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How do you handle rules enforcement

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
aelius27
Aug 11, 2009 11:14:25 I have been running a 4e campaign at home for a little over a year (pretty much since ship day), and we are at 14th level, so I am well versed with the rules. However, I had never played in an RPGA session before a recent convention. At said convention I both played, and ran several sessions. I wanted to know how other people handle rules enforcement as the DM. Specifically, it seems like the general vibe of the convention was pretty much to just let players do whatever they wanted.

I guess I have 2 things I'm interested in other people's take on.

1) A general lack of rules understanding, all the way up to the head judge. Is this normal? I played at a table run by the head judge, and I was disappointed in his general rules understanding. For example, he gave players rider conditions on powers that were indented under Hit:, clearly showing that you should have to hit before getting the rider condition. (?!) In some cases, like when the rider condition involved movement, he allowed the player to utilize the rider condition before the attack roll (double-?!).

2) How do you handle characters that are not rules legal. For Example: I DMed a session with a 8th level Ranger that was wielding a spiked chain. I wasn't very familiar with the spiked chain and didn't look it up at the time, but now that I have looked it up I see that it is a Two-Handed Weapon, not a Double Weapon. So clearly he should not have been using Twin Strike with this weapon, as it doesn't count as wielding a main/off-hand weapon, and he should have known that by 8th level. Too late for me to rule differently now, but how would you handle that type of situation in the moment, at the table. Do you look over people's characters before the session? Do you just disallow Twin Strike (and any powers that require 2 weapons) and have a player that feels like you destroyed their character unfairly? If you rule that they can't use Twin Strike, can you be overruled by a head DM that doesn't have a good grasp of the rules, or should you expect to be supported? Will I get a reputation for being a jerk and no one will want to sit at my table if I enforce the rules as written?

I don't generally consider myself a rules-lawyer, as I'm not trying to bend rules to my advantage or anything, but I am very-familiar with the game, and am used to playing by the rules as written. If this is the normal state of the RPGA, I am willing to accept some flexibility, I was just expecting the official games to be played more by the rules then our house game... not less.

Thoughts?
#2
kenobi65
Aug 11, 2009 11:20:21 It sounds like you just had a bad experience there, with a Head Judge who didn't know the rules well (or just liked to go with the flow).

While you're not expected to examine the players' character sheets for errors or cheating (though you certainly may, if you wish -- I've seen this done, but very rarely), you *are* supposed to run the game according to the rules. If you find a player using an illegal build, you should alert that player to it. If doing so would disrupt play of the module for the rest of the table, you may want to table the discussion until the end of the slot, but you're definitely in the right by trying to enforce play "by the book." (Yes, it's possible that the player in question was actively ignoring the rules, but it's also possible that he was simply confused, or mis-read the rules, too.)

Yes, if the player disliked your ruling, they could go over your head (but you'd be right to show the Head Judge the rules in question).
#3
mog0025
Aug 11, 2009 11:42:42 Side note: Spiked Chains can be used as a double weapon with the Spiked Chain Training [Multiclass Spiked Chain] feat from Dragon 372, so its quite possible the player had a perfectly legal character.
#4
dominick
Aug 11, 2009 12:15:13 I am often a Head Judge. I often GM, and I would like to give you my take.

For multitable cons the head judge should be up and walking around not at a table judging, that being said, if you find confusion speak up. I probably miss a rule at least once a game. In fact thats a rule I think.

I also don't like to stop play to argue a rule, rules should never get in the way of a good story. If there a rule argument I prefer to have a head judge come right over.

If the bad ruling made it easy for the players, maybe say it after combat. You don't want to be a wet blanket.

Now if you find the state of rule knowledge a problem, then step up and judge. Seriously, as a head judge I get a lot of people complain I don't have enough tables scheduled, but don't judge. I can't offer any more tables than qualified judges.

For a game day, I can dig up help, for a con I can't seem to ever have enough, even when I give away free con badges and swag.
#5
telvin3d
Aug 11, 2009 14:09:59 Also, it depends on the type of game day this was. If it was some kind of convention or bigger event than much fo this is worrying.

However, if this was a local group at something like a FLGS it is more understandable. LFR lends itself very well to mid sized local groups. So you get a lot of smaller groups that don't mix much with the larger community. If this is the case, many of these players and DMs may have never played 4e with anyone but each other. It is very easy for a local group like that to fall into odd local variations of the rules.
#6
Mirtek
Aug 11, 2009 16:45:02
Side note: Spiked Chains can be used as a double weapon with the Spiked Chain Training [Multiclass Spiked Chain] feat from Dragon 372, so its quite possible the player had a perfectly legal character.

There seems to be an error in the compendium that falsely lists all double-weapons as two-handed weapons.
#7
aelius27
Aug 11, 2009 17:44:09 It sounds like the expectation is that everything should be a little more by the book, but that there isn't a good system in place to enforce that. kenobi65 offered a good suggestion for a course of action I would be comfortable taking, which would hopefully not establish a reputation for being a jerk about things, but could help to push things towards being more rules accurate.

I missed the MC feat for spiked chain, and am happy to hear that the character may have been legal, because I really enjoyed both the player and the character. I am confident that if the character was legal, if I had talked to the player after the slot and said something, he would have pointed out the feat if he had it.

Now if you find the state of rule knowledge a problem, then step up and judge. Seriously, as a head judge I get a lot of people complain I don't have enough tables scheduled, but don't judge. I can't offer any more tables than qualified judges.

The entirety of my 2nd point above referenced a situation where I was judging another player. I think that kind of implies that I have already stepped up. I was looking for information about what my options were when I see a rules infraction but don't feel empowered to do anything about it.

I have already given more specifics about the situation that I would have liked to, just to get the conversation started. I don't want to give any more specifics because I'm not looking to call anyone out, and I did have a ton of fun at the convention both playing in slots and running them.
#8
christopher_rowe
Aug 12, 2009 8:35:30
However, if this was a local group at something like a FLGS it is more understandable. LFR lends itself very well to mid sized local groups. So you get a lot of smaller groups that don't mix much with the larger community. If this is the case, many of these players and DMs may have never played 4e with anyone but each other. It is very easy for a local group like that to fall into odd local variations of the rules.

This reflects my situation. I've fallen in with a great local bunch of folks, numbering ten or twelve, and a lot of the rules stuff I see is very much "local flavor." Mainly it's (relatively) minor stuff having to do with character builds--Monster Manual races and dead and/or core gods are popular. Which is no big deal, unless and until somebody tries to play a Bullywug Hybrid Paladin/Assassin of the Raven Queen at Con on the Cob. Fairly harmless, though, as most of the folks who like the loosey-goosey options don't really play at cons much, anyway.

Actually, I've never played at a con myself, and am hoping I can find an empty chair on Friday morning, the one day I'll get to spend at Gen-con! All y'all with tickets to a SPEC1-3 4-7 table feel free to oversleep, 'cause Simon Tarsus, Invoker of Amaunator, wants to make 6th level!

Ahem, okay, back on topic. My growing sense is that on the player's side, at least, a lot of folks stop looking at the books (or even the Compendium, which is awesome, but has its weaknesses and blind spots) when they get into playing around with the Character Builder. They know the best-case scenario for stuff their characters can do, but don't know finely detailed but absolutely crucial stuff. Examples that have come up recently: even if a character saves to avoid being force moved over an edge, they still fall prone; forced/granted movement is a "none some or all" situation, not a "must use all" situation; the climb speed equal to normal speed granted by Boots of Spider Climbing is a daily power, not a property; spend an Action Point is a free action, and can be taken at any point in your turn; etc.

I'm interested in the conversation I think Aelius is hoping develops about enforcement, mainly because I plan to run a session or two at a local con in a few months. I'm kind of a stickler for the rules, I guess, which I never was when I played as a kid. The thing I like best about 4E is that it seems to hold balance as its central design tenet, and balance depends on fairly rigorous rules enforcement, I think. In my local group, no way am I gonna be the one DM who says "No kenkus!" or "Unlike every single other time you've played this character, even those times when I was playing another character in the party, today you can't do that."

But in a convention setting, or even in a public game day at a store or library or whatever, I personally want everybody to be following the rules. What do folks here think are friendly, effective, and speedy ways to communicate that and to enforce it?

Cheers,

Christopher
#9
amysrevenge
Aug 12, 2009 12:16:56
But in a convention setting, or even in a public game day at a store or library or whatever, I personally want everybody to be following the rules. What do folks here think are friendly, effective, and speedy ways to communicate that and to enforce it?

I think that even in your local group you can, if it seems important to you, work to start enforcing more of the real rules. You just have to do a couple of things:

1) Communicate at the start of the game what you are about. "Look, guys. I've done some digging, and it seems that we've been doing a few things that aren't quite right from a rules perspective. I realize that some of the things are kind of hard to fix now without being a douche (such as unallowed races or classes), other than not doing them henceforth with new PCs, but other things are ones that we can work together to get right. I'm going to start trying to do this today. When something like this comes up, we can have a short discussion about it."

2) Allow do-overs if someone attempts an action that used to work but now doesn't, since the switch to the real rules.
#10
bgibbons
Aug 12, 2009 14:50:58
What do folks here think are friendly, effective, and speedy ways to communicate that and to enforce it?

The easiest point to start with are the clear violations of 4e rules, since there's not a lot of need for discussion there.

There is a certain subset of player that, as far as I can tell, doesn't actually ever read the rules. They seem to use feats/powers/abilities more based on what they think it should do based on its name, blurb or what they've heard about it, without ever actually bothering to read the text. There are particular players that occasionally force me to make a SAN check when playing with them. ("No, Healer's Lore doesn't work on your druid powers and your dwarf needs to make a saving throw to avoid going prone, it doesn't happen automatically. Yes, really, the Larger than Life spellscar only gives you bonus reach once per day, not every single attack. Yes, I know this power is a close burst, that doesn't mean you automatically affect everyone in the burst area. Have you ever actually read any of these abilities?")

By and large, these players aren't intentionally cheating, it's just that their way of playing D&D (they're usually more narrativists than anything else) isn't about sweating the small details of the rules, and there's a lot of things they consider the small details.

(My personal test as to how I view these players is how often they screw themselves over this way. If the same PC that thinks Healer's Lore applies to Majestic Word also thinks Majestic Word is a standard action, I'd consider him sloppy. If his sloppiness mysteriously always works in his favor, I'd consider him a cheater.)

Unless it's particularly egregious (or they're a friend), I generally don't correct someone on rules issues unless I'm DMing. As such, I think a reasonable answer to "Hey, you saw me use this item that way when we played yesterday" is "I wasn't the DM yesterday." And, yes, if you're DMing and know certain players are going to need correction on rules issues, doing it up front is a better idea than in the middle of combat.

My local gaming group uses an e-mail list for announcements and discussions, which, if your group has something similar, is also useful for a neutral, non-directed "Hey, I looked up the rules after our game and saw that the actual rule is [...]. I thought I'd mention this in case anyone else had also been confused." post.

The best-case scenario is to find rules issues where the players have been unintentionally weakening themselves, and make those corrections at the same time. "Here's seven things that will make your character less powerful" is a bit more palatable if it's next to "and here's three things that will help him out a bit."

Enforcing LFR-specific rules is a little more difficult. The primary RPGA rule enforcement mechanism is social opprobrium, which makes it difficult if the social norm in your group is to ignore them.

In such a group, it is difficult to try to enforce race/class restrictions without coming across as "the guy who's ruining people's fun by refusing to DM if you have a bullywug PC" because, well, as far as they're concerned, that's exactly who you are.

If you're looking for a way to avoid a confrontation, the easy way is to leave it at mentioning to the player that their PC isn't actually legal and will potentially get him in trouble if played at a convention. The newRPGA system of not having the DM sign or have any control whatsoever over logsheets does remove some degree of onus from you--as far as you're concerned, if there are at least four legal PCs at the table, anyone else is a non-LFR player who wandered by and won't go away, so you DMEd them into the adventure as minor NPCs and then DMEd in extra creatures to create an appropriate challenge.

If you're looking for an easy way to make other players in your group care about the RPGA rules, there isn't one. If you're looking for a way to enforce RPGA rules on people who don't care about them without a potentially unpleasant confrontation, there also isn't one.
#11
christopher_rowe
Aug 12, 2009 15:19:12 Great answers, Mike and Brian--thoughtful, clear, direct, and helpful. Thanks!
#12
Dragon9
Aug 13, 2009 22:59:03
Thoughts?

Aluminum baseball bat comes to mind. It's very handy to have as a DM for those unruly players.

;)
#13
samwise
Aug 14, 2009 15:49:42 From my LG experience . . .

The first thing to accept is that pretty much everything is possible, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.
The second thing to accept is that confirming every single character before a session is dull, tedious, boring, and not worth the effort.
The third thing to accept, and this is mostly for the players not the DMs, is to expect people to wonder how you are doing it anyway.
The fourth thing to accept is that the experience is about having fun, and that five hour rules debates are not going to be considered as such in any organized play environment. (And yes, I am going out on a limb and stating that as an absolute universal. Anyone out there who thinks five hour rules debates are a super-cool way to spend an organized play session should do those people active in the RPGA a huge favor and find another hobby immediately.)

Taken together, and adding in experience, most things I just ignored as I either knew generally (sometimes exactly) how it was being done, or I knew it was within reasonable limits and I did not need to waste time confirming it.
For those things I did not know I just asked the player to explain it to me, showing me whatever non-standard rules material was involved.
For those few things I disagreed with a player interpretation on I stated very simply that I viewed it otherwise, gave a brief explanation of why, and just continued the game.
For those times when I got something completely wrong and someone told me (and showed me), I apologized, reversed any adverse effects, and continued the game.

I am sure some people felt this made me a lazy, softballing DM, but enough openly embraced it that I never felt uncomfortable running the same way at big events.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 aelius27 Aug 11, 2009 11:14:25	I have been running a 4e campaign at home for a little over a year (pretty much since ship day), and we are at 14th level, so I am well versed with the rules. However, I had never played in an RPGA session before a recent convention. At said convention I both played, and ran several sessions. I wanted to know how other people handle rules enforcement as the DM. Specifically, it seems like the general vibe of the convention was pretty much to just let players do whatever they wanted. I guess I have 2 things I'm interested in other people's take on. 1) A general lack of rules understanding, all the way up to the head judge. Is this normal? I played at a table run by the head judge, and I was disappointed in his general rules understanding. For example, he gave players rider conditions on powers that were indented under Hit:, clearly showing that you should have to hit before getting the rider condition. (?!) In some cases, like when the rider condition involved movement, he allowed the player to utilize the rider condition before the attack roll (double-?!). 2) How do you handle characters that are not rules legal. For Example: I DMed a session with a 8th level Ranger that was wielding a spiked chain. I wasn't very familiar with the spiked chain and didn't look it up at the time, but now that I have looked it up I see that it is a Two-Handed Weapon, not a Double Weapon. So clearly he should not have been using Twin Strike with this weapon, as it doesn't count as wielding a main/off-hand weapon, and he should have known that by 8th level. Too late for me to rule differently now, but how would you handle that type of situation in the moment, at the table. Do you look over people's characters before the session? Do you just disallow Twin Strike (and any powers that require 2 weapons) and have a player that feels like you destroyed their character unfairly? If you rule that they can't use Twin Strike, can you be overruled by a head DM that doesn't have a good grasp of the rules, or should you expect to be supported? Will I get a reputation for being a jerk and no one will want to sit at my table if I enforce the rules as written? I don't generally consider myself a rules-lawyer, as I'm not trying to bend rules to my advantage or anything, but I am very-familiar with the game, and am used to playing by the rules as written. If this is the normal state of the RPGA, I am willing to accept some flexibility, I was just expecting the official games to be played more by the rules then our house game... not less. Thoughts?
#2 kenobi65 Aug 11, 2009 11:20:21	It sounds like you just had a bad experience there, with a Head Judge who didn't know the rules well (or just liked to go with the flow). While you're not expected to examine the players' character sheets for errors or cheating (though you certainly may, if you wish -- I've seen this done, but very rarely), you are supposed to run the game according to the rules. If you find a player using an illegal build, you should alert that player to it. If doing so would disrupt play of the module for the rest of the table, you may want to table the discussion until the end of the slot, but you're definitely in the right by trying to enforce play "by the book." (Yes, it's possible that the player in question was actively ignoring the rules, but it's also possible that he was simply confused, or mis-read the rules, too.) Yes, if the player disliked your ruling, they could go over your head (but you'd be right to show the Head Judge the rules in question).
#3 mog0025 Aug 11, 2009 11:42:42	Side note: Spiked Chains can be used as a double weapon with the Spiked Chain Training [Multiclass Spiked Chain] feat from Dragon 372, so its quite possible the player had a perfectly legal character.
#4 dominick Aug 11, 2009 12:15:13	I am often a Head Judge. I often GM, and I would like to give you my take. For multitable cons the head judge should be up and walking around not at a table judging, that being said, if you find confusion speak up. I probably miss a rule at least once a game. In fact thats a rule I think. I also don't like to stop play to argue a rule, rules should never get in the way of a good story. If there a rule argument I prefer to have a head judge come right over. If the bad ruling made it easy for the players, maybe say it after combat. You don't want to be a wet blanket. Now if you find the state of rule knowledge a problem, then step up and judge. Seriously, as a head judge I get a lot of people complain I don't have enough tables scheduled, but don't judge. I can't offer any more tables than qualified judges. For a game day, I can dig up help, for a con I can't seem to ever have enough, even when I give away free con badges and swag.
#5 telvin3d Aug 11, 2009 14:09:59	Also, it depends on the type of game day this was. If it was some kind of convention or bigger event than much fo this is worrying. However, if this was a local group at something like a FLGS it is more understandable. LFR lends itself very well to mid sized local groups. So you get a lot of smaller groups that don't mix much with the larger community. If this is the case, many of these players and DMs may have never played 4e with anyone but each other. It is very easy for a local group like that to fall into odd local variations of the rules.
#6 Mirtek Aug 11, 2009 16:45:02	Side note: Spiked Chains can be used as a double weapon with the Spiked Chain Training [Multiclass Spiked Chain] feat from Dragon 372, so its quite possible the player had a perfectly legal character. There seems to be an error in the compendium that falsely lists all double-weapons as two-handed weapons.
#7 aelius27 Aug 11, 2009 17:44:09	It sounds like the expectation is that everything should be a little more by the book, but that there isn't a good system in place to enforce that. kenobi65 offered a good suggestion for a course of action I would be comfortable taking, which would hopefully not establish a reputation for being a jerk about things, but could help to push things towards being more rules accurate. I missed the MC feat for spiked chain, and am happy to hear that the character may have been legal, because I really enjoyed both the player and the character. I am confident that if the character was legal, if I had talked to the player after the slot and said something, he would have pointed out the feat if he had it. Now if you find the state of rule knowledge a problem, then step up and judge. Seriously, as a head judge I get a lot of people complain I don't have enough tables scheduled, but don't judge. I can't offer any more tables than qualified judges. The entirety of my 2nd point above referenced a situation where I was judging another player. I think that kind of implies that I have already stepped up. I was looking for information about what my options were when I see a rules infraction but don't feel empowered to do anything about it. I have already given more specifics about the situation that I would have liked to, just to get the conversation started. I don't want to give any more specifics because I'm not looking to call anyone out, and I did have a ton of fun at the convention both playing in slots and running them.
#8 christopher_rowe Aug 12, 2009 8:35:30	However, if this was a local group at something like a FLGS it is more understandable. LFR lends itself very well to mid sized local groups. So you get a lot of smaller groups that don't mix much with the larger community. If this is the case, many of these players and DMs may have never played 4e with anyone but each other. It is very easy for a local group like that to fall into odd local variations of the rules. This reflects my situation. I've fallen in with a great local bunch of folks, numbering ten or twelve, and a lot of the rules stuff I see is very much "local flavor." Mainly it's (relatively) minor stuff having to do with character builds--Monster Manual races and dead and/or core gods are popular. Which is no big deal, unless and until somebody tries to play a Bullywug Hybrid Paladin/Assassin of the Raven Queen at Con on the Cob. Fairly harmless, though, as most of the folks who like the loosey-goosey options don't really play at cons much, anyway. Actually, I've never played at a con myself, and am hoping I can find an empty chair on Friday morning, the one day I'll get to spend at Gen-con! All y'all with tickets to a SPEC1-3 4-7 table feel free to oversleep, 'cause Simon Tarsus, Invoker of Amaunator, wants to make 6th level! Ahem, okay, back on topic. My growing sense is that on the player's side, at least, a lot of folks stop looking at the books (or even the Compendium, which is awesome, but has its weaknesses and blind spots) when they get into playing around with the Character Builder. They know the best-case scenario for stuff their characters can do, but don't know finely detailed but absolutely crucial stuff. Examples that have come up recently: even if a character saves to avoid being force moved over an edge, they still fall prone; forced/granted movement is a "none some or all" situation, not a "must use all" situation; the climb speed equal to normal speed granted by Boots of Spider Climbing is a daily power, not a property; spend an Action Point is a free action, and can be taken at any point in your turn; etc. I'm interested in the conversation I think Aelius is hoping develops about enforcement, mainly because I plan to run a session or two at a local con in a few months. I'm kind of a stickler for the rules, I guess, which I never was when I played as a kid. The thing I like best about 4E is that it seems to hold balance as its central design tenet, and balance depends on fairly rigorous rules enforcement, I think. In my local group, no way am I gonna be the one DM who says "No kenkus!" or "Unlike every single other time you've played this character, even those times when I was playing another character in the party, today you can't do that." But in a convention setting, or even in a public game day at a store or library or whatever, I personally want everybody to be following the rules. What do folks here think are friendly, effective, and speedy ways to communicate that and to enforce it? Cheers, Christopher
#9 amysrevenge Aug 12, 2009 12:16:56	But in a convention setting, or even in a public game day at a store or library or whatever, I personally want everybody to be following the rules. What do folks here think are friendly, effective, and speedy ways to communicate that and to enforce it? I think that even in your local group you can, if it seems important to you, work to start enforcing more of the real rules. You just have to do a couple of things: 1) Communicate at the start of the game what you are about. "Look, guys. I've done some digging, and it seems that we've been doing a few things that aren't quite right from a rules perspective. I realize that some of the things are kind of hard to fix now without being a douche (such as unallowed races or classes), other than not doing them henceforth with new PCs, but other things are ones that we can work together to get right. I'm going to start trying to do this today. When something like this comes up, we can have a short discussion about it." 2) Allow do-overs if someone attempts an action that used to work but now doesn't, since the switch to the real rules.
#10 bgibbons Aug 12, 2009 14:50:58	What do folks here think are friendly, effective, and speedy ways to communicate that and to enforce it? The easiest point to start with are the clear violations of 4e rules, since there's not a lot of need for discussion there. There is a certain subset of player that, as far as I can tell, doesn't actually ever read the rules. They seem to use feats/powers/abilities more based on what they think it should do based on its name, blurb or what they've heard about it, without ever actually bothering to read the text. There are particular players that occasionally force me to make a SAN check when playing with them. ("No, Healer's Lore doesn't work on your druid powers and your dwarf needs to make a saving throw to avoid going prone, it doesn't happen automatically. Yes, really, the Larger than Life spellscar only gives you bonus reach once per day, not every single attack. Yes, I know this power is a close burst, that doesn't mean you automatically affect everyone in the burst area. Have you ever actually read any of these abilities?") By and large, these players aren't intentionally cheating, it's just that their way of playing D&D (they're usually more narrativists than anything else) isn't about sweating the small details of the rules, and there's a lot of things they consider the small details. (My personal test as to how I view these players is how often they screw themselves over this way. If the same PC that thinks Healer's Lore applies to Majestic Word also thinks Majestic Word is a standard action, I'd consider him sloppy. If his sloppiness mysteriously always works in his favor, I'd consider him a cheater.) Unless it's particularly egregious (or they're a friend), I generally don't correct someone on rules issues unless I'm DMing. As such, I think a reasonable answer to "Hey, you saw me use this item that way when we played yesterday" is "I wasn't the DM yesterday." And, yes, if you're DMing and know certain players are going to need correction on rules issues, doing it up front is a better idea than in the middle of combat. My local gaming group uses an e-mail list for announcements and discussions, which, if your group has something similar, is also useful for a neutral, non-directed "Hey, I looked up the rules after our game and saw that the actual rule is [...]. I thought I'd mention this in case anyone else had also been confused." post. The best-case scenario is to find rules issues where the players have been unintentionally weakening themselves, and make those corrections at the same time. "Here's seven things that will make your character less powerful" is a bit more palatable if it's next to "and here's three things that will help him out a bit." Enforcing LFR-specific rules is a little more difficult. The primary RPGA rule enforcement mechanism is social opprobrium, which makes it difficult if the social norm in your group is to ignore them. In such a group, it is difficult to try to enforce race/class restrictions without coming across as "the guy who's ruining people's fun by refusing to DM if you have a bullywug PC" because, well, as far as they're concerned, that's exactly who you are. If you're looking for a way to avoid a confrontation, the easy way is to leave it at mentioning to the player that their PC isn't actually legal and will potentially get him in trouble if played at a convention. The newRPGA system of not having the DM sign or have any control whatsoever over logsheets does remove some degree of onus from you--as far as you're concerned, if there are at least four legal PCs at the table, anyone else is a non-LFR player who wandered by and won't go away, so you DMEd them into the adventure as minor NPCs and then DMEd in extra creatures to create an appropriate challenge. If you're looking for an easy way to make other players in your group care about the RPGA rules, there isn't one. If you're looking for a way to enforce RPGA rules on people who don't care about them without a potentially unpleasant confrontation, there also isn't one.
#11 christopher_rowe Aug 12, 2009 15:19:12	Great answers, Mike and Brian--thoughtful, clear, direct, and helpful. Thanks!
#12 Dragon9 Aug 13, 2009 22:59:03	Thoughts? Aluminum baseball bat comes to mind. It's very handy to have as a DM for those unruly players. ;)
#13 samwise Aug 14, 2009 15:49:42	From my LG experience . . . The first thing to accept is that pretty much everything is possible, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. The second thing to accept is that confirming every single character before a session is dull, tedious, boring, and not worth the effort. The third thing to accept, and this is mostly for the players not the DMs, is to expect people to wonder how you are doing it anyway. The fourth thing to accept is that the experience is about having fun, and that five hour rules debates are not going to be considered as such in any organized play environment. (And yes, I am going out on a limb and stating that as an absolute universal. Anyone out there who thinks five hour rules debates are a super-cool way to spend an organized play session should do those people active in the RPGA a huge favor and find another hobby immediately.) Taken together, and adding in experience, most things I just ignored as I either knew generally (sometimes exactly) how it was being done, or I knew it was within reasonable limits and I did not need to waste time confirming it. For those things I did not know I just asked the player to explain it to me, showing me whatever non-standard rules material was involved. For those few things I disagreed with a player interpretation on I stated very simply that I viewed it otherwise, gave a brief explanation of why, and just continued the game. For those times when I got something completely wrong and someone told me (and showed me), I apologized, reversed any adverse effects, and continued the game. I am sure some people felt this made me a lazy, softballing DM, but enough openly embraced it that I never felt uncomfortable running the same way at big events.