The first few years of the OSR was, in part, a rejection of the the foundational design intentions underlying WotC editions of the game.

The mantra “Rulings, not Rules” emerged from that early stage of the Old School Renaissance. It comes from Matt Finch’s 2008 pamphlet The Quick Primer for Old School Gaming.

Most of the time in old-style gaming, you don’t use a rule; you make a ruling. It’s easy to understand that sentence, but it takes a flash of insight to really “get it.” The players can describe any action, without needing to look at a character sheet to see if they “can” do it. The referee, in turn, uses common sense to decide what happens or rolls a die if he thinks there’s some random element involved, and then the game moves on. This is why characters have so few numbers on the character sheet, and why they have so few
specified abilities.

Matt wrote, “Most of the time in old-style gaming, you don’t use a rule; you make a ruling.”

I disagree, slightly. There is another category of rules that many designers and game masters overlook.

These are implied rules.

The implied rules of role-playing games.

An implied rule is a rule derived by deductive reasoning from the game’s milieu and the written rules. Implied rules are the many unstated assumptions of an RPG that also often go unexamined until an unusual situation emerges.

For example, in OSR games, player characters can perform many basic tasks by default. This is a rule but it is implied and unwritten.

Many of the implied rules can be deduced from objects in the game. Flint and steel are on the gear list in the AD&D Players Handbook. There may be some rule about starting fires in a dusty corner of the DMG but I’m not going to bother looking it up. The implied rule is that an adventurer can light a fire with flint and tinder.

The difference between a ruling and an implied rule is that the implied rule rarely has any doubt to the question it answers. It’s so obvious Gary didn’t think it was worth the ink to explain it.

Isn’t that just a common sense ruling?

I prefer my taxonomy of “implied rule” because every reasonable person at the table knows the implied rule. They will take the implied rule into consideration when they make a choice for their character. When the referee describes a bad outcome based on an implied rule, nobody complains.

Why do players buy iron rations? Because if they put a hunk of raw meat in their pack to cook later, it would go bad in a day, make the characters sick if they eat it, start stinking, and draw monsters. You know that. I know that. No ruling is needed. It’s obvious.

You might say, “What about when a player tries to do something that goes against an obvious, implied rule and the referee has to rule against it? Isn’t that a ruling?”

I think of that as a form of rules lawyering not much different than a player asserting a questionable interpretation of a written rule. Sometimes implied rules become house rules because of this behavior.

What is a ruling and when do I make one?

I make rulings when a player wants their character to do something and…

1. There is no rule that can be applied to the situation.
2. A rule exists but does not take into account specific variables in the specific situation.
3. The outcome is not certain and will create a significant change in the state of the game.

In most situations, OSR referees have no need to make a ruling because the rules are enough.

If we are in a standard combat, with standard adversaries, and everyone is choosing standard combat movement and actions; the referee does not need to make a ruling because the written rules are clear about how to handle routine actions.

If characters are moving in a dungeon passage, tapping with a pole, and opening doors in the usual sort of way, no rulings are necessary because the rules for these kinds of activities are implied.

These normal situations that fall within the rules are most of the old school game experience.

Doesn’t that mean “Rules, not rulings” is a little overstated?

The most important thing to understand about “Rulings, not rules” is that creative players will come up with ideas that are not covered by the rules, produce significant outcomes in the state of the game, and that behavior is to be encouraged.

One of the biggest gripes old school referees have with players who are rules focused is the player is constantly trying to play the game instead of playing the world.

“Playing the world,” is a common shorthand in OSR conversation where players are encouraged to imagine the space their characters inhabit and then take action based on what is in the shared mental construct even if there is no rule or mechanism for that action.

Players playing the world creates a need for rulings. There are so many uncertainties created by that sort of play that no rule set could possibly cover all situations.

Rulings are necessary when there is no rule (written or implied) that applies and the outcome of the event in question has a significant impact on the state of the game.

“Rulings, not rules” is a core concept of classic fantasy adventure gaming. It is an immersive and engaging way to play an RPG when the referee makes good rulings that resolves the question being asked in a way that is satisfying to the participants.