It Slices! It Dices!

Refuse to learn the rules. You must pick your spots for rebellion, be sure that you have reason on your side, and be prepared to take the consequences.

This is another one of Shank's Maxims of Creativity, and one that's difficult for me to get behind, entirely...at the same time, I understand this one instinctively as a player, and as an administrator.

I recently read in another blog how someone was disappointed by a gaming system because he "couldn't do that." In other words, that the gaming system didn't have any method of resolution for his action.

The idea infuriates me.

I want to shout and wave my fist in the air with a, "What was your GM thinking? What kind of ignorant response was that? If it's something your character might do, make UP a rule...or if not a rule, make up a difficulty and continue with the action!"

You want to know why I run a lot of Amber?

I hate making characters.

It's not just the whole, "Alright, if I take this many points here, and I calculate the square root of the attribute here, and then I multiply by a random number here..." but because if given free rein, I -will- abuse the system. You want a munchkin, heck, that used to be my nickname...

Because I'm short.

Alright, I'm not quite that bad. I do like being superb in one attribute.

The rules of a game will indicate, however, where the abuses of a game lie.

I love it when a game states, "You absolutely cannot be this," because this fey werewolf abomination who has come back from the dead because of his awakened magical powers is just the kind of character someone wants to play.

"Have reason on your side." I should be able to do this, because this makes sense in the context we've developed. Why is it against the rules? The rules need to work for what I'm doing, and if they don't, they're no good for me.

Break the rules. Test things. But don't do it just to rebel. Do it smart.

Sometimes the consequences are more interesting this way.