Late to the party: RPGaDay 2019 prompt 14

“Guide”

I wasn’t too sure what to write for this one, but I think I’m just going to throw another two cents in on some of the latest D&D developments.

There seems to be a bit of a backlash against the idea of removing racial Ability Score modifiers, seemingly because some people want to keep evil races as evil or some kind of culture clash.
I’m pretty sick of the hating on Social Justice for it though.

People want to remove them because basing everything on race doesn’t really sit well with a game that now uses Backgrounds and Classes for a lot of abilities. Back when ‘Elf’ was a class rather than a race, it made some sense. When they then added in class limits to races later, it started to look iffy to me.

How does this fit with ‘Guide’?
Well, I was going to look at the three ‘Rules as…’ concepts and maybe throw out something to people.

Rules as Written, RAW, is how a lot of people play the game. It’s fine, it’s generally how I play (before people start throwing house rules around the place).
Rules as Intended, RAI, is how I like to think I run. There’s a reason stuff gets errata’d and the books have to be reprinted – the intention isn’t made clear enough RAW. It’s why Sage Advice exists and continues to explain stuff.
Rules as Fun, RAF, is really how I want to run the game. Rulings on the fly if needed, ignoring something if it’s not a fun way to play.

Now, again, how does that tie in to everything I began with?

Well, we also have Rules as Guide, RAG. This basically encompasses everything (though it’s also a way you could phrase RAF).
RAG means you build the game you want to play. It’s what you end up playing with all the homebrew and house rules collected together.

It’s how I expect most people to read the rules in any game (except when they’re pushing RAF, which again is fine with me!) since this generally what you end up with.

Want to keep racial Ability Modifiers and evil races? Cool, you do you, but don’t crap on people who like the idea of removing them.
Play as RAG – the rules are a guide in how you play the game.