Re: GenCon Review with a GZG Emphasis (part 3 of 4)

On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, John Atkinson wrote:

> Not you per se, but anyone who abuses rules, gets pitched.  Building 
> the perfect air-tight rule system is impossible, especially when it's 
> as flexible as GZG products are supposed to be.  So you exercise 
> control at the umpire and player level.  That's the only 100% solution

> I can come up with.

In my experience the gaming fun value is much higher if everyone shares
the same "vision" of how the game should be played. As I've yet to meet
a
gamer with significant telepathic ability, this can only be achieved if
everyone knows the rules and conventions beforehand.

That's why I take (some say perverse) pleasure in finding rule oddities
and loopholes and plugging them *before* they show up in a real game. 
Sometimes it's a genuine loophole, sometimes I/we just don't quite share
the author's vision. And yes, that includes writing the amendments down
*exactly* and informing the players beforehand, instead of randomly
whacking people who cross some fuzzy line during a game (we can't
usually
spare an umpire anyway, so objective calls during play are hard to
achieve).

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