand how your methodology works; it's not complex. What I don't understand is how the normal intuitions are defeated.

EDIT: I don't hold this against you. You are, after all, responding to multiple interlocutors.

[Cyberzombie]

You are making a probably false assumption. Fuchs doesn't remember the rules, whatever. But I'll bet a lot of his players did. After all, he looked up the rules that he didn't remember, why did he do that? Because his players remembered it, and doing exactly what Fuchs says he does when players bring up rules or question his rulings (no seriously, just look at any thread about players bringing things up to the MC) he looked up the rule to tell them they are wrong, and then to tell them that his rule is better.

Neither of us really know what his players are thinking. Not knowing them personally, all I can go on is what he says about them enjoying the game.

Using anecdotal evidence from my own experience I've seen quite a few groups which are absolutely fine with the DM just pulling modifiers out of his ass. In our current group we pretty much play by the rule that if nobody actually knows the modifier, then it's fine if the DM just makes something up to keep things moving.

The conversation goes something like this.

DM: "Anyone know what happens when you swing a sword underwater?"
*Nobody in the group answers.*
DM: "Okay, I'm going to say that non-piercing weapons do half damage and take a -2 to attack rolls."

And everyone is cool with not spending 5-10 minutes flipping through pages looking for some obscure modifier.

Most of my groups played by the rules Nazi philosophy at one point. After a while of playing we looked back and estimated the amount of time wasted on looking up trivial rules, and we concluded that the wasted time wasn't worth the benefit. It didn't add any fun to the game, it was just slow and annoying. So eventually most of the groups agreed to fudge the rules a bit more in the name of faster play. I've yet to have a group that was unhappy with the change to a faster, yet less precise style. People are paying more attention and not drifting off as much, everyone seems more excited, it's just altogether a better gaming experience.

[PhoneLobster]

Again: you're just contradicting lived experience.

Or in other words your deeply personal and badly perceived (and dishonestly represented) anecdotal evidence. Or in other other words because you say so.

Vs... entire fields of psychology, sociology and the entire history of actual RPG gaming with actual fucking rules.

Yeah. You really need to work harder on meeting your burden of proof here. MUCH FUCKING HARDER.

[Zak S]

Nineinchnail

Your examples concern interclass balance.

To put it simply: in many cases this is a thing rules-lite players intentionally want off.
As I said before:

The challenge is not "how do I build a PC that can win" it's "how can I win despite my crappy PC".

It is fun to find ways to make your 7th level thief steal the spotlight from the 10th level wizard.

However: if a GM builds a rule that proves to make things repetitive or dull two things can happen:

1.The group changes it and there's a fight
or
2.The group changes it and there isnt'

If 1--rules-lite gaming isn't for you
if 2--rules-lite gaming is for you

You completely missed the forest for the trees, and thus you did not in any way respond meaningfully to my post. I wrote about typical intuitions regarding fairness, in particular which things are generally perceived as fair or unfair. I understand how your methodology works; it's not complex. What I don't understand is how the normal intuitions are defeated.

EDIT: I don't hold this against you. You are, after all, responding to multiple interlocutors.

You cited examples that don't apply to my game--ones where the GM chooses the outcome.

I don't and wouldn't play that way so I can't defend "pick DC after the roll" or BS like that.

I addressed only the example that applied.

You put the odds up front,then let the player choose the action, that's fair and that's not the GM choosing an outcome. The other stuff you said's irrelevant to this discussion.

If you restate your question so I can see how it's relevant here, I can tryto understand and answer it.


Now LOBSTER...

Or in other words your deeply personal and badly perceived (and dishonestly represented) anecdotal evidence. Or in other other words because you say so.

Vs... entire fields of psychology, sociology and the entire history of actual RPG gaming with actual fucking rules.
.

You do not know "the entire history of actual RPG gaming " and neither does anyone else.

Also, you have no evidence that I am lying other than you wish it were so.

As for anecdotal evidence:

LISTEN CAREFULLY THIS IS IMPORTANT

Your claim is that rules-lite groups always fight.

My claim is that not all rules-lite groups fight.

The minimum necessary in order for your claim to be right is: all rules-lite groups must get in fights.


The minimum necessary in order for my claim to be right, is: only one rules light-group has to be able to avoid a fight.

In order for that group's practices to be worth communicating to someone else a minimum of only one other rules-lite group needs to be able to avoid fights. These 2 groups can talk to each other and share information.

SO:

I am right if 2 rules-lite groups anywhere on earth don't get in fights.

You are only right if all rules-lite groups everywhere on earth do get in fights.

Also:

My claim does not require saying you are lying about how your game goes.

Your claim does require asserting I am lying about what happens at my table. If you do not believe me, fine: my players are public figures and you may contact them to prove it.


So:


Address these issues and do not dodge them again.

[JonSetanta]

At this point I've lost track of what the hell you are all talking about and it looks like bickering pure and simple.

[MGuy]

Then it just means you're too lazy. That's all. You ditching the rules is basically being a cheat (hoping your players don't notice) or you straight up told your players that you're effectively just substituting rules (that you could look up) with ass pulled numbers. You haven't even made a claim that you just made up a better rule just that you prefer to ass pull numbers.

Maybe we should start a new thread about fetishism towards being a rules nazi. I realize that D&D is SERIOUS BUSINESS! but come on man. Nobody at the table even cared enough about the rule to learn it, so why does it even matter if you get it right?

Obviously no PC based any tactics around that rule because the entire table doesn't know what it is. At that point, it is superior to just make something up and get the game moving. The ruling that takes 2 seconds is superior to the ruling that takes 10 minutes, because that's 10 more minutes of fun gaming as opposed to 10 minutes of your life wasted on looking up something nobody gave a shit about in the first place.

If the majority of gamers didn't even bother to learn a rule, that should make the designers question if it's worth putting in the rulebook at all. There's a point where a game becomes needlessly complex.

If you want have a conversation(s) about how some rules are bad and should be changed there are quite a few threads on this very forum about that. If your issue is with following rules at all then you should just tell people why you have an MTP fetish right here because I believe that's what this thread started over. Considering that most people on these boards talk about making better rules I don't see why you would need to make a thread about rules nazis which as far as I can tell is one of the many derogatory terms that refer to people who like to follow the rules of the game they elected to play.

[...You Lost Me]

At this point I've lost track of what the hell you are all talking about and it looks like bickering pure and simple.

I believe it's just incredibly fast goalpost-shifting. Which really amounts to the same thing.

[MGuy]

At this point I've lost track of what the hell you are all talking about and it looks like bickering pure and simple.

I'll simply ask the only person I can't follow.

Zac: What 'is' your point? In as few words as possible can you give me a summary of what it is you're trying to say? As far as I can tell you're giving assurances that you do indeed have evidence that your gaming experiences trump the assertions other people make but you've been pretty damned tight-lipped as far as what you actually do/have done at a gaming table. What message is it that you're trying to convey? Is it that some rules work better for somethings and other don't? Is it that more rules are worse than less rules? I can't really tell.

[Zak S]

At this point I've lost track of what the hell you are all talking about and it looks like bickering pure and simple.

I'll simply ask the only person I can't follow.

Zac: What 'is' your point? In as few words as possible can you give me a summary of what it is you're trying to say? As far as I can tell you're giving assurances that you do indeed have evidence that your gaming experiences trump the assertions other people make but you've been pretty damned tight-lipped as far as what you actually do/have done at a gaming table. What message is it that you're trying to convey? Is it that some rules work better for somethings and other don't? Is it that more rules are worse than less rules? I can't really tell.

Sorry--I'm not trying to make a single point here, just to fact-check the inaccuracies in the thread after they appear and answer questions that get asked.

At the beginning of the thread (page 1 or 2) Archmage said we played a game where ppl could do whatever they want and whatever they tried automatically worked and there were no tactics. I explained this was wrong.

Then people came out of the woodwork spouting new, wrong assumptions. so one by one I've been addressing them.

As for "tight-lipped" --if you have a question about what my game looks like or plays like--ask. I don't know what it is you want to know about.

My game is, if you're curious, extensively documented.

[Username17]

You completely missed the forest for the trees, and thus you did not in any way respond meaningfully to my post. I wrote about typical intuitions regarding fairness, in particular which things are generally perceived as fair or unfair. I understand how your methodology works; it's not complex. What I don't understand is how the normal intuitions are defeated.

He has already said how he defeats the normal intuitions:

Arrogance and Willful Ignorance.

This is a big one. By being too cool to actually read the rules, they don't know when they are being changed. Thus, the rules can be changed on the fly without offending peoples' innate sense that changing the rules is unfair. We all know that having the rules changed from underneath us feels like betrayal. Heck, "You changed the rules!" is an idiomatic insult that is accusing the other person of cheating. Just look at how the Republicans are screaming rape and murder over Harry Reid changing the rules of the senate - and he followed constitutional procedure to do it. But take away the knowledge of the rules? One rule is just as arbitrary as the next, and if the player doesn't know the rules have been changed they never feel cheated. Zak, Fuchs, and Silva have all come out explicitly saying that not reading the rules is how they roll.

But it's not just naked obscurantism. It's also bullying. Consider Fuchs' endless rants about how people who don't agree with him about trivial bullshit like what treasures are found or who gets attacked by monsters in a cooperative storytelling game are assholes who should be kicked out of the social group. That's a hefty penalty for what is essentially a completely meaningless disagreement. Many people will simply back down if you immediately reach for the threat of ostracization if people don't agree to do things your way. Especially if it's something as inconsequential as the rules for a game. It's like when my best friend's little brother went through a phase where he insisted that it was his birthday every time we got together for anything and would go on a crying rampage if we didn't agree. Obviously it wasn't worth calling off the entire night's festivities just to set a three year old straight on the calendar, so I think we sang happy birthday to that kid like fifty times. Fuchs' insistence that he control everything so minutely that his Shadowrun players aren't even allowed to spend their own characters' money is really not different from that. The other players' may chafe at his narcissistic demands for unilateral consensus, but since he's making demands about things that don't actually matter in the grand scheme of things, it's probably better to put up with it than to make a scene. And the best part about narcissism is that you get to automatically interpret other peoples' acquiescence - no matter how grudging - as joyful consensus brought about by your own leadership skills.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

It's like when my best friend's little brother went through a phase where he insisted that it was his birthday every time we got together for anything and would go on a crying rampage if we didn't agree.

Alright, I laughed

[Zak S]

\By being too cool to actually read the rules, they don't know when they are being changed.

You've made a mistake:

Rules don't get changed.

The rule is not the rule being used until it is used at the table or asked about.

You're assuming if we start playing, say, Path, then we assume we are playing Path and then change rules as we go--inaccurate. Rather: no rule is official until it comes into play or is discussed.

Once it's asked about it stays the same forever--it is now part of the game and can't be changed.

I have played this way both as player and as GM.

Works fine.

Parts of the legal system also works this way: it's called precedent.

The only way it's bad is if you think you're going to play RAW and you don't.

Address that.