A rules lawyer is a participant in a rules-based environment who attempts to use the
letter of the law
The letter of the law and the spirit of the law are two possible ways to regard rules, or laws. To obey the letter of the law is to follow the literal reading of the words of the law, whereas following the spirit of the law means enacting the ...
without reference to the spirit, usually in order to gain an advantage within that environment. The term is commonly used in
wargaming
A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to s ...
and tabletop
role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal a ...
communities,
often pejoratively, as the "rules lawyer" is seen as an impediment to moving the game forward. The habit of players to argue in a legal fashion over rule implementation was noted early on in the history of ''
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). ...
''. Rules lawyers are one of the "player styles" covered in ''Dungeon Master for Dummies''. The rules of the game ''
Munchkin
A Munchkin is a native of the fictional Munchkin Country in the Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum. They first appear in the classic children's novel ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900) where they welcome Dorothy Gale to their city in ...
'' include various parodies of rules lawyer behavior.
Related terms
* In the US military, "
sea lawyer" is used in the
navy
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It i ...
and "barracks lawyer" in the
army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
.
* The term "language lawyer" is used to describe those who are excessively familiar with the details of programming language syntax and semantics.
* On
English Wikipedia
The English Wikipedia is, along with the Simple English Wikipedia, one of two English-language editions of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was founded on January 15, 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition, and, as of
, has the most arti ...
, a "wikilawyer" is a contributor who attempts to use the wording of policies to win disputes rather than reaching the goal of the policy.
See also
*
Gaming the system
Gaming the system (also rigging, abusing, cheating, milking, playing, working, or breaking the system, or gaming or bending the rules) can be defined as using the rules and procedures meant to protect a system to, instead, manipulate the system ...
*
Letter and spirit of the law
The letter of the law and the spirit of the law are two possible ways to regard rules, or laws. To obey the letter of the law is to follow the literal reading of the words of the law, whereas following the spirit of the law means enacting the ...
*
Nomic
Nomic is a game created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber, the of which include mechanisms for changing those rules, usually beginning by way of democratic voting. The game demonstrates that in any system where rule changes are possible, a situ ...
References
External links
* — Loke advocates Games Masters using rules lawyers to their advantage, by turning the other players against them.
* — a description of two “rules-lawyer traps": always insisting upon following the rules and believing that there should always be a rule to cover every situation
* {{cite web, access-date=2005-12-30, url=http://www.nocturne.org/jason/mgs/rules_lawyer.php, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927192829/http://www.nocturne.org/jason/mgs/rules_lawyer.php, archive-date=2007-09-27, title=The Rules Lawyer, work=Meta-Gaming Strategies — which lists the rules lawyer's two weapons as “an onslaught of evidence, textual readings, precedent, and reasoning” and the “dreaded filibuster”.
Role-playing game terminology