Best uses of Rule Zero you've encountered

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 9:00 am

ubernoob wrote:Anecdote: At my session last week there was a contact we were supposed to talk to in a house. The DM literally decided to troll the fuck out of us for five minutes.

First I tried to diplomance the contact to talk to us. DM says that the diplomacy check doesn't work because the contact is totally friendly with us, he's just trolling the shit out of us for his own amusement.

Second I disintegrate the door. Door pops back up immediately because giant frog.

Turns out we were supposed to flip the sign over. The whole thing took about five minutes of just dicking with the players, but it was worth a good laugh.

TLDR: DM rule zeroes that our solution space does not work. Manages to be funny enough that I wasn't even mad.

What else you got TGD?

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 3:22 pm

I guess you had to be there?

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 4:11 pm

I managed to derail a plot and bag my group an army as a Warlock by falling out of the sky and declaring myself a heavenly goddess of victory. I did have Glibness up and Beguiling Influence up to "Don't Bother rolling Diplomacy or Bluff" levels, but the lines of bullshit I spun worked without the DM knowing that or caring. Shit was just funny enough we rolled with it.

It's either that or making a Molotov Cocktail out of a mummy's bandages, a flash of Alchemists Fire and some liquor.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 5:46 pm

I oneshotted a minotaur because it happened to be pinning me to a wall with it's horn and I had a very, very large sword. I don't think we even worried about damage, I just pointed out that it's neck was in a very convenient place.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 6:28 pm

I've never seen a more compelling argument for not using rule zero than this thread.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 6:58 pm

Kaelik wrote:I've never seen a more compelling argument for not using rule zero than this thread.

And what do we owe this particular brand of your piss in our Cheerios, Kaelik? Just that time of the month?

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 7:03 pm

I was playing a priest of Tymora and had to fast-talk my way past the guards into the forbidden temple of bad guys.

I dropped into character and dumped so much verbal diarrhea onto the NPCs that I actually got us past the entire planned dungeon and into the central chamber before the DM knew what was going on. He was impressed enough that he let us roll with it.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 8:01 pm

Mask_De_H wrote:
Kaelik wrote:I've never seen a more compelling argument for not using rule zero than this thread.
And what do we owe this particular brand of your piss in our Cheerios, Kaelik?

Don't get your panties in a bunch. Some random MTP fetish decided to make a thread to talk about how great MTP is. The examples are:

1) DM trolling players by not letting their decisions matter and forcing them down the railroad track in a way that usually would result in players being mad, but in this case at least one found the abject trolling to be funny, even though the DM probably didn't intend that.

2) A situation in which the DM being an idiot and not knowing what spells were active on his PCs canceled out with the DM being an idiot who Rule Zeros... something... to make the actual outcome the same as if he had just used the rules.

3) The stereotypical and always stupid "I described how I attacked the neck with my attack, so the DM completely ignored HP and gave me a decapitation."

If that is the best Rule Zero can provide, that is a stunning criticism of rules zero, since on third of the situations are dangerous to the game and could result in a revolt, on third are actually the exact same outcome as using the rules, and one third are stupid childish bullshit that undermines all the actual mechanics of the game.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 12:59 am

Same to you Kaelik: you have in your sig a quote that warns people that you piss in threads like an incontinent watersports fetishist, so when someone calls you out on it, you shouldn't assume it's anything but good natured ribbing.

Anywho, uber's example is a case of a joke, mine is an example of metagame banter that obviated a challenge and changed the tenor of the game without getting into an argument that would be how I could slap the DM with my number-cock and the DM possibly getting butthurt and enforcing a negative version of Rule Zero or going around in circles to convince the table of something the rules say you can but only because that rules instance is fucking retarded and Prak's is merely something you personally dislike.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:15 am

Kaelik wrote:If that is the best Rule Zero can provide, that is a stunning criticism of rules zero

I'm surprised no one thought of it sooner. The moment I read the initial post and saw the minimal responses and resounding silence surrounding them...

... yeah "What has rule zero done for you lately?" might just be one of the most effective critiques of it I have ever seen.

And yes, even the people who seem to inexplicable think they have some good things to describe are describing some utterly terrible things. That's WHY this thread is such a stunning criticism of rules zero.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:57 am

Generally the best things I've seen rule 0 used for are "That makes no sense to anyone at the table, let's not do that".

But those sorts of things tend to make for boring ass stories. I know it's something may table does probably at least once every session or two, but hell if I could give an actual concrete example offhand.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 2:29 am

For a game I played in, I am personally fond of a case where a Tyrannosaurus charged at full speed into a Wall of Force a player cast and the MC ruled that the creature died instantly by splattering its brains out against the wall. The T-Rex would've been killed within the round anyways but it basically exploding was much more amusing than "you all kill it while it tries to bypass the wall."

For a game I ran, a friend of mine was playing an incorporeal creature (possibly a Shadow) that somehow had some acid damage on its touch attack. While the party was walking down a major road in a city, a chariot started to head in their direction. Everyone else scrambled off to the side, while the incorporeal dude just stood in the middle of the road and started to try to dissolve the axles of the chariot. This being one of my first times DMing, I rule zeroed the process of destroying the axle (I had no fucking clue that a guy was going to try to sabotage a chariot by grabbing and dissolving its axles, and couldn't be bothered to look up the energy damage to objects rule.) So I described it, more or less, as "the chariot continues off into the distance." Party consensus was to continue heading in that direction. "You continue down the road. A few hundred feet down you hear a horrible screech, and then a scream as the chariot crashes."

The guy in the chariot was a feudal lord who essentially ruled the city the party was in. They later came across him again, hurt but alive, and he told them that his personal chariot somehow crashed, and he had the town guard trying to find out how. They ended up selling a slaver they disfigured (who had sold slaves to the lord, among others) to him. They left the city shortly afterwards, never to return. In a later session I stated that there was a bounty out for whoever rigged the lord's chariot, but no one wanted to go and try to collect it.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 2:44 am

Darth Rabbitt wrote:For a game I played in, I am personally fond of a case where a Tyrannosaurus charged at full speed into a Wall of Force a player cast and the MC ruled that the creature died instantly by splattering its brains out against the wall. The T-Rex would've been killed within the round anyways but it basically exploding was much more amusing than "you all kill it while it tries to bypass the wall."

I feel like falling damage could be jiggered into "impact damage" with a bit of work, based on how fast you can move in a single round or so.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 5:18 am

I can't recall any time I've seen on-the-spot Rule Zero done well. But isn't Rule Zero just "You're allowed to apply house rules"? In that case, any houserule ever, stated before the game starts, is an example of Rule Zero, so I've been quite the fan of:

Fuck your multiclass penalties, that doesn't exist
Your Fort Save is +20, if for some reason you need to roll a DC 11 Fort Save (why do you need to do this even?) then no, a 1 won't cause you to magically fail.
Massive Damage is not a thing

Or indeed "The Tomes" for that matter. You know. Sensible house rules, that people are aware of before the moment it suddenly crops up in game. However that doesn't lead to stories about crap that happens in-game.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 6:07 am

Cool Houserule:
[*]Everyone gets +2 or +3 skill points per game session, in addition to normal skill points gained from leveling up. Just for free. Skill rank caps are still in place, just put them in stuff you wouldn't normally have the points to pay for, like stuff based on what you did that session or whatever. Have some skills, they're useless half the time anyway.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 6:33 am